U - Turn!

Hello my wonderful friends and family that might see this. Some of you may have wondered if I just threw in the towel with this blogging thing! I've just been taking a break while I decide what to do. After going back and forth for a long time, I have decided to make this blog private. I'd like to have a little more control over the details of our family life out in cyberspace and focus a little more on keeping a more detailed family history without worrying about editing out *Frank or any personal details that I'd like to have in our "rememberances" for my kids.

The plan is to make this blog private - I don't know if I will even really keep up on it much, I may just put my journaling and photos straight in a Blurb book. I'm still deciding. I do however, really enjoy blogging and keeping in touch with cyber-friends. I would still really love to let people know some of the things we've been up to and have a place to share thoughts and pictures. It's just a fun place to put stuff out there and keep in touch. So, I would like to invite you all to my NEW blog "See Jen Blog" at www.seejenblog.blogspot.com. The title is also linked to the blog. Come on over!

Hopefully, this new blog will be a better fit and am really excited about the new editing features on blogger!! It's about time. I almost gave up on blogger all together - another reason I wasn't sure what direction to take this blogging thing. Getting the amount and size of pictures I wanted was so much more trouble than it was worth. Their new changes will make editing so much smoother.

I am excited to get connected again and let you know what we've been up to and vice versa. Hugs to you all!

More Birthday Pics

A couple of Nat's presents - she's always wanted one of these goofy microphones.

And a 'skip-it' - which is trickier than it looks! It took her a few tries.



It was a nice evening so the girls did a little jumping . . .









The cat wanted to come out and play too, she is always escaping into our backyard.

Natalie's "cake" (o:

A birthday visit from grandma.



Modeling her new outfit.

For her present from grandma and grandpa T, Nat got to go for an evening of shopping, which is becoming a favorite "tradition" for the girls now. I think this little girl had a pretty darn good birthday, and we havne't even covered the friend party yet . . . (o:

Drugs at Chuck E. Cheese's?

This is quite possibly the kookiest set of pictures of my kids that I've ever seen. They all make me laugh. We were all especially laughing at the hilarious Chuck E. Cheese "drawings (the black and white pictures). I LOVE Natalie's face above. And the picture of Angela holding her goofy picture . . . priceless.

This was our birthday celebration for Natalie. We called grandma and grandpa at the last minute and they joined us too. Good old Chuck E. Cheeses has some kind of magic that keeps the kids coming back for more. Maybe it's some kind of drug they pump in the air. That would explain my kids' extra goofy behavior as well. See for yourself . . .













See, I told you.

Happy Birthday Nat!

8 years ago this adorable blue eyed, brown haired, freckle faced girl joined our family! We love you Nat! (I love Sarah passed out in the background.)

Twilight loves birthdays too - she always loves the boxes and bags to hide in!

Natalie passed out donuts with sprinkles to her class and, of course, I brought her a balloon. (o:


The girls' school has a good set up for lunch visitors. They have a separate table the kids can go to with visitors and they can choose 2-3 friends to come along too. We had a fun lunch all together since Sarah has her lunch at close to the same time as Natalie.

Isn't this such a Natalie shirt? It looked so cute on her for her birthday outfit.

Au Revoir Little Tooth

I love this picture. (o: Ang was checking out her new space in the car mirror and I happened to have my camera.

The dentist guessed back in November that Ang would still have to wait another year before she would lose any teeth. They seemed pretty solid, I guess. Angela has been anxiously awaiting her turn to lose a tooth and was very happy to prove the dentist wrong! It came out with hardly any drama, which is unusual in this house. (O:

Look at that adorable little tooth!

Quirky Girl

Ah, there is never a dull moment with this kid around! (o: The things she comes up with just keep us laughing. She is always inventing her own fun. The other day, she decided to do a little experiment with an empty 2 liter bottle. I watched her wash it out and take the label off and wondered what she was thinking of doing. A little while later she came downstairs from her room with the bottle full of water and several items inside floating around inside: a crayon, two silly bands, a few charms, a paintbrush, a mechanical pencil, some coins, a Squinky, and some other random little toys that could fit through the narrow opening. It looked like quite the project. Later that night she had added two markers which made the water turn a dark reddish purple color. I had to draw the line there as I pictured the bottle leaking dark inky water all over her lovely carpet. I teeter between being annoyed at times and just laughing at the things she comes up with.

I love my Nat. Life would indeed be boring without her! If you have seen the movie Ramona and Beezus, that pretty much describes my Natalie. She Ramona incarnate. I think that might be why I love that movie so much.

School Projects

For the big second grade project in Natalie's class, her teacher wanted them to do a Great Brain report. The kids had to pick any topic they wanted and read a minimum of 5 hours on their subject. Natalie picked cats for her topic. We got lots of library books, DVDs, magazines and studied them for weeks. She made a binder to keep track of all the things she learned. She filled it with pictures, facts about cats, drawings of our cat, journal entries, etc. It was quite a project. Then she had to do a presentation on all she learned for her class. She really did a fabulous job and she scored a "Genius" grade. (O: I have enjoyed all the creative assignments her teacher assigned this year. They really challenged Natalie, but had such a fun and creative twist that Nat enjoyed using her artistic side to do her homework.

Natalie glued on some items that cats like to play with. Sure enough - Twilight is demonstrating that feathers and chenille pipe cleaners are irresistable! (o: Nat wanted to badly to take Twilight to her class, but it would have been a dangerous thing for the cat and the kiddos. So she had to settle for pictures.

And wouldn't you know that at the same time, Angela had to make a spotlight poster for her class. When it rains it pours! She did a cute job and wrote a little comment next to every picture.

A Thank You to Robin!

As I said before, I was pretty excited in march to see lots of green leaves poking up through the dirt. I couldn't wait to see what came up. It was like Christmas. These beautiful daffodils came up all around the border of our huge flower bed on the west side of our front yard. There must've been over 100 of them. I thought about sending Robin, one of our home's previous owners a thank you card. I should have. I imagined all the time it took her to plant those and how she must have missed seeing them this year after all that work. I am grateful for the good care she and Ross took of our home and the beautiful additions, like all the bulbs and our huge raised garden that make our home such a wonderful place to live.



These daffodils just made me smile everytime I went outside. They are little sunshines on a stem. They even survived two surprise snow storms, I thought for sure the big April snow, being so wet and heavy, would kill them for sure. They had just blossomed the day before the snowstorm. But they are resilient little things and looked none the worse for it.

April Birthdays!

I still don't take for granted what a fun thing it is to get to hang out with family so often. It it still such a novelty to me. We get to have Sunday dinner about once a month with my family and on this particular night we were celebrating our April birthdays! This is the kiddos table that my dad sets up. Notice the tarp under the table. It is really a necessity for those inevitable chocolate milk spills when a basketball somehow finds itself bouncing across the table. (I think this actual event happened this night.) It's never a dull moment with these kids!

My sister-in-law Kimmie makes such cute cakes and it is tradition that everyone gets their own cake from her for her gift to them. She does such a great job. Mom got flowers.

A ball cake for Collin's 9th birthday.

And Natalie asked for butterflies on hers. She loved it!

Random Weekend Pics

I don't remember which reason we were here on this particular day. This is just outside the hospital that we are very lucky to live so close to. Our pediatrician is located here and I often pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy. It seems between the girls, there is always something we are heading in for, I am grateful to have such a nice hospital so convenient to us. The girls always have to climb through the bike rack when we are walking in or out.

Sarah got a fun surprise early one Saturday morning. One of her best friends, Kassee, had a breakfast birthday party at IHOP. She came and kidnapped Sarah at 7:30 - a time you will never see Sarah awake on a Saturday morning! She was so surprised to see Kassee standing in her room when we went to wake her up. She had a blast at the party once she woke up! This picture makes me laugh because she probably blinked, but it kind of looks like she just doesn't want to open her eyes.

Nat and Ang wanted to do their own IHOP breakfast since they were stuck at home!

A lunch time creation by Natalie. She is always making herself these funny faces. She hides in the pantry - her workstation - sometimes with a flashlight so she can close the door, and she works on her creations. I love it! (Except for when she leaves things a mess in the pantry.)

ART!

At the girls' school, every spring, they have a little art night. Since they all LOVE to paint and draw I thought it would be fun to get them each a canvas to make a creation on. Sarah wasn't sure what to paint when we talked about this idea and I needed something to hang up in our bathroom downstairs, so I commissioned her to create a masterpiece using paint colors that match the towels and shower curtain. We found an idea in an art book that inspired her abstract design. Unfortunately, we were so busy the week that the paintings were due, it ended up being a very last minute thing and more stressful than it should have been. Natalie and Angela finished their works of art in plenty of time. However, Sarah's more complicated piece of art took a really long time. She wanted to be finished when she was halfway through. But, me being the mean mom that I am, prodded her to keep going even though it meant a later bed time. I didn't want her to give up halfway through. So her experience doing her art was not the relaxing and fun event that I wanted it to be, but when she was done, she was pretty happy with the result. I think she was glad she stuck with it.

At the art night, the girls were all proud of their works of art. Sarah and Natalie also participated in the talent show portion playing piano and violin. They got a little trophy for their participation (which Angela was very jealous of) and they all got ribbons for their lovely artwork. Natalie got a special award for hers - the students at the school got to vote on their favorites and Natalie's was chosen. It was a fun night and everyone walked out happily with their awards and pretty paintings that we get to hang in our house now.

Natalie's cute princess-y picture, I like the castle in the background, nice use of perspective. (O:

I love Angela's, she did this all on her own.

And my lovely piece to add to the bathroom! Thanks Sarah!