Finally, Some Warmth!

The last two days we have had some glorious weather! Glorious for Kansas in January anyway. And actually as I type this, the weatherman is predicting 4 to 8 inches of snow.  The weathermen are never accurate. I almost feel a little sorry for them. 

Anyways, Bo and I soaked up the opportunity to get outside and absorb some vitamin D.  This is regardless of the phone call from my brother early that morning warning us of a cougar sighting at a farm behind our house the night before.  We didn't let a cougar sighting strip us of our opportunity to get away from the same four walls we've been staring at for weeks!  That boy had cabin fever and his mama was getting a little irritated by it!

We headed out behind our house where Bo likes to dig in the dirt with his tractors.  It was pretty windy back there, so we loaded up his John Deere wagon with all his toys and went up to the front yard where there was a good wind block.  His tractors and wagon were caked in dried mud, so I thought this would be a great time to get them cleaned up a bit.  We took the hose out to the street and went to town!

Cruz joined us outside, but wasn't enjoying the sunshine in his eyes.  I can HAPPILY say that that child has gotten over his ear infections and is acting like a NEW baby!  He has been content as ever to sit and play and nap when his mama lays him down. Thank goodness!!

The Poof

About a month ago I found this hair poofing video on Kelly's blog . I thought it was really cute and very informational :)  I emailed it to my mom and sisters and told them that they should watch it. By Christmas I had mastered the art of hair poofing as suggested in the video and put my new found talent on display at our family Christmas gathering.  The girls were impressed and I got many compliments.  My poof wasn't nearly as high as Jill's in the video, but I was proud enough of it and my mom and sister's wanted to know how I did it.  So we planned a night to get together and watch the video.  We started the night with dinner at On the Border and had some yummy margaritas.

We then headed to Walgreens to purchase the hairspray that Jill suggests in the video.  We were also in search of some liquid eyeliner that a student of my mom's said was awesome.

Kelsey already has a nice looking poof going on here.

Kelsey found these fabulous hair extensions that matched my hair color perfectly. Only $16!! Couldn't find it in me to actually purchase them though.  Wouldn't I be a great poser for a hair magazine! Ha!

After Walgreens we headed to Target b/c we couldn't find the hairspray we wanted.  When all the supplies was bought we headed straight to Kelsey's house and got to work. 

(That's mom in the background scrubbing the carpet where Em accidentally spilled her bloody mary.)

Evidently hair poofing is painful.

That's some BIG hair!

And...the finished product.  We only practiced on Emmy that night. Not too bad.

Then the make-up queen Kels took Em to her teeny tiny bathroom and showed her how to properly apply eyeliner.  They're gonna love these shots.

These too.  Your welcome Kels! LOL. :) Sexy girl.

We had a good time that night.  Any excuse to get together will work for us!  Here's the link to Jennifer's blog, Jill's sister, who initially posted the video.  They are too cute with their southern accents.

A Little Photo Shoot

Last week I started a photography class taught by Karen Russell.  Since then I can easily say I have already taken a million photos...like I didn't take enough pictures in the first place!   Yesterday I was making my bed and had Cruzie propped on a pillow so I thought I'd try to get a few pics of him...as you can see, Bo didn't want to be left out.  Some of these photos may look exactly the same, and some may look a little...off, but I've been playing around with the settings on my camera a bunch.  I'm sure I'll look back at the end of my class and say...that picture is terrible! And you may think they look terrible today!  But the fun thing is I didn't edit most of these photos, there's only a few that were too bright that I adjusted the contrast...which is huge for me, because I tend to edit all my pictures.  As you can see, this photo shoot got a little silly at times :)

Cruz

Around mid December Cruz started going to bed really late, like MIDNIGHT.  It's also around that time that he got a cold.  Not a bad cold, just a little runny nose.  That stuck around about a week, then turned into a goopey eye cold...not fun.  Thought the sickness was gone, but the poor little guy was still super fussy.  This past weekend I kind of noticed he was swatting at his ears repeatedly.  Didn't think too much of it until earlier this week he woke up every hour during the night and I caught him grabbing his ears alot.  Well, this mama took him straight in to see the doc, and yep - he doesn't have an ear infection in just one ear, he has one in both ears.  He's been on antibiotics for a couple days now.  Yesterday we couldn't set him down at all without him crying his eyes out.  And last night was pretty sad watching him grab his ear and the back of his head.  But today we've managed to get him to smile a few times....I hate it when my babies are sick :(  Thankfully I am able to be with them when they need me most and don't have to worry about calling in sick.

As for his brother, I still can't talk this kid into getting dressed despite the 10 degree weather outside.

New Year's Eve 2009

I never remember what we did the year before on New Year's Eve, which must be an indicator of some pretty exciting past celebrations...ha, ha!  Usually it's either impossible to find a babysitter for the night or I just feel too guilty asking a teenage girl to ring in the New Year by herself while my kids are sleeping.  So we always end up hanging out at home, or taking the kids with us somewhere to celebrate.  Thankfully, this year my sister offered to have us all over.  We started the night by going to church then heading to Em's and stuffing ourselves full of beef burgers, black bean dip, pinwheels, and brownie-strawberry dessert. 

Around 8 we announced to the children that it was bedtime.  Surprisingly they didn't put up too much of a fight (except our son, Kelly had to lay with Bo until he fell asleep) and the adults had the house to themselves by 8:30.  We need to do this more often!

The men insisted on watching some guy try to get a world record by jumping his car over some water...sooo exciting...so we ladies insisted on making a short trip to the liquor store.  Emmy proclaimed that she's been pregnant the past several New Years, so my aunt thought we needed to do something fun, like go up to the local bar and karaoke.  We were all for this idea, except for my mother...she has never karaoked and didn't want to make her first appearance at the mike at her local bar, where every Tom, Dick, and Harry would recognize her.  So we went ahead and purchased some champagned then headed home to steer the guys away from the television.

We played a game of Gestures, which reached it high point when my dad drew 'cartwheel' and did his first cartwheel in years right there in the living room.  We all had a few good laughs then watched the clock and brought in the New Year with smooches, champagne, and confetti.  Oh and I can't forget the other world record set that evening when Heath vacuumed up the confetti in world record timing, the floor was spotless in mere seconds!! :)

Christmas 2009

Despite the colds and coughs we came home with, our holiday was wonderful. Christmas Eve we went to 4 o'clock mass and then slowly headed to Grandma's house in the blizzard.  Kelly slammed on the brakes several times on our drive from church because of the white-out conditions, I had to remind him that that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do...you can all guess what kind of lovely reply I got for my backseat driving...oh, did I mention our sweet 4 month old was screaming his brains out too?  Hmm...great family memories:) 

We finally made it safe and sound.  We ate lots of great food then opened presents.  Kelly and I both held our breath as Bo opened his first gift and started yelling that this was not what he wanted.  Thank goodness that gift happened to be from us.

Our attmept for a family photo...minus Bo, he was still crabby about his crappy Transformer...:(

Here are some more pictures of the nieces and nephews opening gifts and of my dirty brothers at the kitchen table, where a wicked game of Things was played.  Probably not the best game for a bunch of drunk twenty somethings to be playing at Grandma's house on Christmas Eve.

Me and the sistas.

The next morning proved to be a different story for this little booger because Santa hit the nail right on the head and brought Mr. Bo a haybale maker.  The boy was all smiles the rest of the day.

He was in such a good mood, he was even posing for pictures with his mama.  AND smiling :)

Daddy got what he wanted too.  Mama had to work hard to track down these lovely 1/2 price binoculars at Gander Mountain.  As you can see, he was all smiles too on Christmas morning:)

After opening Santa gifts we headed out to my parents house for more food and gift opening.  The kids had a grand time playing Hungry Hungry Hippo, the guys had a good laugh during the gift exchange, and we ladies enjoyed playing with my new remote for my camera...snapping photos of ourselves:)

Then we headed west to Kelly's hometown.  Great times were had by all...minus the trip to the ER in which Kel received seven stitches in his left thumb.

 After sleeping over then celebrating at Kelly's aunt's house we headed home for one more celebration at my other grandparent's house.  Again, more fun had by all!

Holy smokes!  Who knew one post could hold 12,000 photos!!  Time to go get some work done now !