New Musician on the block

This weekend we celebrated Chanukah with Matt's parents.  Each of the kids loved their toys.  Garrett especially loved his.  He is a music kid.  Loves to listen, dance and has been asking for instruments for 2 years.  In the past he has asked for drums, a tuba and a piano.   His gift this weekend was a Paper Jamz Guitar and boy oh boy was he excited.  It has barely been turned off since getting it.  Here are just a couple of videos showing how much fun he is having.

The first video is the guitar in demo mode playing "Born to be Wild".

This video is the "Garrester" (this is the band name his sisters came up with) playing in freestyle mode.

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Halloween 2010

Poor little blog, you have been so neglected.  I haven't found time to post pictures here lately.  Lots to catch up from the summer.  But we will start with the present.... Halloween.

This year was the first time that all 3 kids really got into trick-or-treating.  They have enjoyed dressing up in the past and have gone to neighbor's houses.  But this year was the first time that no one fell asleep (Garrett last year), it wasn't sleeting and they weren't scared to be out after dark.  They practically ran from house to house.

Before it got too dark everyone got dressed up and they let me take pictures.

This is one of Garrett "taking flight"...

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Swimming Lessons

We just finished up two weeks of swimming lessons.  The kids are turning into fish.  This is just a few video clips from the kid's lessons.  Mainly them learning how to jump in the water.

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Another Lost Tooth

She did it again - she has lost her 3rd tooth.  This one had been loose for quite some time.  Then last week sometime the little Bear and "A" bumped into each other knocking the tooth looser.  We have been trying to get "A" to pull it out for days.  Then last night after a bite of dinner, it just came out.

She is so funny when her teeth come out.  At first she is happy, then she freaks out because of the blood, then she is mad because we are all excited and cheering for her.  Then she is mad at me because of course I want to take pictures right away.  Then she is sill and happy and so excited when she remembers that the tooth fairy is coming to visit.  She then wonders how much the tooth fairy will give her.  On this and all of the other 3 times she has gotten a golden dollar coin and fairy dust sprinkled all over her dresser.

We are loving her new smile!

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Sprinkler Fun

It has been an interesting year for the weather this first half of 2010.  In March we had a warm up that teased everyone that spring was on its way.  I think there was actually a day that it was close to 80 degrees!  Only to be followed up by a snow storm that dropped 12+ inches of snow on us.  By the end of May we had skipped the spring that had been teasing us for months and dropped right into summer heat.  So on the last day of Kindergarten I pulled out the sprinkler and the kids started off summer vacation having fun in the backyard.

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Happy Fathers Day

A little video for the Granpas.  The kids are little bit of mess.  But they are cute and wanted to wish Grandpa Green, Grandpa Bob and Grandpa Walt a very Happy Fathers Day!  Notice the director at the end.  Enjoy.

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Art Fair

Click on the picture to see it larger

This year we have had lots of firsts for "A".  Tonight we had the chance to attend the school art fair.  Lots of fun things to see and look forward to in the years to come.  Art class with Mr. E is one of "A's" favorite "extra" classes.  Here she is laughing at Mr. E while standing next to her art entry.  I am so very proud!

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Spirit Week

Last week A's school had a Spirit week. Each day had a theme. Here are a few pictures of her in her "costumes". Enjoy!

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School Project | Gabby the Garbage Monster

The is Gabby.  She is a Garbage Monster.  In the Kindergartner's words, "This is Gabby. Gabby travels the land and picks up trash. In her adventures she finds lots of garbage on the ground. She picks it up and recycles what she finds."

We had lots of fun today creating this garbage monster for A's school project.  The whole school is creating monsters in celebration of Earth Day this week.  They have implemented a school wide recycling program.  Not only are they encouraging everyone to recycle inside the school but they have huge bins outside for families to include their recycling.  To top it off the school gets money for everything we add to their recycle bins.  So our family has officially started to recycle everything that we can.  The only problem we have right now is what to do with everything until we go to the recycle bins at the school.  But this is a good problem to have.

The Kindergartner and I worked on Gabby together.  We went through our recycle bin and picked out the items to include.  She had saved the tinfoil for over a week so we can use it for her hair.  She cut the tinfoil into strips so she could have long hair.  Then she started drawing, coloring and telling me how she wanted everything.  I was in charge of gluing because we used HOT glue.  I love the little touches that she included - like eye lashes and shoe laces on the shoes - she is into the details.

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Week 13 Challenge | i heart faces

This week over at i heart faces the challenge is dramatic black and white.  As soon as I saw the challenge posted I thought of this picture.  

Pop over to i heart faces to see more of the entries for this week.

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Week 12 Challenge

This week the challenge at I Heart Faces is Focusing on Angles.  This picture was taken in the fall during my first Senior session.  Stop by I heart Faces to see all of the other great pictures submitted for the challenge.

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Well Hello Spring

On the first day of spring we woke up to the same thing we saw on Christmas morning....SNOW!!  It continued to snow through out the day for a total of over a foot of snow.  Here are a few pictures of our deck to show how much snow we have.

Even the sun had snow on him!  Thankfully after having a taste of spring last week (Thursday and Friday were in the upper 60's) spring should return this week!  So goodbye winter and hello spring!

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i heart faces | Bundled Up

This week over at I heart Faces the photo challenge is Bundled Up.  As soon as I heard about it I thought of this picture of my daughter Claire from this past Christmas.  We had been playing outside enjoying the first real snow of the season.  It was so very cold and the snow was still coming down.    Her little cheeks are so rosey red from the cold.  But the kids had a blast and enjoyed themselves so much.

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Leprechaun Fun

The kindergartner had a fun assignment for class while we were on spring break.  We had to make a Leprechaun trap.  This is something that I have never heard of before.  So onto the internet we went to find out a few more details.  I found some wonderful information and great pictures.  From there we looked around the house for supplies and then went shopping for the rest.  Here is the result of our work this afternoon.

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Twin Toes

Just some fun with my wrinkled kids.

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Frozen World

We had another storm this past weekend.  After a week of the weather forecasters telling us all kinds of stories about how bad it was going to be it arrived.  We started with snow on Friday and Saturday.  Without too much accumulation.  But on Sunday we had all different kinds of weather.  Went from snow, to sleet, to freezing rain and then snow.  At one point we lost power.  Thankfully it was just for a couple of hours.  The kids enjoyed the time by reading books, chasing each other and playing hide and seek in the house.  On Monday the sun was out, which made all of the trees glisten and sparkle.  So I took a few minutes to capture some of the beauty within the ice.  

While we haven't had the 2 to 4 feet snows like family and friends, Kansas City has gotten it's fair share of snow and ice this year.  Here you can see a little bud at the end of the branch.  Hopefully that means that winter is on its way out and spring is stopping by for a visit. 

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First Tooth

Today she lost her first tooth. This is also the first tooth that came in when she was 6 months old! The tooth has been loose for several weeks. But in the last week she has been wiggling and wiggling the tooth. Then this afternoon she came running into my room with tooth in hand. She went through a range of emotions....happy, scared, embarrassed, worried, back to happy and excited. Now she is just anticipating the tooth fairy's visit. Thankfully she is only expecting $1. Okay for now, but she thinks she will get $2 for her second tooth, $3 for the third and so on. Hopefully she won't be too disappointed.

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