Warm weather and more!

This post will be mostly pictures. I don't have a ton to say right now, I am so tired and ready for bed, so you'll have to forgive me! I took the kids (daycare and all) to the Zoo today and I am Exhausted with a capital E!

These are just a few pictures we took last week when the weather was 90 degrees! We finally busted out our patio furniture, cushions and all, and umbrella. We had our first outdoor meal of the year! The boys got to run through the sprinklers and we planted some flowers in pots to decorate the patio with (hopefully they'll survive but I don't like the potting soil I got!) Then the last couple of pictures are from the zoo today. So I hope you enjoy. We have been staying very busy around here and I have been tired ever night, beyond tired! So you'll have to excuse me on the very brief post. I'll try to catch up this weekend, but Sat. I have to go renew my CPR and First Aid certification and that class is from 8am to 2:30pm, so I'll be ready to take a nap afterward!

The next couple of pictures cracked me up when I downloaded them to my computer and I got to see them bigger! It will help if you click on the very bottom one and make it full size so you can really see the gorilla's and Owen's expressions. In the first picture Owen and the gorilla are just looking at each other amicably. The picture after that Owen is looking at me with a "What the Heck" look on his face while it looks like the gorilla is snarling behind him. The picture is deceiving however. In reality, Owen was just asking me a question, and the part of the gorilla that looks like snarling teeth is actually his bottom lip. He had a big pink bottom lip that had little white spots on it that in the picture look like his teeth. The picture sequence cracked me up though, and I thought it pertinent to share!

Turkey anyone??

First of all I would like to point out that I have never been or am not now on any drugs that would cause me to hallucinate. Everything in this story is true and there are pictures to support my visions!

One day after laying all of the daycare kids down for a nap and then fighting once again with Owen and Raymond to take a nap, I worked my way back downstairs to change the two babies diapers so that I may have a chance to finally sit down and rest. Nap time is my most coveted time of day. It's the only time I get a break in the day and get to rest my weary feet.

After changing Judd's diaper, while on the phone with Tony, I happened to glance out my big front picture window and saw a sight that I've never seen out my window before, at least not in Omaha in the ghetto of the city where we live.

I looked out the window to see two giant wild turkeys walking down the center of the street right in front of my house. I know that for some of you country folk this is nothing, as it used to be for me, but you have to understand that I now live in a rather large city on the edge of the ghetto. My mom said that turkey hunting season had opened the day after I saw them and she said maybe they thought they were safe being in the city, and I joked that they were in the wrong part of the city if they thought they'd be safe from gunfire, being in the ghetto and all! Man sometimes I crack myself up. :)

On with the story...Of course I had to take pictures and I had to show the boys, so even though I had just spent 30 minutes trying to get them to lay down, I screamed for them to come downstairs to see the turkeys and when they got to the front door, I proceeded to run outside with my camera. I snapped a couple of pictures, but was not satisfied with how far away they looked or the fact that it was hard to tell what they were. I later realized that my neighbors probably think I'm crazy, because I didn't remember until I was relaying the story to my sister Kimberly that I was actually saying "gobble" over and over like a turkey to try and get them to look at me! Oh my gosh!! Standing in my neighbors front yard, saying gobble, and taking pictures...should I be in a mental hospital yet?

To make the story funnier, I relayed the story to my sister as I already said, and the whole time she was cracking up, which made me think my story was even funnier. You all are probably reading this thinking that me and my sisters are crazy folk because this story really isn't that amazing or funny, but you are SO wrong! So my sister and I keep the story going by imagining myself with a pilgrim hat and a musket chasing the turkey's up the road like Elmer Fudd. Now if you can't picture this or you don't think this is funny and you are not rolling on the floor laughing by now, then you have no sense of humor. Sorry to tell you that! :) I hope I didn't leave anything out, but Kimberly feel free to elaborate if I did.

Now that you all probably think I am crazy I offer to you pictures for proof! In this economical hard time, I contemplated how I could capture those turkeys to save for a later dinner, but I'm not a good hunter!

Easter etc.

So it has been awhile since I have posted to my blog, and it's funny because once again I was just starting to get frustrated at all of my blogger friends who haven't posted in awhile, when I realized that it's been even longer for me! Even though, I'm still not sure if anyone reads this blog, I still keep posting in the hopes that someday someone might respond besides my mom and my sister Kelly. Thank you to my two die hard readers! :)

We have been keeping very busy lately. To update my previous post, my new little nephew Blain got to finally go home yesterday (Sunday) for good! Yay Blain! We are so very excited that he is well and getting to go home and start his life! We will hopefully still get to go visit him the third weekend in May and we are VERY excited!

My most recent picture of my nephew Blain. How cute!

Let's think back to a couple of weeks ago to Easter shall we? I have yet to post pictures or a little blurb about what we did!

First of all we made the vow to go to the Easter Sunrise Service at our church at 6:45am (YEAH STINKING RIGHT!!!), so instead we got up and let the boys find the Easter baskets that the Bunny hid, then the eggs that he hid too. After Raymond ate all of his candy (yes, you can be flabbergasted too, because he did this without permission mind you) we finally started to get ready for the later 10am church service! After church we came home and cooked a big brunch for our little family and then watched the movies Bedtime Stories and Marley and Me. We originally had expected Holly and Verlyn for Easter dinner, but circumstances as they be, they were gone to Dodge City, KS to take care of JB and Amanda and Blain.

I actually started to feel violently ill to my stomach, so since we didn't have company and I wasn't planning on eating much, we cut our meal down my 3/4's of what we intended on making and it ended up just being a normal ham dinner, rather than a celebration. Oh well. It happens, and I'm not upset.

The boys had a good day and that's all that matters, plus we got our church worship in, so that was important too. So this sort of sums up in few paragraphs how our Easter was. Below are the fun pictures that we took. Next post, I will attempt to post a funny story about what I saw out the window the other day!

More Nephew pictures!

I am still so excited to be an Aunt. I finally got to chat with JB tonight about everything and about Blain and life as a new parent. I can't wait to get a chance to meet him.

I wanted to share a few more pictures of him that I just got. I hope you enjoy! Love to all.

Amanda looks pretty comfortable as a new mommy already. It is the best feeling ever! I really like this picture.

I am an Aunt!!

Well everyone I am finally an Aunt! Amanda had the baby yesterday afternoon and everyone is doing well.

His name is Blain Andrew Coffey born on April 8 at 4:15pm. He was 6 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long. She went for about 12 hours of labor and ended up having a c-section because he was breach, but everyone is doing well!

This is my first nephew/niece, so I am very excited. Last night I already went shopping for a little gift because his gender was a surprise, so I wanted to get him something was specifically for a boy to make it more personal. I also had to get him a first Easter card.

I really wish I could there right now and hold him and meet him and help out where I can, but we will make a trip soon. It's hard to say who he looks like more because I only have seen one picture and it was a phone picture.

I haven't talked to JB or Amanda yet, but will try and call today and see how everyone is doing! I am so excited to be an Aunt and do Aunt things!

Welcome to the world little Blain!

Easter Egg Hunt

Today was the day that I have been pumped for all week, the city wide Easter Egg hunt that I could take the boys to. The two mascots from the Minor League baseball team were going to be there, the Easter Bunny, and the UNO mascot. The boys were pumped. There were supposed to be prizes and over 10,000 eggs hidden.

First of all, even though the temperature read about 45-50 degrees, it was 45 mile hour winds and sprinkling off and on, so it was FREEZING! The boys got out of the car all bundled up an hour before the "hunt" was supposed to start, all excited and rearing to go. We met my friend Sheila and her three boys there too.

Finally when it was closer to time to start the "hunt", they had it divided up into age groups (0-3, 4-6, and 7-10). Then they had this big field with eggs just poured all over the ground where it was sort of divided up by these age groups. At first we thought we'd just let my Owen and her oldest Colten pick up eggs in the 0-3 section even though they are both almost 5 because we thought it'd be too hard to divide everyone up with 6 boys in tow. Then they said that there are prize tickets in some of the eggs and the prizes are age appropriate in each age group of eggs. Then they said that the 0-3's start first, then when they are done the next group would go and so on. So Sheila and I decided to hold Owen and Colten back until the 4-6's started. So it began and I went out with her Owen and Raymond to find eggs, they only got about 4-5 each! But while I was out there with them, I heard someone yell on the bull-horn "Go, Go GO!" to the other two age groups. I was SOOOOO mad! So all of the kids dashed out and started grabbing handfuls of eggs and poor Owen and Colten are still standing back on the sidelines waiting to be told they can get eggs, so I yelled to Sheila to send them out there, but by then all the eggs were gone!! So they didn't get ANY!!! What a crock!

I am angry for two main reasons. First I am angry that this whole egg hunt was not better organized. How is a parent of kids in the different age groups supposed to separate their kids to start at the same time? Ridiculous! Second I am super angry at parents. I hope all of friends that are parents don't ever do the stupid parent thing like parents I see. It makes me so mad. Some kids in the 0-3 section had overflowing buckets worth of eggs! Now you cannot tell me that a 0-3 year old picked up all of those eggs on their own!!! Parents should not be able to touch the eggs, that's totally unfair! Second, some people had more than one overflowing basket of eggs and they walk past my kids with NO eggs in their basket. I was talking out loud so people would hear, that "This was SO ridiculous and unfair, you guys got no eggs and look at those people with a ton of eggs!" I was hoping that someone would be generous enough to offer up at least a couple of eggs to Colten and Owen, but I guess I have too high of expectations of people.

Lesson learned. NO more city wide Easter egg hunts. Plus at least my children have now hopefully learned a lesson, no matter how hard and sucky, but they have known how it feels to get no eggs and see other people walking off with bucket loads of them, so hopefully in the future they will be generous and share with others that don't have as much. At least that is what I tried to teach them today.

The only fun thing today was the pictures I got of all 4 of the boys with the mascots at the park. They LOVED that and were so excited that they got to meet those guys.

So since Sheila and I felt so bad for the boys, especially Colten and Owen, we decided to buy them lunch, run to the store and get some plastic eggs and a bunch of candy and make our own hunt at my house. So while the boys ate, I loaded up eggs with candy then went and actually hid them all over the yard. At the other hunt they had just dumped eggs all over the ground, so it wasn't even a hunt it was more a race to see who could pick up the most the fastest. But all of the boys said they had way more fun at our home hunt than the other one. We did it just in the nick of time though, because right after the hunt, Sheila headed home with her boys and two minutes later it started hailing and raining really hard.

Tonight and tomorrow we are supposed to get a similar blizzard that everyone around us got last weekend. Fortunately we are forecasted to get 2-6 inches of snow is all, but it is still supposed to be in the 40's, so it should be gone by Mon. or Tue.

Last tidbit of information...the boys are singing in Church tomorrow at the Palm Sunday service for Preschool! I'll try to get a little clip of them singing to upload.

So, please practice generosity to other children around you and teach your children not to be greedy and please don't be a parent that pushes other kids down to help you get your kid the best prize! I hate those people! :)Colten, Raymond, Owen K., and my Owen with Spike from the Omaha Royals baseball

Colten, Owen K., Raymond, and Owen with Casey from the Omaha Royals Baseball

Raymond, Colten, Owen K., and Owen with the UNO mascot

Raymond, Colten, Owen and Owen K. with the radio station mascot duck.

The boys getting ready for the hunt to start. They were so excited...

All of the eggs spread out all over the ground. It wasn't really a hunt.
Judd bundled up in his stroller. It was FREEZING!

Sheila helping the boys find eggs in my yard. It was more fun than the other one.

Colten and my Owen looking for eggs in my back yard.

Sheila's almost 7 month old Aaron.

Judd, Owen K., Raymond, and Owen opening eggs. Colten's leg is in the left hand side.

Raymond Update...

As most of you know, Raymond's test results came in yesterday afternoon of his ECHO and everything was normal. So great news! We are so thankful that he is alright and I am so thankful to God for answering our prayers. Thank you all for you nice thoughts and prayers. You have no idea how worried we were for our baby and how relieved we now feel. It has lifted a great stress off of our house!

So thank you again. We are happy to have our ball of energy back to his old self!