Memorial Day

Holidays are always hard because most of the time Kevin works them so it is just another day for me with the girls. I wanted to make it fun this year so I thought we could go on a picnic at a nice park in a nearby town, and then I thought we could go swimming. Well the forecast that day said it would be mid eighties with partly sunny skies with maybe a chance of rain. It reached 70 that day and we never saw the sun so if felt pretty cold, plus it was rainy the whole day. We didn't get to go swimming but we did decide to go to the park.

Nellie LOVES to swing, on the big swings, and pretty high too. It kind of scares me but she holds on really tight and loves it. She looks so small but she thinks she is so big and if Lizzy is doing something you can bet that Nellie will do it too. She could swing for a half an hour and not get sick of it.

There was a little Amphitheater and of course little miss performer wanted me to introduce her, then she got up there and sang a bunch of songs and did some dances.


Of course if Lizzy does something Nellie has to too.The girls loved sliding too. There was a really big high slide that Lizzy was too scared to go on, but Nellie is fearless so she went on it, and Lizzy couldn't let Nellie be braver than her so she went too. I sense that this may be a sign of some competition later on when they are older, uh-oh!

I had to put this picture in because Nellie is really throwing some massive fits lately, so I thought I might as well have a few pictures of them to show her when she is older.

New Hairdo

Sunday I decided to see if Nellie had enough hair now to put it in a little ponytail. She did! It looked so cute too. It reminded me of Lizzy's hair when she was 10 months old because that is about when I could start putting her hair in little ponytails. Crazy it has taken until Nellie is almost two but hey at least it is now growing. When we got home from Hawaii I couldn't believe how much blonder her hair got in a week. They spent everyday outside, so this summer her hair will probably get almost white.


Lizzy couldn't understand why I would take a picture of just Nellie, so she of course had to have her picture taken too.

Hawaii

I will post about Hawaii and soon, but there is so much to tell and so many pictures I will finish catching up on the other things and then get back to that.

Rolling Hills Museum

I am going to be updating this blog with some older things so everyone might be bored, but I am doing it more just so I have it recorded.
The first weekend in May the schools were having a parents seminar down in Salina, so we stayed down at a hotel there. That Saturday while the men were at the seminar us womenfolk were going to take the kids to the Zoo, but wouldn't ya know it it was freezing and VERY windy, so instead we took them to the museum there. It was a really cool place and it sure was nice to be warm rather than out in the cold. There was also this little discovery place for kids, that we spend quite a while in that the kids loved.

Aunt Kelli reading to Lizzy, Lizzy sure loves to read and she sure loves her aunt Kelli. We really like having them in Kansas with us.

Lizzy enjoyed doing her puppet show

Nellie found the little toys to play with and had lots of fun

Yay! I was able to get a picture with Nellie smiling. She is getting so big!

The big kids put together this big giraffe puzzle and don't worry Braxton took charge.

Lizzy sure loves having her cousin Brinlee living close by. They have so much fun together.

Outside

I can count on one hand the days we have had this year that have been warm without 30 mph winds. So when we do have one we take advantage. The girls love investigating our backyard and picking all the weeds..I mean flowers for me. I absolutely love when they do, it is so sweet.

For some reason they thought carrying around these big stick they found was the coolest thing ever.



Taking a picture of the girls where they are both smiling and looking at the camera is impossible right now, I took about thirty here before I just gave up, Thirty and this was the best one I could get, that is pretty sad. I can't even get a good picture of Lizzy let alone Nellie.

Silly Girl

Sometimes I think Lizzy is three going on 15. She says the funniest things to me. She is very opinionated about what she wears and she wants to wear the same three shirts over and over. One day I was really trying to get her to wear a different shirt and she was just not going to have it. So finally I just told her fine. She took my face in her hands and said "Thank you for listening to me mom."
She loves to brush me hair and today i was letting her brush mine, I turned me head to look at something and she turned my head back to facing forward and said "Please don't move your head mom." She definitely got that from me when I am trying to do her hair in the morning.

One night I was helping her put her pajamas on and we had just eaten a dinner that had some onions in it. I was talking to her and she looks at me and says "something stinks!" I said it is probably my breath and Lizzy says" Oh boy...... I think you need to go brush your teeth." This was her at her dance recital. I will post about that another day, but she was so dang cute up there performing. Afterward she got some roses from us and she thought that was the neatest thing. She kept smelling them and smelling them and she told me one smelled really good like chocolate.

We have a neighbor who is an elderly retired guy who lives by himself, his name is Bill and everyday when we go outside Lizzy runs over to the fence and starts yelling "Bill Bill! Where are you?" until he comes out and then she starts telling him about her day and what we are doing and then she asks him what he is doing and carries on a huge conversation with him. It is hilarious.
She loves to pick "beautiful" flowers for me. She has such a kind heart and is always giving compliments and cares so much about people. She is always saying "Are you okay Mom?, how are you are you okay?" She always make me smile and laugh, she is just one of those people that you meet that is ALWAYS happy. The past few weeks I have been painting my house and with Nellie around that meant I had to do it when she was napping or asleep at night. So there would always be a lot done when Lizzy would wake up in the morning and she would always say "Thank you so much for painting Mom it is so beautiful!" One day we were out in the garden raking and she was helping me and she said "What a lovely day it is!" She always says stuff with so much enthusiasm. I love it!
Wasn't she just the cutest little dancer you ever saw? I love this girl to pieces. She is such a light in my life!

March Recap.. and some February

Can anyone tell that I have really started to let my blogging slip? I had some legitimate reasons before why I hadn't posted much, but now I really don't. I haven't been doing anything big or exciting. I actually haven't been doing much at all. It just seems like every time I should go and blog, I just don't have the desire, at all. Oh well. I wish I had some exciting things to post but I don't .

Back over President's Day weekend we drove down to Wichita and met up with my brother Austin his wife Kris and their cute kids. It was so much fun to see them while we still could. They lived about six hours away for about six months while he was being trained on his plane, but at the beginning of March they moved to Tacoma, where he got stationed. I am sad. Now they are so far away and we have so much fun whenever we are together. I wish so bad that I could live close to my family, it has been really hard these past three years to only see them a couple times a year.

The kids had so much fun together. Kris took this picture, I just love it!

We went to Chuck E. Cheese while we were there, Lizzy loved it and tells me all the time she wants to go again, if only it wasn't two and a half hours away.


Their little Sara is such a doll and certainly a Hansen, she loves her Pepsi

At the beginning of March I helped Kris drive up to Tacoma. It was so nice to spend time with Kris and the kids. Kris is such an amazing person and the kid of wife and mom that I want to be. I miss Kelly and Logan and Sara, it was so fun for me to get to spend some time with them because I haven't gotten to spend much time with them in their lives. So I was gone for six days, I missed the girls like crazy, I had never left Nellie for more than overnight so I was really worried that she was not going to like me when I got back, but as soon as she saw me at the airport she came running up and just hugged me forever. I am glad to say she is still just as attached as ever. When we drove home we had to drop Kevin off at his class in Salina, so it was just me and the girls. I think for the first time I really didn't want them to go to bed, so they stayed up and we hung out, and went and got ice cream cones. It was Nellie's first and when I handed it to her she grabbed it by the ice cream part. So silly.

On St. Patrick's Day the library in town had a preschool Leprechaun party. Lizzy had fun playing games doing crafts and decorating cookies. Lizzy put about an inch of green sugar sprinkles on her cookie so that is why she has green lips. It sure is nice to live in a place that is a little bit bigger so that there are actually events and thing that we can go do.

Nellie was too little to participate, but I sneaked her a cookie and she was good to go.

We had our Primary party that no one came to, but the kids did have a lot of fun decorating eggs and making baskets and having an egg hunt.

Nellie especially loved coloring eggs, she wanted to color everyone else's too.

Later that day there was a giant Egg hunt in town, There were 20,000 eggs to be found, they had a petting zoo and booths and a carnival and toys and all kinds of fun stuff, but it was FREEZING that day,( gotta love that darn Kansas wind) so we only stayed for the egg hunt and saw the baby animals and left. Nellie did love the baby animals, she kept squealing and laughing when they would lick her hand. Of course my camera wasn't working very well and only this picture turned out.

Nellie discovered her old swing down in the basement and will go sit in it and swing and swing. I'll come downstairs looking for her and she will just be sitting in the swing having a blast.

My Lizzy has gotten so grownup lately. I can't believe she is three and a half, where does all the time go. Someone told me lately that they days may drag but the years fly by. That is so true, Some days when I am having a rough day I feel like they day just drags on, but I look back and can't believe how fast the time has gone by. I am absolutely loving this time with my girls right now, it is so perfect, Nellie has gotten so much easier, and so much fun. Lizzy is just the sweetest little girl who always has a smile on her face. They love each other so much and are both lost without the other. When Nellie takes a nap, Lizzy is just counting down the time until she wakes up. When she hears Nellie cry, she gets this big grin on her face and shouts "Nellie's awake!" Nellie just loves it when we go and pick up Lizzy from school. What a treasure it is for me to see my girls love each other so much, It is what I always wanted for them. I am so glad I have two little girls.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! We hope everyone enjoys this special day. Lizzy giving her very best most cheesiest smile for the camera. Lizzy loved her new dress and how it poofed out like a princess. I tried to curl her hair all curly but after spending a half-hour and not getting it the way I wanted, I gave up. She just isn't meant to have curly hair.
I told Nellie that if she smiled for the camera she would get candy. So I tried,

and tried,

and tried,

until I finally just gave her the darn candy and then I was able to get her to at least look at the camera.