Travel Day One

 We took a week long trip to Nauvoo, Illinois, where we met up with my sister, Hillary and her family. It was the best week ever! I am way overdue in posting, but here's a start.

Wyoming. The highlight was definitely the Little America truck stop. They advertised the 50 cent ice cream cones for a good 60 miles. Ice cream can buy you many additional miles on a road trip with children. FYI.

Another fun stop was the Cabela's world headquarters is Sidney, Nebraska. It was smaller than our local  Cabela's but the elephant was a fun surprise. Our Cabela's is always full of moms and their children. Here, our kids were quite the novelty. Eliza was so popular with the cashiers that she earned us all a free hat. When we came back through on our way home, the workers stopped me to talk to Eliza again and told us that they enjoyed her last visit and they had all been talking about it. Really, people. There's got to be more to talk about in Sidney, Nebraska. :) They were all very nice. I think the people in Nebraska have got to be the nicest people on earth. We are going to have to move there.

The nice lady at Cabela's recommended a restaurant for us- Perkins. The kids were so glad to not be eating fast food! Jenna told me, "Sorry mom, but this is the BEST FOOD EVER."

Again we were the only people with kids in the whole place. A nice older man came over an told us what well-behaved, sweet children we have. It was late at night, they were semi-comatose.

...more to come...

Fun giveaway for bakers!

If you haven't seen it yet, go see Jana's fun mother/daughter cooking blog! Follow this link, or find their button on my blog! Double the deliciousness!

Jana is a great cook! She was my college roommate, so I got to sample her skills many times!

Ch ch ch ch change changes

We just returned from a wonderful trip to Nauvoo, IL, where we met up with my sister Hillary and her family. They live in Pennsylvania, so we met in the middle. To keep our kids entertained for the 20 hours of driving, we took all sorts of books on cd, dvd players, activity packets and music. Their favorite thing to listen to- by far- was the Shrek 2 sound track. Tim & I have David Bowie in our dreams now. Not a pretty sight. I thought I'd share one of their favorite songs for your listening pleasure. Other changes while we were gone: Eliza. Somewhere between Laramie, WY and Sidney, NE she cut a new tooth. She slept right through it, thankfully! When we stopped to see Chalise & family in Omaha, Eliza watched her little girl crawling all over. That was the end of the Army crawl. She saw that getting up on your knees is much more efficient, and now there's no stopping her. Girlfriend also found her voice along the way. She grew up so much while we were gone! A family with four kids was quite a novelty in some of the places we stopped and Eliza was such a flirt. At the Cabela's headquarters in Sidney, she was so charming that she earned us all free hats. She had the workers flocking to her with her darling smile. She smiles so big that her cheeks might pop! On our return trip we stopped there again & I had workers coming up to me and talking to us, saying that they remembered her coming before. This time she wow-ed them with another new trick she learned along the way. Waving. She waves her cute little pudgy arm along with the so-big-it-might-pop smile & they were putty in her hands. Who can blame them?

Glad I have a witness for this one...

Another day, another bit of wisdom from Lydia. This time, my sister was here to hear it- otherwise I'm not sure anyone would believe it happened like this.

Kat and two of her kids came over Thursday afternoon for lunch & a visit. We were in my kitchen eating and Kat was admiring my IKEA bar stools. OK, admiring might be a strong word. We were discussing the bar stools. I am quite proud of my bargain find. They aren't totally ugly, but for the $15 I paid for each one, it won't be tragic if something happens to them. I digress...

Kat mentioned that she liked them and said "We should get some for our house." Lydia was astounded.

"Kat," she imparted,"You shouldn't that. You shouldn't do things just because other people are doing them. You need to be your own person. You've got to be like yourself, not like others." She gave us an encouraging smile and went back to her corn dog that she had carefully peeled down to the dog.

We were speechless.

As I've thought about this for the last few days, it explains so much about that child. I asked her where she learned that & she told me she just knew that's what you should do. What a kid!


What a doll!



So sweet at times...

Explaining what I should be doing.

She can pout with the best of them!

She loves to twirl!



Her favorite outfit!