Branson Trip

We took a little family getaway to Branson this past weekend. It was a good time filled with plenty of family togetherness, but I hesitate to call it a vacation. Trying to keep a 3 year old and 1 year old on a nap and bedtime schedule is difficult when away from home. The temper tantrums and grouchiness due to not having good naps and early bedtimes were surprisingly not as many as I would have thought, however, and we had a fun time. The first night we went to the Noah's Ark musical. It was an awesome production. Jenna loved it, and Kaela loved parts of it. The rest of the time we were thankful for the cry room where you could still watch the whole show behind a window. The next day was unplanned and we decided to grab a couple of brochures on our way out. We decided on the Butterfly Palace and Predator World. We had just gotten a new toy for our car, a GPS device that would tell us how to get anywhere and we thought we'd put it to the test. As we dutifully followed the directions to the Butterfly Palace, we were informed that "the destination is to your right" when actually there was a run down building that most certainly wasn't the butterfly palace. We re-grouped and finally found it. After paying a substantial admission fee, we made our way to the butterfly room. We entered to a tropical green house filled with hundreds of beautiful fluttering butterflies that would even land on you! Apparently, this freaked Jenna out and we had to leave soon after....it wasn't pretty. Next was lunch and a trip to the Branson Zoo (aka Predator World). After another miscue by our GPS, we finally made it there. Predator World was disgustingly filthy and really cool all at the same time. It stunk to high heaven and lacked the presentaion of most zoos and aquariums. I was incredibly nervous while walking down a narrow corridor with venomous snakes on either side of me behind thin sheets of glass. I was even more nervous as we were within feet of tigers and lions that seemed to eye Kaela as a source for their next meal. Although it wasn't the nicest looking zoo, I've never seen animals up close and as active as these! Matt actually got a Cobra to stand up and fan out at him! Jenna was enthralled by the tigers and wanted to pet them (all this after being freaked out by a butterfly landing on her!). The next day was spent at Silver Dollar City and we had tons of fun there. Good food, fun rides, great entertainment, and spectacular lights! We wished we had an extra day to go back.

Mommy's big buck

Last saturday was the opening day of rifle deer season, and I was ready. The girls were excited, too, for another trip to the farm. I was really serious about hunting this year as Matt got me a new deer rifle for christmas last year. I had the whole week blocked out to hunt, and Matt even took some days off of work to be prepared to watch the girls so I could hunt. It only took a couple hours on opening morning, however, for me to get my big buck! We had a lot of footage of this one on our motion sensor cameras, so I knew that it was a shooter. It was a quick and easy kill. Even more exciting were kills of nice bucks by brothers-in-law Rodney and Chris on opening weekend and niece Abi as well! I also got the chance to take a doe on sunday and donate it to the share the harvest program for the local food bank. Jenna was excited about mommy getting a big buck, I think she'll be ready to start hunting in a few more years.

Happy Halloween

We had a fun time this halloween, it was the first year that Jenna actually got excited about it. I also discovered a new secret to halloween--go trick-or-treating at stores. Toys R Us gave us some really nice treats as did the grocery store. It was a lot of fun. They even had a little costume parade at toys r us. The weather was absolutely beautiful, in the lower 70's, and the fall leaves were at their peak. It was just a gorgeous day and a fun time was had by all! Jenna was a princess (peacock princess barbie as someone informed us), she accessorized herself. Kaela was baby Jaguar. We saw a lot of princesses while trick-or-treating, but I can really honestly say that Jenna was the cutest. Her own personal touch of accessories really added to the costume!

Kaela's First Birthday

Kaela is now one, I can't believe it. We had a fun time with Grandma and Grandpa Kriete last Friday, followed by another fun time at the farm with Mammo, Papa, and the cousins. I still can't believe she is one. Kaela is extremely busy these days, she can crawl faster than a speeding bullet, cruise on furniture, and is somewhat interested in walking if we hold her hands. She still prefers crawling, however. She definately makes her opinion known (she gets that from Matt). Kaela is much more cuddly than Jenna ever was, and that makes me happy. She loves to crawl over to me and just bury her head into me and give me loves. The jealousy tables have also turned between her and Jenna. Any time I have Jenna in my lap, she crawls from across the room and protests Jenna getting attention.

Punkin Patch

I'm very slow at updating my blog these days, I guess I'm just too addicted to Facebook!

A couple of weekends ago we went to the peach tree farms pumpkin patch. It was a beautiful evening and we had a great time together, although the day was saddened by a Mizzou loss to Okie State that night.

Big hugongous spider

So we were playing in the backyard the other day, and matt was standing by the fence. I glanced over at him and screamed when I saw this huge wolf spider on the fence next to him. He jumped about three feet! We took pictures. Its not as cool as the coral snake that was in Brent, Melissa, and David's pool, but what can I say, we're just in boring old missouri! :-)

balloon festival

Here are some pictures from the annual balloon festival in our town last weekend. Jenna absolutely loves balloons and had a great time! Kaela kept trying to grap at the balloons in the air!

First Day of School!

Today was Jenna's first day of school. She is going to a mother's day out program at a local church every tuesday morning from 9-1. She gets to take her lunchbox and eat there. It is going to be a wonderful break each week for me to allow me to go to the grocery store in peace as well as spend some time with Kaela. Jenna had a great time today, she had no problem leaving me! The setting is a lot like preschool, so Jenna will be learning lots of new things and interacting with other children her age. Her class is mostly all boys, except one little girl that she already knows from our church. I think she may have found her first boyfriend because when I showed up to pick her up she had her arm around another little boy!

Haven't Posted in a while

Well I haven't posted in a LONG time! I've been pretty busy. I decided to start doing "projects" again, something I haven't done since before I was pregnant with Kaela. For some reason (I think I get it from my dad) I always feel like I need a project to do. I guess I would call doing "projects" my hobby. My most recent projects have been increasing the toy storage in the play room and tiling our kitchen backsplash.

The girls are getting big. Jenna now has a hobby as well, she loves to chase after hot air balloons in the car with us if we see one when we are out running errands or something. It is a lot of fun and suspenseful trying to determine where they will land. They also hand out little baseball cards with the balloons on them so you can try to chase all the balloons in the club and collect all their cards. She is really looking forward to the balloon festival that will be in town this weekend!

Kaela is crawling all over, and she loves it! I also love it because she now sleeps very well, getting up only once most nights and sleeps through some nights. She can now clap her hands and wave bye-bye. Still no teeth yet, though!

I'm going to post the "best of" my pictures from the past month and a half since I haven't posted in so long!

first peas and potatoes

We gave Kaela her first peas and potatoes the other day. She had already finished her jar of baby food and was still acting hungry. You can see that she enjoyed them!

Picking Strawberries

Last week we went to a local strawberry farm and picked 25 lb of strawberries, almost a whole wagon full! It was loads of fun, and Jenna thoroughly enjoyed it. I vividly remember my mom taking me to Noble's Berry Farm when I was young and I had to pass this memory on to my girls. It will definately be a yearly tradition. From the 25 lbs of strawberries I made so much strawberry preserves, it is filling up half our freezer right now.

Sitting up, napping better

Kaela's newest thing is that she can sit up by herself now. She really thinks she's big stuff now that she can sit up and play with her sister. As you can see from the picture, she is thoroughly enjoying solid foods (she's a chunk!). I can't quite say that she is sleeping much better, but we do have her on a really good nap schedule, so at least I can count on a nap if I need one.

Mathematically minded?

Jenna has always had a tendency to line her toys up. Last week, I found this on my bedroom floor and I had to take a picture of it. She said she made it for her tigers (she has 2 stuffed animal tigers). Notice the pattern.

The circus came to town!

Wow! I haven't posted new blogs since Easter! I must be busy or something...

Last Friday the circus came to town. It made me wonder if, on the actual board game of Life, there is a square that you land on that says "Circus comes to town, lose $100". If not, there should be. We didn't spend quite that much, but we easily could have! How many times does a child get to ride an elephant in her life, though? (even if the ride lasts a whole 30 seconds so they can pack in as many elephant rides and make as much money as they can, hence the lousy pictures!). Jenna was enthralled with the acrobats, tigers, and of course the elephants. A good time was had by all (even if they were up WAY past their bedtime, I mean who starts a circus at 7:30pm?).

Happy Easter!

We hope all our friends and family had a blessed Easter! He is risen!

We enjoyed a beautiful church service, then had a delicious lunch with Brent, Melissa, and David. We're going to miss them next year, as we often get together for Easter from year to year. Jenna and David enjoyed playing outside (at least when David wasn't spinning Jenna around in the swing and when Jenna wasn't taking David's toys). My quest for matching easter outfits was successful, but we failed to capture it on the camera, so maybe I won't obsess about it so much next year (well, I probably will anyway). By the time I was able to take a picture Kaela was napping and then Jenna changed into her play clothes. Oh well.

Kaela is still giving us fits at night. It is so crazy how much like Jenna she is. It is like the same baby all over again. At least we know (or hope) she'll start sleeping at around 9 months like Jenna did. She is really becoming vocal now and letting her opinion be heard. We love her so much and she gives us joy despite the insomnia. She is trying really hard to sit up but she doesn't quite have the muscles for it and is way too wiggly!

Jenna's new thing is that she wants to help me cook and do dishes. At first I kind of didn't want her to help because I didn't think she could actually help me. And, of course, me being the engineer I didn't think I could get things done very efficiently with a 2-year-old helping. But, I gave her a chance and she actually is a pretty good helper. She gets so proud of herself when she helps me, too.