Omaha and more...

 Well, we're back.

And we had so much fun...but we're all really, really tired.  I guess that means we had a good trip!

On Thursday, before we left for Omaha on Friday, there was a Corporate Challenge Kick-off party that our family went to.  It was held at the KC Royals/Chiefs stadium parking lot.

We are so glad we went, because the kids had a great time.  There was free food (burgers, hotdogs, cookies galore), a bunch of stations for the kids to do activities and then a goodie-bag of prizes when you completed all the stations.  

Here we are sitting in a CMH ambulance that we go to tour.

It is totally awesome for little kids.  Can't believe Maggie had to ride in one of these when she was just 3 days old!

 There were Star Wars people walking around, which freaked Maggie out at first, but then when we left she gave the black suited guy fist pumps.  Colin loved them and couldn't wait to get a picture.

We left for Omaha right after work, and hit the road around 4:30 pm.  It took us about 3 hours to get up there, with a stop for dinner.  

The hotel was HUGE!  It took us about 8 minutes to walk from the lobby to our hotel room.  It was a big conference center, as well as being adjoined to the Coco Key water park.

We didn't even bother going to the water park the first night, just unpacked and tried to get the kids settled down to sleep.  They shared a bed, for the first time ever, so there was plenty of giggling and such going on.

 Maggie and I posing on one of the many "bridges" in the lobby.

I'm telling you, it was HUGE!

Little did we know, that this weekend the Ramada was host to...

 The National American Miss competition for Nebraska.

Essentially, this meant there were girls of all ages strutting around in pageant getup and big hair and tiaras and such all weekend long.  I kept getting sidetracked and peaked in on all the "talent" competitions going on.  They were all so cute, and it seemed pretty intense.  

Colin kept walking by all the little girls dressed up in their gowns, and he would tell them how beautiful they looked.  So precious.

We hit the pool as soon as it opened at 9 am on Saturday and Sunday.  It wasn't really all that busy, which was great for us.  We hit a breakfast buffet and we all ready to swim for a few hours.

 We were pretty concerned about Colin not being tall enough to ride some of the slides, but he barely squeaked by at 40+ inches to have some fun.  Maggie didn't quite make it, but she had fun on these little kiddie slides (the requirement being that you had to be LESS than 36 inches to ride on them!)

Both the kids loosened up a ton in the water by the time we left.

 The water park had a lot of fun ropes and buckets all over the place.  

Colin was in heaven!

 He even rode some of the pretty big slides, and had a blast.  He got twisted around the first time down, stayed away from them for a while, then got up enough guts to try it again.  We couldn't keep him off of them from then on.  

 The best picture I could get of the 3 of us on Sunday morning.

Our little cutie pie!

Colin having a blast on the slides.

We left just before lunch on Sunday, grabbed a pizza in the hotel lobby, and headed home.

It was all good until we tried to get gas, at which point Brian realized he didn't have his wallet.

Ugh!

Luckily, someone found it in the Coco Key locker room and turned it in.  Phew!

We're heading to bed early tonight.

It was a great little mini-vacation and we can't wait to head back soon!

Big girl beds and Mini-golf

Another totally fun weekend done here in KC.

We started off running some errands on Saturday morning and finishing up some odds and ends around the house.

After church we made some pizzas (lil' murphys pizzas from Papa Murphys) and had a fun little dinner.

Colin made a cheese pizza and Maggie likes pepperoni.

Colin was pretty proud of his pizza creation, and I'm surprised there was any cheese on that pizza as much as he ate while making it!

Maggie showing off her pizza, too.  Notice that every slice of pepperoni had a bite taken out of it...

Earlier that day we took the leap and disassembled Maggie's crib and moved her into a big girl bed.  

We just love twin beds at our house, and we don't even bother with a boxspring, just a mattress on some plywood.  We put some round pillows on the outside of her bed to keep her from rolling off.

She did great!  I think she really likes having a pillow, just like Colin.

Maggie's big girl bed.

We ordered a super cute pink and purple comforter, it just isn't here yet. 

Maggie doesn't mind, she thinks she's pretty awesome in her new bed!

On Sunday, we got up and did our usual Sunday morning stuff, then headed off to the Y to swim some more.  

This time they had the sprinklers going and the slide turned on, which was really fun for Colin.

After nap, we headed off to go mini-golfing in Parkville.

Brian bought a groupon-type offer that allowed for mini-golfing and ice cream.

Colin all excited for some mini-golfing.

He proudly told me how good he was and how he was going to WIN!

Such a fun place, we love going here and had such a great time.

There was only a couple of families there, which worked out great because we were pretty slow!

The weather was perfect and the kids were happy!

Maggie wasn't quite sure how this whole "golfing" thing went.  She tried for a couple of holes, then had more fun just playing around in the landscaping.

There were lots of steps and hills and stones for her to play on.

Colin and Daddy

Brian working on Maggie's form.

Colin was in heaven with the ice cream selection.
Not only was there BLUE ice cream, but it was BUBBLE GUM flavored with pieces of bubble gum in it.  

Maggie loves her vanilla, just like Brian.

I'm telling ya, they are twins!

Enjoying the afternoon.

I love little family outings like this.

Parkville is just perfect for a young family like ours.

Yardwork weekend

 After our weekend of tearing out pretty much everything in our frontyard last fall,

our yard was in need of some TLC.

We had to schedule in a weekend for yardwork, and the weather cooperated!

We had a beautiful weekend of 60s and 70s, and it even worked out that Parkville had it's "spring cleanup" weekend this weekend too, so we had a place to dump our old stuff for FREE!

We started out with just a few areas in our frontyard.

It's going to take planning and some budgeting to do our whole yard, so we are piecing it off.

We picked out some knock out rose bushes for the side of our house.

They are a hybrid kind, so they will be a little pink, red, and white!

Here's the before...

 And the after, with 2 rose bushes!

 A bare looking front porch photo

And the after with some ornamental grass (that will get to be about 4 feet tall) and the turtle that I spray painted blue!

And finally, the area around our air conditioner

Looking so much better with some mulch and some more ornamental grass

We had a great weekend outside, and the kids did pretty well about letting us get some work done.

We got the majority of it done on Saturday when our house was getting sealed (from our previous energy audit), so the kids were at Grammie and Grandad's for the day.

It's amazing what you can get done without the kids around!

Colin and Mags were just being cute, so I took a picture of them (trying to do it without disturbing their playing, but Maggie caught me!)

Visits with friends

We have had such a great weekend spending some time with good ol' friends.

Brian and I had some college friends that were also swimmers at Truman stop by on Saturday with their 2 kids, Nolan and Colin.

Our Colin thought it was just awesome to meet someone else with his name.  We would laugh and laugh about how he would come up to him and say "hello Colin, my name is Colin!"  Oh to be 3 again and think you're the only Colin in the world! :)

There were only here for a short bit while on their way home to Omaha, but we had a fantastic little lunch of beer brats/hot dogs, chips and fruit salad!  The kids played for a couple of hours and they were on their way home.  Turns out we will get to see them again in a few weeks when we make a trip to Omaha for some family time of our own.  We purchased a deal where we get 2 nights hotel stay, and four 2-day water park passes in Omaha.

The kiddos...Nolan, Maggie, Colin and Colin!

Speaking of getting in the water, I am doing Corporate Challenge again this year, swimming for the hospital I work for.  It is the last week in June and I'm pretty sure it's been YEARS since I threw on cap and goggles to workout.  Well, Brian and I won a 3-month family membership pass to the YMCA and started using it this past week.  We swam together for the first time since before Colin was born and it was a lot of fun (we suffered through it together, just like in college, except we're 10 years older and much more out of shape!)

We awakened muscles we haven't used in a while, but it was fun.   

The kids played at the free daycare the YMCA provides and they had a blast.  Don't think they even missed us while we were in the pool!

On Sunday, I got in a quick run in the morning, then we got the kids all swim-suited up to head to the Y to go swimming.  Since we are going to Omaha soon, the kids haven't really been in the water since last summer.  Maggie got a little dramatic the first few minutes, but really loosened up a ton and was doing lots of bubbles with her head under water, kicking, splashing, etc.  Colin was awesome, as usual.  He was pretty bummed that he couldn't use the slide at the Y until he passed a swim test.  Guess we'll have to get to work :)

We also had more friends come over on Sunday afternoon.  They have 2 kiddos, aged 5 and 2.5.  The kids had a blast playing outside and destroying the house.
Now, the next few weekends will be dedicated to some much-needed yardwork...

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Brian turned 32 on Tuesday.
We had a fun, low-key celebration for him at home.

This included:

Good morning, birthday donut with candle,

and a present each from the kids (purchased from the dollar store):

Colin's gift: a whoopie cushion,

Maggie's gift: Big League Chew, bag of mints, and some Combos.

They had so much fun having Daddy open their gifts and he did such a great job of being super excited about them!

Brian also got a sound bar speaker for our family room.
It's pretty cool, it can attach to our TV, playstation, etc, and you can also put in your iphone or ipad to play music and such.

We are gonna have some awesome dance parties in the future.  

The kids, of course, thought the bubble wrap that the speaker was wrapped in was the best gift of all.

They jumped for a long time, almost couldn't get them out the door for daycare.

Daddy and his 2 little munchkins.

Brian had the day off work and did some odd-jobs around the house, enjoying the quiet time by himself.

We grilled out some steaks for his dinner.

Finished off the day with some brownies and vanilla ice cream (his favorite!) for dessert.

WE LOVE YOU, DADDY!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!

Easter Sunday

We had 2 very excited kids on Sunday morning...

Colin woke promptly at 6:15 and was happy to see that the Easter bunny had stopped by our house.

The night before, Colin was certain he heard the Easter bunny while we were saying prayers, and he quickly told us to leave his room so the Easter bunny could leave us eggs and gifts.  Well, it worked.

The bunny left us the Wreck it Ralph DVD and some awesome new play food for our kitchen.

The bunny also hid about 40 eggs around the house.

 It was go time and Colin was off and running...

Maggie did much better with egg finding on Sunday morning

 Stopping for a quick cheesy picture with "morning hair"

 Seeing what's in the eggs, some candy and...

 some Church money!

We went to 10 am mass on Sunday with the entire Teson family.  We took up a whole pew.  There was a lot of us.  The kids did well and we went to Grammie and Grandad's for brunch and another egg hunt afterwards.

 Our Easter family picture, on a very sunny morning.

 I said we should do a "silly picture" and apparently only Brian listened...

:)

 The Teson grandkids (all 9 of them...)

 The Teson Texas boys that will be moving to KC soon!

Maggie politely asking Peter to get out of her car...

She's just glad she's not the baby anymore and has someone to boss around :)

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Easter at Meemaw's 2013

 We spent Saturday morning of Easter weekend at Meemaw's new place.

We had so much fun, and got there super early so we could do some easter egg coloring in the morning.

We had such a crazy week with work and school that we didn't seem to have time to color the eggs at home.  Meemaw happily obliged and allowed us to do some work at her kitchen table.

 A drooling Maggie and Daddy

Maggie had the red eggs under control...

 My little lady

 Colin loved the blue color...

 We obviously didn't bother putting the rag shirt on not inside out or without the tag in his face...

 My boys being silly

 Maggie took a little break to read "pete the cat"

 The Easter bunny brought Colin a really awesome outfit

 Maggie got a couple of cute outfits, too

 The two identical twins

 We went for a lovely walk around the trail in Meemaws neighborhood.  We thought there might be some ducks to feed, but they were all sleeping, said Colin.

 Checking out the trail

 Our best attempt at a family photo.  

Looks good!

During naps, the Easter bunny showed up at Meemaws and we did a really awesome egg hunt.  

The eggs were colored earlier in the day hadn't been cooked properly (we found out after Colin accidentally shoved his finger into an egg), but there were others that were hid outside.

 Colin was an egg-finding machine.  We had to hide some special ones for Maggie behind the house so that she could have a fair shake at things.

 Filling up her bucket

 Colin cleaned up!

 The two cutest things EVER!

 A girls picture...

(with a less-than-thrilled Maggie!)

 Checking out their loot

We played outside for a bit then came inside for an awesome roast dinner that Meemaw made.

She also made brownies for Brian's birthday that was coming up.

 Making a wish for his 32nd year!

 Tiff and Maggie dancing to some music

 Meemaw and her favorite grandkids

We had so much fun on Saturday...

Sorry for the picture overload...