January 2018

January brought back to school time after winter break.  It's good to get some routine back, but still - okay, time to make lunches, etc...  We celebrated winter birthdays with Pennells with pizza, wings and cake.  Poppy was able to attend, but it was too cold/snowy for Grandma to go out this time.  They did have a party for her at Oxbow and we sent a Bday video for Mom to show her, which she liked.  We had a dinner a different night at Fernando's with Derbys to celebrate our birthdays.  Then, yet another birthday later in January, Grandma Derby had her 90th bday party at Valentino's and we were able to attend with much of the extended Derby clan.  She's doing SO well for 90 years old!  Kalum's preschool had their annual Chili Cook Off event and we attended for chili, hot dogs, kids games and fun.  We had what seemed like a plethora of snow days!  Samara seemed thrilled for more stay at home days, but I think they need to get back to school as they have seen a lot of each other lately and it is showing at times.  I got to attend my MOPS table belated holiday party for a few hours, then Jeff went to watch a fight night with some friends.  Of course we both had outings that come up the same night- we made it work though.  I did get one craft/remodel project off my list this month - recovered my first chair!  One down, one to go, since they are both needing a face lift.  And so I guess, let 2018 begin!

Samara's Moments for the Month:

• Samara got to celebrate her half birthday in style!  Gretna called a snow day, which in the end, was not too snowy.  Auntie Courtney met Samara and I at Claire's that evening and Samara got her ears pierced!  She chose ruby earrings and was very brave.  She said the second one hurt more than the first, but she was all smiles within moments and looked in the mirror every chance she got.  When we got home, Jeff put up her new bookshelf from Christmas from Papa and Gemma with a reading light.  She can now read her chapter books in bed and she's thrilled!
• The week of 1/22-26, she was star student of the week in her class.    After two snow days on Monday and Tuesday, which she was thrilled about, she got to take her About Me poster to school and read it to her class.  They all wrote letters to her about what they like about her and drew pictures.  It was fun to read through her book from her classmates.
• Jan 28th - Another tooth was very loose on top!  It didn't seem like it could hang on for another day, but she managed to keep it there and wiggle it all day, then pulled it out the next evening.  That's tooth #7 and a proud girl with a gap in her smile again!

Kalum's Moments for the Month:

• He is still gung-ho on building his legos and playing with his Transformers from Christmas!  Every day he's home (which seemed extra often in January with snow days), he's asking when Wesson will be going to take his nap.  When I take Wesson upstairs, he's immediately pulling out a lego set to start constructing!
• Fav shows are Power Rangers and Transformers.

Wesson's Moments for the Month:

• He likes to watch the Power Rangers as well.  When he says it now it sounds like "cow rangers", last month it sounded more like "payers", so he's getting there!  He and Kalum often play Power Rangers after watching an episode, with lots of ninja-looking moves and sounds.
• Doesn't say the "s" in words starting with S - snow is "no", school is "cool", snake is "nake", But can say "s" sound, as in "Seera" or "Sissy" for Samara.
• Combines Thank You Jesus prayer song with London Bridges (both are to same tune, so I get it)..."Thank you Jesus falling down. Falling down. Falling down. Thank you Jesus falling down. Thank you Jesus." So  funny!
• By the end of January, he's almost ready to start potty training!  He has woken up from a nap with a dry diaper and went #2 on the potty twice.  Sometimes he just wears underwear at home, with timely reminders to try and go potty and some accidents.  Still in diapers anytime he's sleeping or we go anywhere though.

January Pictures

December 2017

December was full, as always, but here's the run down of all the events...I had Dec 1st - MOPS Christmas meeting, Dec 15th extra group meeting and evening MOPS Steering Team party.  I, along with my Mom and Courtney, attended the NARI Holiday Party.  I had gotten word that my Dad was going to be recognized, so I made sure we could all be there.  Dad got inducted into the NARI Hall of Fame, an honor for sure, recognizing his long time commitment to the chapter!  It was great to catch up with everyone I knew during my time with NARI and to see him recognized was so great.  Jeff had an official year end wrap-up dinner at church for his Radical Mentoring Group.  The guys were recognized for their commitment to the group and program for the year.  Then his group had their Christmas Party at his mentor's house, which we both got to attend.  It was a fun night with a great group of guys and all of the wives got to know each other better, too.  

We celebrated Christmas with the Derby's early on December 16th (the ONLY day we could coordinate with everyone-crazy!).  We had an early lunch and opened gifts afterwards.  Then after some hang-out time, we had Jeff's work party that got scheduled for that same evening, so we left the kids have some more cousin time and we drove to Lincoln for a couple hours.  We bowled, mingled and ate, then headed back to Omaha to get the kids.  After all that, it was time for school winter break to start just before Christmas.  We had our neighbors over for dinner then attended church on Christmas Eve at 6PM.  Christmas morning we opened some gifts at our house - Santa brought scooters for all three kids, which they were super excited about!  Kalum, in fact, was up at like 4AM and I had to coax him back to bed several times as I heard him down in the living room trying out the assembled gifts.  We headed to Pennell's house for Christmas late morning and opened gifts, then laid Wesson down for a nap and we sat down for our traditional Czech Christmas meal.  Not far into the meal, we heard strange crying from Mom and Dad's bedroom and I ran in to find a very sick Wesson - throwing up repeatedly-yuck!  We spent the rest of the day cleaning him and me up, only to have him throw up again all over us.  After the second surprise time, we wised up and stayed in the bathroom with towels.  After a much needed bath and making sure it was all out of his system, we made it home without incident and he slept that night.  Then, on the 27th - Jeff got ill after barely making it home from Greenwood that night.  This delayed his "Operation 3 kids is enough" a day, but still made it in by end of the year since deductible was met.  Not a stellar week for Jeff, for sure!  The day after Jeff went down, Samara got sick at bedtime.  Kalum followed the next evening.  We were very prepared for him, though, towels all around bed, puke bucket ready,etc.  So, fun was had by all (and somehow I managed to escape without getting sick!!)  We had to push it back a day to prevent germs being spread, but at least we got to finish out the year with the Pennell extended family Christmas on New Year's Eve afternoon. The year went out with a bang I guess you could say!

Samara's Moments for the Month:

• She tries to beat her record of number of hands shaken during meet n greet time during church service.  She's at 7 now. Ha!
• She loved getting to go to a school friend's birthday party.  She actually got invited to three classmates birthday parties taking place during the same week!  We discussed and she agreed to choose one, the person she plays with the most.  This one was at an Urban Air location(trampolines and obstacle courses), so she had a great time, of course!
• The first grade program was really cute, Letters from Santa being the theme.  They sang lots of songs and Samara got to be one of the ribbon twirlers during Silver and Gold song, which she was really excited about.

Kalum's Moments for the Month:

• He has a buddy at school named Asher.  Well the boys set up a playdate for 5:30PM on the next day, Tuesday.  Only problem, is they didn't coordinate with either of their moms to set this up.  So, needless to say, it got turned down by the moms and both boys were mad at their moms!  We are trying to set up an actual playdate for them at a time that might work better for all involved. ;)
• He insisted on sending his own gift along with Samara's to her friend's party.  He chose candy from his treat bin, boxed them up, and wrapped them and Samara helped with the card.  He did say it was not  his favorite candies, but still super sweet for a 5 year old boy!
• The preschool Christmas program was enjoyable as always.  Highlight was probably Kalum crazily ringing his bell at the end of the program - glad we have that on video for future reference! Lol

Wesson's Moments for the Month:

• He fake falls for effect during "fighting" play with Jeff and the kids.
• He made it through the Christmas program we attended at church!  Only took one piece of gum, three laps to rotate between, fruit snacks, and another piece of gum - then they gave out cookies afterwords.  Sigh.
• He's liking singing Christmas songs and carols, Frosty the Snowman and Let It Snow being his top picks when I sing to him before nap time.

December pictures

November 2017

November is always a month to remember all the that we have to be thankful for, and this year was no different!  Kalum had fun things at school like class picture day, family feast luncheon where they sing "Albuquerque is a Turkey", and a field trip to HyVee to shop for the food bank.  Samara is still loving school and had lots of crafts and school work around the Thanksgiving theme.  Wesson is two now - what can I say, it comes with much cuteness and much determination!  We also got to celebrate some Derby family November birthdays on some weekends, so the kids got cousin time, which they love.  We got to celebrate Thanksgiving with Derbys on Thanksgiving at Michelle and Aaron's house and it was a full house with the Holmbergs there as well, such a change compared to a few years ago!  We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Pennells the Friday after, dressed in our Husker red, but the game was disappointing for GBR fans (thus the promising news that Frost will be stepping in as new NE Head Coach).  We wrapped up the month with dental cleanings for the kids that were cavity free-woot woot!  I got a new phone (my faithful iphone4s lasted over 5 years, but finally just stopped charging), so I can't access the outdated app I used for specific milestones for the month, but that covers the basics.  :)

And the biggest news for this month is that Jeff and I got to go on our honeymoon to celebrate our 13th Anniversary and our parents took care of the kiddos during the whole week we were gone!  It was a huge blessing that they could rearrange their schedules to do that for us, splitting the week between them.  We got to get away to relax and take a trip, the likes of which we haven't taken before!  I know the kids were a little anxious about us being gone.  We just promoted all the fun it would be to stay over at Grandma and Grandpa's one night and to get time with Papa and Gemma during the 2nd part of the trip.  I spent plenty of time before we left making sure that we had everything we needed as well as everything was in line for the kids' schedules - it all adds up for sure.  Jeff and I had a great time - went on a couple excursions, snorkeled, zip-lined, paddle boarded, kayaked, relaxed by the beach with books and drinks, ate at restaurants (which involved no cooking or cleaning up!!) finding the Mexican restaurant and Jamaican jerk chicken among our favs.  It took us a day or so to just settle into a slower pace, not having to rush through meals, keep track of everyone and finding plenty of time to talk while not being interrupted every three seconds.  It was not super sunny the whole time we were there - negative side-we snorkeled in chilly rain shower one afternoon on an excursion and spent some extra time on our room balcony that we might have liked to be at the beach, positive side-we didn't get really sun burnt as we possibly could have in that strong sun, we took a couple extra naps and we were entertained watching people run for cover!

It was hard to get in Christmas mode after all the trip planning and then being in the warm climate, but check out the November pictures and now onto the most wonderful time of the year!

November pictures