2008 Wendy in town

My friend Wendy that I have known for 24 years and her husband Chuck and daugher Zoe came in town. Chuck's sister lives here and so they came out Friday to visit us. We had a great day! Went to lunch and then to Deanna Rose Farmstead. Wow has that place grown!! They have a ton of neat things.
Here's Brandon, Ryan, Zoe, and you can barely see MaKenzie back there.

They have a new 5000 sq ft milk barn with cows and a pretend milking cow, etc. This was outfront. Hilarous!
Here they are mining for rocks and gems. They really enjoyed it. The weather turned out perfect!! It was cold and windy and when we got there the sun came out and it was just gorgeous. Then right after we left the clouds came out again. Got lucky.

Wendy, Chuck, and Zoe

2008 End of School

Ryan's last day of school. Ms. Kelly and Ms. Melissa which he called Ms. Lissa.
2nd to last day of school 1/2 day. Beautiful Day -both have tons of things in their backpacks and Brandon had more in a bag. They were saying "my backpack is soooo heavy!" I can't believe school is already ending.









Last day of school. Thursday May 22nd 1/2 day! It's not even possibe that I am going to have a 4th grader and 2nd grader next year!! Yikes. Then Ryan will be in Pre-K. Wow -it does go so fast!!

2008 Field Day

Brandon's field day. Kinda bummed I didn't get to make MaKenzie's because it was my last day of preschool.
Brandon wa the only one doing the limbo the right way. (well what I guess I consider right :)) He was getting way down. The others were squatting down and going under.
Tug-a-war -I loved that when I was little. I think that was one of his favorites.
Bubble machine and bubble gum. Yummmm.....Brandon kept trying to catch them in his mouth.

Ryan was done watching! We walked over and he got to do one round on the blow-up obstacle course.

2008 May

I went with MaKenzie's class to Nelson Atkin's Museum. We had a great tourist and she was very through and took us a couple places we weren't suppose to go so it was fun! MaKenzie is in the pink jacket next to the boy in the green stripped shirt. Mother's Day 2008 -Wow I am the luckiest mom alive! So lucky to have 3 healthy beautiful children!! Mother's Day was very special. Started off early with Chris getting roses for me on Friday. Then what made it even more special was the kids all week saying "it's almost Mother's Day" "2 more days till mother's day!" So I knew they were thinking about it. I woke up Sunday and they had cleaned the downstairs for me. Had breakfast cooking and had set up my own chair all nice and soft to sit and had put all the presents all around it! MaKenzie made me a braclet and a card, Ryan had taken the time to trace over a kinda long card for him to do that MaKenzie and Brandon had made so that was special that he took the time to go over the whole thing. He was so happy. Brandon had made me a picture and a book about moms at school. He also had wrapped up some gifts -sunglasses of his and a teddy bear for me so that was so sweet. Chris got me a card also and had breakfast ready. We then went out to Chris' families and celebrated with everyone.

2008 Fieldtrip

I got to go on a fieldtrip with Brandon's class to Union Station to see a play on the book "If you give a mouse a cookie." It was alot of fun and then we ate lunch (sack lunches) there at union station. Then we went to Olathe Medical Center for play hospital.
This is Brandon and his friend Brady.

Brandon and one of his best buddies on left Zach and then Ben in the middle and Brandon.
Brandon was called up to be pharmacist.

They all got these lovely hats!

2008 Big Wheel Day -Preschool Ryan

Ryan's preschool class
They have big wheel day where you bring a big wheel or scooter and you have all different centers. Make a license plate and drivers license. Wash your vehicle, decorate your vehicle, stop and go (snack and go), the track to ride your vehicle on. Then a picnic afterwards. A lot of fun!
Rowen and Ryan -this is one of Ryan's best buds! I taught with Rowan's mom this year so the boys were together alot -they were also in a class together.

Rowen and Ryan being crazy like normal -climbing up on the top of a playhouse in the playground and looking over the fence.

2008 April -soccer

Brandon in his first season of soccer. He loves it! Here his buddy Luke that's on his team.

Coach Chris and Coach Kyle. We are so lucky we have the Carlson's! They have Annika who is MaKenzie's best friend and then they have Luke and Linnea who are twins and they are Brandon's age. Without them we would not be able to do all we do. The girls are on a team together and the boys are on a team together. Then for softball the girls are on a team together too. Makes things work alot easier. Jenni and Kyle their parents are also great friends of ours. Jenni is the one I did triathlons with last year. So Chris and Kyle coached Brandon and Luke's soccer team. This ended up being nice since we could schedule practices around our schedules etc.
Kyle and Chris
Brandon really starting understand the game and getting aggressive. He did great this season!

Ryan was SO excited to get the extra soccer shirt from Coach Kyle. Kyle told him he could be their helper and boy was he excited!!

He is so athletic and I know he would love to be in sports but just thought we would wait a little longer before we have 3 in sports!

2008 April

We have a program at the kids school called Watch D.o.g.s (Dads of Great Students) This is a program where dads sign up to come help at the school for the day. They will pull kids out of classes to help with reading, math, etc. Do security checks around the school, help with lunch and recess, spend time in their childs classrooms, etc. This was Chris' second day this year he helped. The kids LOVE having him there and he really enjoyed getting to experience what was going on at school. He was exhausted at the end of the day!

MaKenzie and her best friend Annika ready for a soccer game. Starting off a crazy season of MaKenzie and Brandon both in soccer and softball/baseball. Been a hard year for soccer. So cold out -even had a game cancelled because of extreme temps.


MaKenzie loves soccer and when she is out on the field she is always trying her hardest. You will hear her coach yell out to her "MaKenzie stop running so much!" She is doing awesome this year. She got 3 goals in one game.

2008 National Champions

Wow what an incredible season! First the KU football team won the Orange Bowl and then the KU basketball team winning the National Championship!! Pretty neat to be apart of. We went to Lawrence for the parade and then to Allen Fieldhouse for the awards ceremony. The picture of all of us is in front of a piece of the old basketball floor they have on display.
At the parade Jayhawk and Baby Jay riding the firetruck.
Allen Fieldhouse getting ready for the families and players to come out.

Coach Bill Self and his wife in the parade.

2008 April -Ryan's Haircut

Well Ryan took it upon himself to cut his own hair. Not just a few hairs or where you can't tell so much -no he decided he would take a chunk out of the front!

It looked SO bad!! So we went and pretty much got a buzz cut with it being higher on that one side. I thought they recovered it pretty well. I should have left it because they next day we got comments "nice haircut!" They were being nice and had no idea what had happened until I said something. I am going "no don't tell him that!" He was so lucky he was a boy!

2008 Easter

Had to get these shots while we were celebrating Easter with Chris' side of the family. I thought it would be neat to get the different generations. How special it is that all the grandkids have their great grandparents close.

2008 -Spring Break -March

Our vacation was a blast! We all had such a great time and the weather for the most part was perfect the whole time. We got to swim in pools at the hotel and then on our way home I got to met up with my best friend Wendy that lives in McKinny, TX. We took the kids picture and then each one had to take turns taking our picture. I think they did pretty good!

2008 -The Riverwalk

On the boat ride going down the RiverWalk