Colors

Olivia and I got out the box of 64 crayons and all of the coloring books tonight. I love using the box of 64. I love all the choices. I was coloring a Christmas tree, so I started searching for the crayon called "Evergreen." I remember it well from my childhood. But it no longer exists. I looked at every green. Not there. It has been replaced by "Asparagus." Do you think maybe we're taking this health-craze thing too far when Crayola crayons are being named after vegetables? Anyway, I was looking for a picture to color, and Olivia suggested one of a giraffe and a monkey. I told her I didn't want to color that because it didn't have very many colors. Her reply: "Well Mommy, you don't have to color them brown. You can use whatever color you want. The giraffe could be purple. Besides, that shows up better on white paper." She's a genius. So I colored my giraffe purple and my monkey blue. I started to color the giraffe's spots "Yellow orange" but it's apparently called "Macaroni and cheese" now. But I checked and "Sky blue" is still "Sky blue." Thank goodness.

4 more days 'til Disney :0) School's out :0) I've got a lot of laundry to do :0(

Olivia's prayer tonight at dinner: "Thank you for our food. Thank you for our drinks. Thank you for our cousins. Heal the people who are sick. And help Adam have a good day at school if he ever goes back to school." (I guess that's probably only funny if you know Adam, but we hadn't even talked about him, so apparently it was just on her mind.)

Flood

Sometimes You've Got to Create the Fun

Well, it's another dreary night in the OC, and we needed a little entertainment. Thank goodness John bought the stupid Elvis glasses when we went to Branson two years ago. They got everybody laughing tonight. Well, except Emery. She got woke up when we were laughing, but Olivia put the glasses on and did "Greased Lightnin" so it was impossible not to laugh. (Drama Alert: Olivia is now crying "Mom, you just act like you spend more time with Emery than me.") Right now I'm actually spending more time with the computer than with either of them, but whatever. Before I go spend time with my attention-starved daughters, we just wanted to send a big "Hello-Congrats-We love you!" to Sammy, who is graduating from basic training this weekend.

Sam is the person responsible for adding "Rock on dude" and "Check ya later" to Olivia's vocabulary so he's obviously a VIP to our family. Congratulations!

Emery Lucia

Olivia goes Britney Spears on us!

If we have a quiet week, you know something major's coming. Late Sunday afternoon Olivia walks into the kitchen and announces to her dad that she cut her hair. Mom saw the pile of curls (pictured) and freaked out. She is certainly old enough to know better, however, I'm sure it's my fault the scissors were left out. We will be practicing much stricter scissor control in this house from now on. So here are some photos pre- and post- haircut. It's sort of a mullet with a couple of major chunks missing right now. We'll get it cut short tomorrow so it can hopefully grow back out into those beautiful curls soon. I also included a couple of pre-haircut pics so you can see just how pretty the hair was before she channeled her inner "Britney." Olivia loved going to the Prom to see everyone all dressed up. Here she is with Craig and Jonathan, two of her favorite buddies. And just do you don't think I've forgotten Em, there's a picture of her too.

You know that Vanessa Williams song "Saved the Best for Last" where she sings "Sometimes the snow comes down in June." Because that would be so unusual and crazy and unexpected, just like falling in love?? Well, she's obviously never lived in Kansas or she wouldn't be making jokes about it. I mean, if snow can fall in the middle of a thunderstorm, I'm not going to assume that it won't come down in June. Olivia and I braved the flakes to go out to the BBQ competition here in town and get dinner. I don't know if the food we got was that great, but it's better than cereal. Tonight we're watching "Flushed Away" - I hope it's funny 'cuz I could use a laugh. Emery has a runny nose and is not very happy about anything tonight.

I'm really late getting Easter pics posted but here's some of my faves. Olivia and her cousins got to dye eggs at Grammy and Grampy's, did some karaoke, and we participated in a walk for the American Heart Association. The kids liked throwing snow balls at each other while we walked. On Sunday, we went to church in Salina with Grandma Jo, Sarhan and Liam and did an egg hunt. Mom and Dad slipped out to go see "Blades of Glory" and then we headed back to the OC. Here's some photos from the Easter weekend. Hope you enjoy! (top - Olivia and Emery Easter morning; Emery and her cousin Liam; Emery on her first egg hunt; Cousins Brady, Mykiah, and Chesney dying eggs with Olivia)

Martin City Melodrama

On Olivia's birthday, we took her and Emery to Martin City Melodrama (which used to be located in MO but is now in Overland Park which is a lot more convenient for us.) My mom introduced the family to MCM when I was in college and we went several times to shows there. They were usually gut-splitting laugh out loud funny and when I found out they had kids' shows, I really wanted to take Olivia. We were escorted to our table by Goldilocks and settled in for "The True Story of Goldilocks or Grin and Bear It." Olivia watched the whole show and Emery was pretty interested too. Olivia really enjoyed all the singing and silliness, but the best part of the show was when they called her up on stage at the end to celebrate her 5th birthday!! Here's some pictures of Olivia with the cast and up onstage with Mama Bear when they sang to her (Baby Bear played piano.)