Dollhouse

When I was 10, my grandfather made me the most beautiful dollhouse you've ever seen. He built it with his very own hands. Does anyone remember the tv show Too Close for Comfort? The big red and white house in San Francisco?? He modeled my dollhouse on it, and it looks exactly like it.

Anyway, it has survived 3 moves and crossed the state line to Kansas. When mom and dad moved her a few years ago they brought it to my house. I kept it in the basement securely tucked away until I thought the girls were old enough to take good care of it. Lauren LOVES to play pretend and spends hours playing with her dolls and barbies, so I decided it was time to get it out.

They both love it, but Lauren can't get enough of the dollhouse and wants to invite her friends over to play with it!

COOKIE TIME!

Why, oh why did I volunteer to be the Cookie Mom for Abbie's Girl Scout Troop?

My friend Colleen told me its not that hard....doesn't take that much time....hmmmm!

Well, I'm re-thinking this job, after I order 51 cases of cookies and have to put down the seats in my car to pick them all up....

The girls thought this was great and made a fort in the dining room. Lauren even got our her cash register and opened up a cookie store!

Cookies anyone?

Every year for New Year's we get together with a bunch of our friends from college. We are so lucky to still be such good friends from 10 years ago. This year Jon and I had everyone over to our house. Gone are the days of kegs and late nights (or early mornings)...now our "parties" consist of Chocolate Fountains, Guitar Hero and a glass of wine...oh! and children!

We had a great time with our 80's Retro-night...Gotta love Def Leopard, Madonna and Culture Club!!! LOVE IT!!!

The last picture is of Abbie right about 11:45 taking a quick nap on the bar stool...and yes, she does sleep with her eyes open, just like her mom! :)

We're here!! We're here!!

It's been soooo long since I've posted...all because I couldn't find the cord to hook the camera up to the compter!!! But yes, we're back!

Not much new to report on our front, but Jon, Abbie, and Lauren have all been in a vicious cycle of sickness this year...coughs, fevers, sore throats and even PINK EYE!!! But not me...I've been the healthy one this whole time....I probably just jinxed myself.

Hope everyone is well!

Christmas 2007

Christmas was quite exciting this year....it started precisely at 6:35 when Abbie announced she was going downstairs to see if Santa had come. We were able to divert her for about 20 minutes before Paw Paw & Kiki came to see the big "reveal."

It was a Christmas of American Girl Dolls, Littlest Pet Shops and their very own MP3 players. Oh, and how could I forget--the Sqwaker's Macaw--a talking life-size parrot. I think I'll have to talk to Santa about that one.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

Oh ya, there is a link...right down at the end of the page to leave comments!!! We want to hear from you...ALL of you!! We want to know who is visiting our blog! Many of you have told me you read the blog...so leave a comment!! :)

Hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year's.

High School Musical...featuring Abbie Kluiter

I must fill you in on Abbie's newest career---ACTING. She has always had a "thing" for putting on a good show, so we signed her up for a drama class that met up at her school for 6 weeks. Of course she was super excited because it was a take-off of High School Musical 2--her all-time favorite movie! She had a few lines and did great! She really enjoyed it and I'm sure we'll sign her up again.

Christmas in Iowa

Yes, it sure has been a long time since I've updated....things haven't been all that exciting---I've been meaning to update for the past...ummm, well, ok...a month! yikes!

Since I last updated we've all suffered through the WORST stomach flu EVER!!! I was the only one that made it out. Abbie picked it up first at school (I heard it was going around!)--5 days!!! Then Jon got--he was sure he was going to die by the 5th day as well, and then Lauren got it, but not near as bad as Jon and Abbie. It was horrible...all in all, it lasted about 10 days between the 3 of them. Then, just to make matters worse, we thought Abbie was over the bug and we headed to Iowa for our big Christmas with Jon's family. By the time we got home on Sunday evening....we had infected Jon's mom, sister, step-sister and niece...can you even imagine??? I felt HORRIBLE!!! I hope everyone is finally feeling better now...and I've already started making alternative plans for Christmas 2008, as I'm sure we wont be invited back next year!! :P

Other than the sickness, we had a great time catching up with the family and the girls just LOVE meeting up with all the cousins, and of course the INDOOR POOL! Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough again this year to put us all up at a local hotel. Its about the only option as all the kids now have at least one baby. I think we had a total of 20 this year (plus 3 dogs!). We were only missing Tammy and her family, as they moved to Arizona this year and were not able to make it back for Christmas. All in all, it was a GREAT weekend! Thanks Jim & Sandi!