This thing sucks...literally

It is a known fact among our Omaha friends that we have the crappiest vacuum sweeper in existence. It was not that way when we bought it, but six years of sucking up sand, hair, rocks, cracker bits, and numerous other crumby substances has taken its toll. About every two months, the belt would break right in the middle of vacuuming, meaning someone had to go to Sears real quick and get some new ones. That got old really fast. Well, on Saturday night, the constant trips to Sears for belts ended right where they had begun. Here it is, folks, the Kenmore Progressive Inteli-Clean. It's the #1 Consumer Report pick, I might add. And guess what - it's beltless! Oh, Mr. Salesman, say no more. I'm sold. We got it out Sunday night, and Chris wanted to do a side-by-side comparison with our old Kenmore. Sounded like fun to me. We turned the old one on and gasped in shock... the belt was broken.

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Our Kids Rock

Chris is amazed with Kaylee's imagination. I am too, considering that there's no way she got it from me. Here she is in her boat. She did, however, get her concern for safety from me - she's wearing her life jacket! This picture was also taken the same day we took Kaylee to see her first movie, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Veggie Tale's Movie." She loved it! Just ask her about it sometime.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Good news... for now anyway

The report from the doctor was a little better than I expected. She said there's probably a 50/50 chance that we'll have to do another set of tubes on Kaylee. I figured we'd be scheduling the surgery for next week or something. The infection that was there had cleared up, so that's a good sign. We're going back in for a check-up in 6 weeks, and then we'll go from there. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for her today! It really means a lot to us.

Ears

Some of you know that Kaylee got tubes in her ears right before her first birthday. Well, at her check-up in October, one of the tubes had fallen out, which is normal, and the other one was still working fine. The ear without the tube has now been infected at least two times in the last three months, one of those times being right now. She doesn't ever complain about her ear hurting, so I had no idea it was infected. Anyway, we're on antibiotic now, but we have an appointment scheduled with the ear surgeon for Monday morning. We're probably looking at another set of tubes. Please pray for Kaylee and for us as we look at a possible surgery. That's scary for a Mommy and Daddy, even though we've already done it before.

Just Pictures

Nothing exciting happening at our house... just funny things that can best be explained in pictures. It's snowing here today. How's that for excitement? `

I now introduce to you Kaylee & Lauryn Potato Head.

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Our Girls...

Am I not the cutest thing you ever did see?

Arrrrrrr, matey! I'm Captain Hook!

A Weekend Getaway

Chris and I celebrated our 6th anniversary on Saturday. It still feels like yesterday... Anyway, we went down to Kansas City to stay at Chateau Avalon for the weekend, in the Jesse James Escape suite. My parents met us in KC and took the girls home with them. We had a great time seeing movies, eating out, and just spending time together. We actually saw two movies in the theater, something we rarely get to do, and we watched another movie in our room on Saturday night! We would recommend Chateau Avalon to you all. Every room is a different theme, and they all have jacuzzi tubs! This is a picture of our room. Back through the doorway was the bedroom, and our jacuzzi was built into those rocks on the left.

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The Three Muskateers

I know that my sister-in-law, Brenda, already posted this picture on her blog, but I thought it was worth posting on mine too. It's of Kaylee, Ally, and Drew celebrating Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma Klaassen's house. Lauryn got left out of this one, but she'll be big enough for group photos soon.

You Take the Good with the Bad

We were so excited to have Chris's cousin, Nate, his wife Kari, and their five girls, Taylar, Aubree, Kylie, McKenna, and Shiloh visit us on Thursday. They were passing through on their way home to Colorado and spent a night with us. The girls had so much fun playing together. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the aftermath in Kaylee's room.

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We found places for everyone to sleep, but then at 3:00am, with two other girls in bed with her, I heard the words every mother dreads, "Mommy, I puked!" Are you kidding me? So, we got everyone up, changed the sheets and blankets, put Aubree and Kylie back to bed, and laid Kaylee down with us. Not 10 minutes later, she threw up in our bed. So, it's back up, change the sheets on our bed, put Chris back to bed, and Kaylee and I ended up in the recliner for the rest of the night. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep. About every half hour, she was dry heaving over the trash can. Poor kid. The last puke (hopefully) was at 10:00 yesterday morning. Today is a better day. Let's hope it stays that way.

We're back! It feels good to be home, although we did have a great time in Kansas and Iowa celebrating Christmas with our families. Kaylee had lots of fun opening presents this year. I think she would have opened all of hers in about 5 minutes if we'd let her. She only managed to open one present that wasn't hers while no one was looking. Sorry, Rhonda! Chris and Kaylee took down the Christmas tree yesterday while I went grocery shopping. Man, a person can sure spend some money at Wal-Mart when they've barely been home in the last week and a half! Anyway, all is pretty much back to normal around here, and I'm sure Kaylee is already looking forward to Christmas 2008!

Lauryn wasn't having as much fun as the rest of us.

Taking down the Christmas tree...