American Idol in our future????

Our little girl sings ALL THE TIME...and I really do mean all the time. She LOVES to sing! And, coupled with singing, she is super duper DRAMATIC! I definitely think we have an entertainer on our hands. She loves to make up songs all day long about whatever task she is doing, or if she hears a someone speak a word from the lyrics of one of her favorite songs...it will trigger her to begin singing that song immediately. On the flight back home to Texas, she even serenaded the 'lucky' passengers around her with The My Little Pony song for the entire 5 hour flight.

I have been collecting these videos of her singing for the last several months & I am finally ready to compile them into one blog post. These videos are of her singing all her absolute favorite songs...the ones that we have heard over & over & over again. Did I mention that she sings these songs repeatedly???? :-)

Derek & I watch American Idol, and last season Adam Lambert was on the show. And he is quite the entertainer. At one point, his mom gave an interview about him as a child. She said something along the lines of how unbelievably loud he was a child...that he would just scream for the sake of screaming when he was a toddler...then the screaming turned into loud singing...and, the loud singing never stopped! At this point in the interview, Derek & I looked at each other with wide eyes and started cracking up laughing. Adam Lambert's Mom had just described our baby girl exactly! So, who knows what is in store for our little entertainer in the future.

Singing Jingle Bells at Christmas time:

Singing a song from Little Mermaid: (Sorry you have to listen to me sing on this one too! She is reenacting the movie on the stairs though...the scene where Ariel is perched on the rocks singing to Prince Eric...too cute!)

Singing Bear Necessities from The Jungle Book:

Singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star & I'm wishing from Snow White:

And, lastly...here is the song she sings the most...a song from her My little Pony movie. I almost didn't post this video because the quality is HORRIBLE. The video is so dark that you can hardly see her, but you can definitely still HEAR her! So, I posted it anyway since it is her favorite song.

I hope you all have enjoyed The Andi-Palooza!

Kemah Fun

The VERY first thing Dawson wanted to do when we moved back to Texas, was spend the day at Kemah. So, we flew into town from MN & the very next day we took the boy to ride rides at the carnival. He is such a little dare-devil & will ride everything he is tall enough for! I'm sure we will be back many times this summer.

The boys waiting in line

Riding the wagon wheel...they are CRAZY!

Some more funny shots riding the wagon wheel...

And, this is why I LOVE my husband...oh yeah, he is riding in the tiny airplanes!

We ate dinner on the patio of Landrys & this was our gorgeous sunset view

Dawson & his Hettie

And, here he is with all his Kemah loot: a light up sword & his new Scooby that he named 'Scooby Dooby Blue.'

What my eyes have seen...

Well, this is my final blog post about Bemidji, Minnesota. I whole heartedly fell in love with this town, it's people & it's beautiful countryside. Our time spent there was such an amazing adventure & I miss it terribly. It was really neat to watch the seasons changing before my eyes. This is what I saw while living there...through the lens of my camera of course.

This shed was located across the street from our house.

This is the main road that our street was off of.

Living Room window

Our Cabin

Buena Vista Ski Resort

Kitchen window

Our street

Sunroom

Birch trees

Every day when Andi was napping, Dawson & I would walk down to the lake. In the image on the right, it was -25 degrees outside with a -50 degree wind chill. He's a trooper!

Turtle Lake
And although our time there is over, I know that someday I will have to go back...because I am pretty sure I left a part of myself there.

Minnesota Farewell Bar-B-Q

Our sweet friends, The Riches family, threw us a farewell bar-b-q our last week in town. Brian & Jenny have twin boys Aiden & Avery who are three years old. They are such a sweet family & I hate that we were just really starting to get to know them really well...right when it was time for us to move away!

Here is Brian giving a tractor ride to all the munchkins!

Here was our beautiful grill master!

Everyone at the table. Another family from church, The Hamlin family, was there too.

The big boys playing baseball.

Jenny, Evangeline & me

And here are the little cuties: Aiden & Avery

We hope to make it back to MN next summer so we can hang out with these awesome friends again!

School Easter Program

Right before we left Minnesota, the kids preschool put on an adorable Easter Program. Each class performed individually & Andi's class went first:

singing 'Little ones to HIM belong...'

singing 'The Bible tells me so.'

Here is her entire class on stage.

And, this was the most adorable part. Each child got to say a 'line' into the microphone. Each 'line' was the Easter story summarized by that particular child. So, some of them said things like 'Jesus got owies'...but my sweet girl Andi chose to say 'I love my Mommy.' We were all really surprised that she even spoke into the microphone at all! Here she is with her favorite teacher Mrs Charboneau.

Here they are praying for their snack at the end of the program. Andi absolutely refuses to hold hands with boys! I love it!

Then Dawson's class was next:

How cute is he??? He was SO nervous!

His whole class performing

Dawson with his teacher Miss Kim. Dawson's line was 'After 3 days, the angel came & moved the boulder.' He did so good! I was a very proud Mama.

Whole class again, about to pray together.

And here is Dawson with 'his girls!'

What a blessing this last school year was for my children! Thank you Calvary Lutheran preschool for loving my kiddos.

Easter 09

Easter this year was pretty interesting. The Saturday before Easter, Derek & I decided we would do our own little egg hunt for the kids. The bad part was that it had snowed a little overnight & it was FREEZING outside all day Saturday with horiffic wind chills. But, we braved the weather for a few minutes...and I literally mean just a few minutes...for a small egg hunt. Brrr rabbit!

The kids about to go outside for the hunt...isn't this a cute pic?

Dawson putting eggs in Andi's basket for her...sweet boy!

This pose was Dawson's idea of course.

And the 'acting like we like each other' shot...

And here they are on Easter Sunday. I had the kids by myself on Sunday because Derek was in California for a job interview. The church we attend here in town does not have classes for kids during the service. They are a small congregation, so they all go to class at 9:30, and then they all go to service at 10:30....which means we have to keep our two crazy red heads quiet & occupied during service each week. It is a tough job, one that definitely takes both Derek & I to accomplish. So, since Derek wasn't there to help me, I decided to take the kids to another church that DID have class for them during service. That way I could enjoy Easter Sunday. Well, we get there & because it was a holiday...you guessed it, no classes. I decided to stay & give it a try even though I had not brought a thing with me to keep the kids entertained. We made it about half way through the sermon before we had to rudely leave (Andi kept climbing over the pew in front of us & throwing her stuffed animal at everyone around her). I thought I would attempt to take the kids out for a nice lunch then...but all the restaurants were closed for the holiday. So, we just ended up picking up Taco Bell on the way home. And that was an interesting Easter...

A little Minnesota Nice

When we first moved to Minnesota, everyone seemed to recommend the cafe 'Minnesota Nice Cafe.' Apparently the owner of the cafe is a retired school cafeteria chef. She had always dreamed of opening her own restaurant & finally did so when she retired. We have eaten there several times over this last year & they are famous for their traditional Minnesota hotdishes.

But, the name of the cafe sounded so funny to us. The first time we ate there, we were kind of giggling about what an odd name it was....but soon after that, we finally learned what it meant. One day I was standing in line at the grocery store and I struck up a conversation with the lady in front of me because the cashier (or teller as they call it) was going incredibly slow. Since I kept looking at my watch worrying I was going to be late picking the kids up from school, the nice lady in line in front of me let me go ahead of her. She said "Here...I'll show you a little Minnesota nice." Ahh-haa! I thought...that's what it means. From then on, we heard that phrase many times. Most people, when they found out we were here temporarily, would say 'I really hope people have showed you some Minnesota nice.' And, they definitely have.

Springtime = Eagles!

Once the snow melted, all the eagles came out to play. On a daily basis, we usually see several flying around. The other day, Derek & I were driving to a restaurant to eat lunch when we saw a bunch of eagles flying over the road. We pulled over so I could take some pics. I didn't have my big zoom lense with me, but I thought these turned out pretty cool.

Our last Minnesota visitor...

In the middle of March, my little bro came up for a visit on his spring break. Unfortunately for him, the snow had melted away too much to ski, but we still got to do some 'winter' things.

Here is Brett with the kiddos...they are watching a funny youtube video.

Brett & Dawson on the lake...it was still safe to walk on but in the process of melting, so kind of scary!

We invented a new sport in our backyard: sled boarding! Go Brett!

Brett about to chunk a snowball at Dawson...isn't my 'baby' brother so grown up & handsome?

And...here is Brett getting totally pegged by a snowball from Dawson

Of course, we had to take the staple photo with Paul Bunyun! And, Brett's visit concludes our Minnesota visits from family & friends. In just a few weeks, we are Texas bound!