Alicia groovin' to Sister Hazel

Sunday afternoon we took a trip to the Brookfield Zoo with the Haneys. It was really more of a trip to see Sister Hazel play at the Zoo Toons concert, but we managed to sneak in a few animal vists as well. Alicia and Samantha got a real treat, as they got to meet the lead singer, Ken Block, from Sister Hazel! Alicia even managed to get a little seranade from Ken as well. This is how it happened... When we asked for a picture with him, we got a few minutes of conversation as well, which was awesome. Alicia was a bit scared at first, more nervous I think, since we actually were meeting the lead singer from Sister Hazel! So anyways.. I told him that Alicia likes to dance to their music and then he asked what was our favorite song and we said "Green" and like two seconds later, Ken starts out in "Welcome to the world, oh yeah...A very unusual place...Don't let that scare you..." and wow, Alicia's reaction was awesome, she totally calmed down and looked at him and was like wow... I heard that voice before.. just a way cool experience for all of us. Anyways, Sister Hazel put on a great concert, despite the rain coming down in the middle of their set.
I've put in another gallery link for you all to view as we had to many picotures to try and cut down, also you can view a couple of videos too there that were too big to post to blogger. One is of Alicia groovin' on top of a Polar Bear and the other is a real WWF Gorilla Matchup :) - too bad Alicia was sleeping during the entire visit to the Monkey houses... :( but she did manage to wake up to see some Penguins. Enjoy the pics.
http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.kluesner/SisterHazelZooTrip?authkey=46KK57NE3dE


Alicia not so sure right now of this all...
Here's Ken singing to Alicia.



Alicia looking at Ken right after he sang to her... gotta love the look she is giving him.. like interesting... I've heard that voice before...

Katie, Samantha, Ken from Sister Hazel, Alicia and Heather

splishsplash

Friday night Alicia was enjoying some puddles in our driveway area. She had her water shoes on when we went outside to see the neighbors, and well., kids will be kids, and sure enough, she went right for the puddles. It actually surprised me at first as she used to hate getting her feet wet like this! But now she seemed to enjoy it a lot...






Dave and Wrigley enjoying some kid time.

Here's Alicia and the neighbor boy, Justin, splashing around having fun.

at the farm

Last Sunday, we stopped by Uncle Eric and Aunt Vera's house to visit with the family while we were back in town. Alicia sure had a lot of fun at the farm. Alicia saw "moos," "bgrrr," "woof," and "meoaws" - basically she saw cows, tractors, a puppy dog, and kitty cats in Alicia talk :) It was pretty cute. I think she is about ready for a zoo trip again. She really is starting to get more aware of what's really around her and making connections. Today we had her two therapists at the house, and she was doing so awesome, compared to previous weeks. She probably did about 10 solid words and a handful of word approximations. It was awesome.

congrats to Todd and Ann

Aunt Ann got married over the weekend to Todd! Alicia was honorary flower girl, she did not partake in the full flower girl tradition, but she did get to wear a beautiful dress and be cute :) We are so happy for Todd and Ann and we're glad that the day went great. Alicia was so tired that she didn't even make it through the wedding ceremony at the church. Thanks to Grandma Kloss, Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Billy for watching Alicia for us during the church portions, and for all of the other Uncles and Aunts for helping at the reception. Alicia really did great the entire day considering it all. We didn't have any real tantrums and blow-ups, so other than the normal 2 year old behavior she did great. She was a bit overwhelmed later in the evening with all of the reception excitement, so she became a little attached to mommy and daddy. but it was ok, she still was a cutie pie...She did manage to dance a couple of dances, but it was on her own terms, and most of the time not even on the dance floor, she preferred the lobby area were it was much brighter :) oh well, what can you ask from a 2 year old right ?! :)

for more pictures from the big wedding day, go here... http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.kluesner/PicturesFromArnoldSWedding?authkey=-Im-nhcbqz0

happy father's day

Happy father's day to daddy!
Daddy and I got to enjoy some good card playing on father's day. It was a lot of fun.










Last week, at daycare we had a party to honor all of the daddies, where we made lots of treats and goodies for them to enjoy.







Here's daddy wearing his tie that that I made for him with my own hands!










Also, happy father's day to grandpa, too!

visiting the Ford family's new home

We got to visit the Ford's new home over the weekend. Wow, they sure found a great find in this housing market. We are so happy for them and them and hope we have the same great luck they did in finding such a nice home :) Kaylee was very excited about her new room - she got a cute new room with lady bugs and other various adorable painted scenes on her bedroom walls.

Alicia decided she wanted to eat supper with a baby doll that night, she would not put it down! I guess she thought the doll needed some extra care that night...
Below, Samantha and Alicia enjoy the Ford's backyard and walking trail, here they are holding hands and trying to "walk" or kinda turned into more like dancing.. :)

Speaking of dancing, Alicia was in a hand holding mood I guess, as she even allowed Carl to hold her hand while they danced and jumped around... by the way, Rachel if you have the video of the kids dancing I soo want to post it, mine was cut off and didn't turn out well.
And well, in early celebration for this weekend, here are the kids (Lucas, Carl and Alicia) and the dads.. they sure were enjoying the walking trail and exploring the area.

happy early father's day to everyone...

daycare fun

Last Monday, Alicia's daycare room celebrated her birthday with ice cream at snack time. The kids were too cute... "happee birfday" was a pretty common phrase for some of the other older ones in her room... :) We are still working on Alicia to say "2" on que when someone asks how old she is, but that'll come eventually. Oh well... Here's some of the kids in her room enjoying their party treat! They sure enjoyed it and didn't get too messy in the meantime.

Here's Alicia and her daycare friends enjoying ice cream at snack time in honor of her birthday.

Alicia had another treat at snack time - mommy! I was able to leave work a bit early that day to pick her up and serve the treats at snack time :)

more pics

As promised, here's a link to a bunch of photos from Alicia's 2nd birthday bash.

http://picasaweb.google.com/heather.kluesner/Alicia2ndbday?authkey=t2CbROZHgis

Here's also a couple of good group shots from various others..

Kids in attendance

Kaylee, Lucas, Alicia, Carl, Samantha, Reese, Roger

sneak peek

I promise, I will upload an entire picasa album for you all to look at later this week, but I know a lot of you are wanting to see some pics from Alicia's adventure-packed birthday, so here you go. Again, thanks to all for coming and celebrating such a wonderful day for with us. Often we forget how boring (and empty) our lives might have been without such excitement from our kids... enjoy

If anybody has a good picture of all the kids together, please let me know... mine is not so great...



I think this is my favorite picture of the entire day. Hope you had the happiest best 2nd birthday, sweet peanut.