Heidi's First Little Kid Birthday Party

Last weekend, we had Heidi's 5th birthday party where she was able to invite her friends, in addition to family. She was so excited to be able to send the invitations in the mail, and have them all attend :-) My mom threw it for her, but let her help in the planning. The theme was set to be Disney Princess for the girls, and the boys could have pirate place settings and souvineers. This is what the table setting looked like:

My mom even let Heidi get a Cinderella dress because she was going to be the "belle of the ball" for her party. My only stipulation for her getting it, was that I got to fix her hair like cinderella's hair :-)


All the kids got to my parents house, and once they were all dressed up, we took a group picture. From back row to front, left to right, they are Dominic, Drew, Heidi, Zach, Nora, Ella, and Vivian.

The party included coloring and drawing a maze, different versions of pin the tail on the donkey, a pinata, and of course presents, cake and ice cream.


Kylie did her own thing for most of the party, but we did manage to get a picture of her with one of the pirate hats on.......

All the kids had such a great time, and once the party was done, they stuck around and played for a while with her new toys. I'm so glad to know that they have friends here to have play dates with. I think it has made their transition to living in a new place just a little bit easier!
I cannot believe Heidi is 5 years old already. The time has gone by so fast! I love talking to her when she gets home from school about what she learned that day and seeing just how excited and proud she is to be able to know those things. She is such a big girl now!

Disney on Ice

Forgive me, but I am behind once again! With school starting, my life has been upside down :-) Two weeks ago, we went to go see Disney on Ice. My mom and I took the three oldest kids with Cara, Mason, and Meg. They all had so much fun! The show was comprised of "Cars", "Little Mermaid", "Lion King", and the main event was "Tinkerbell"..... oh and of course Mickey, Minnie, and the other main characters were there also. We rode the metro (train) over to the event center and the kids thought that the train ride was their surprise for the day! Drew especially loved it.

Once we got to the actual event center, Heidi and Zach were pretty excited to see exactly what was going on, but Zach was starting to get pretty tired too. After posing for some pictures in front of some of the princess displays (that was an early event you could take advantage of, but it was so crowded it wasn't really worth it),


we found our seats and went on concession runs. The kids got to enjoy popcorn, snow cones, cotton candy, etc... pretty much everything that they are usually told "no" to, so they knew this was going to be a big deal! This is the end of the row (minus Drew, me and my mom):

A few pictures from the show:






The finale was just beautiful with all the colors and all the major Disney characters coming back out! All the kids had so much fun, and the looks on their faces were just priceless. Heidi said her favorite was Tinkerbell, and Drew and Zach liked Cars. Zach ended up fighting off sleep until the train ride back home, but Drew only made it shortly past intermission :-)


Once we got back to Grammy's house, all the toys and goodies the kids got at the show made an appearance. The cotton candy came with cute little hats attached to it. The "girl" one was a flower from Tinkerbell, and the "boy" one was lightning mcqueen. Heidi also got a cinderella barbie and a tinkerbell t-shirt that she bought with her birthday money. Zach got a sword and Drew got some Mickey Mouse binoculars which are very cute!




I was so proud of the kids that day. They all behaved so well, sat still, and didn't give us any troubles, despite the lack of nap and excess of sugar :-) Makes me confident that we can enjoy another event like that some day!

Happy 5th Birthday Heidi!

With no school on her birthday, she was more than thrilled to open a couple presents first thing in the morning. Most of them were clothes, but she did get to open a littlest pet shop animal and a Disney princess watch. Once the boys went down for nap, I let her open the present that my mom got her. Her face when she saw how big it was is priceless!

and opening the gift was just as exciting....

She got a Cinderella castle that came with princesses and their princes, and is basically like a doll house. She has played with it non-stop since opening it, and shows it to anyone who comes over :-)

That night, my grandma had planned a birthday dinner for Heidi over at her house. She made her famous chicken and dumplings and a wonderful chocolate birthday cake for dessert. The party came complete with Cinderella plates and napkins, and a candle to top the cake.

Heidi felt like quite the little princess that day, and she got to wear her favorite dress that evening. She opened a few presents that night and loved all of them :-)

She just saw the camera that she got! Then this was her response when Drew tried to grab it. Haha.

After a long day, all the kids were ready to go home and get to bed. Heidi took some time to snuggle with PaPaw and her new Sleeping Beauty barbie while we were getting everything packed up.

We have her little kid birthday party planned as well, with the rest of the family and some of her friends that live near my parents. With things being so hectic with the move and getting settled in, and the men working on our new house, we thought it was just too much to try and plan a party right around her birthday.... So, more of those party pictures to come next weekend!

Heidi Starts Pre-School

On the day before her 5th birthday, Heidi started pre-school! She was so excited to go, but I don't think she really knew exactly what to expect. She was up early in the morning, just as we always are in our house, and had plenty of time before we had to leave the house. When we were picking out her clothes the night before, she knew exactly which green shirt she wanted to wear on her first day. I was instructed by my "oh so sentimental" husband that I was not allowed to take lots of pictures at the school, so I took a couple of her before we left. She looked so cute in her new coat with her backpack on, not to mention very grown up!

The ensemble was complete with the apple she took for her teacher!

She was showing off her Barbie backpack that she picked out :-) After we dropped her off and we were walking out of her classroom, she yelled "bye mom, bye dad" with such excitement in her voice, that it made it easy for me to be sad and cry (which I totally expected myself to do). Her teacher quickly called us back in the room to take a picture with her before we left (making me very happy) but Danny didn't want to be in it.... I was a giddy Mom who loved every minute of the opportunity!

The first week of school was a success! Her birthday was on the second day of school, and we had cookies all ready to take for her to share with the rest of the kids in her class... and then we got a bit of an ice storm and school was cancelled. She was very disappointed, but was quickly reassured when we told her she would still get to celebrate the next day when school resumed. When that day came, the principal announced her birthday over the intercome so the whole school knew it was her birthday and she got to wear a birthday hat all day. Her teacher told us that she felt pretty special! She was also student of the week during the first week of school. (They usually try to pick the week of their birthday to make them student of the week) This meant that her picture was on a poster outside of the classroom with information about her for all to read and help them get to know her.
Her teacher also informed us that she is quite the social bug and made friends very easily. She came home on Wednesday with a personalized birthday card from a little boy in her class named Ryan. Daddy wasn't so fond of that though :-)
In the just one week that she has been there, she has learned so much. I hear her saying tidbits of things here and there that she obviously picked up in class and it makes me so proud and sad at the same time. For some reason, she finds it funny to keep everything she does a secret from Mommy. She will tell Daddy, Grammy, and PaPaw all about it, but if I ask any questions, they get met with a monotone "yes" or "no", quickly followed by, "I can't tell you, its a secret". I'm not sure what is up with that, but she better get over it quickly!
Needless to say, she is very excited to head back next week and I am very pleased with the school she is going to.

Christmas / New Years in Illinois

After we all made the long drive to Illinois, the kids were ready to open presents at my parents house. All of the adults, however, were exhausted and ready for bed :-) The compromise meant that they got to open all the presents except for the ones from Uncle Kevin and Kenny, and my scatterbrain forgot to get any sort of camera out! But in my defense, nobody managed to have one ready. That meant that lots of pictures were taken when they were finally able to open the presents that Kevin and Kenny got them.

As you can tell, Heidi ended up getting that nasty cold virus that was going around my family, which also caused a cold sore on her lip. I suppose for her sake, that was better than getting the flu just after her surgery. She is showing off a pretty new princess puzzle.

Kylie absolutely loves this fish bowl that my grandma got her. She spends a lot of her time playing with it!

Zach is super excited about his "Cars" game for their new VTech VSmile! He plays it all the time and is quite the master at all the games the kids got!
And then there is Drew :-) He probably had the most fun on this night with the stuffed animals they got from Kung Fu Panda. As the video shows, he decided to make them fight, and then when he was done, he pretended to lay down and go to sleep on them. He had us all on the floor with laughter!

The night they ended up opening these gifts was also New Years Eve. Great Grandma and Grandpa Russell came over for a prime rib dinner that Danny cooked, and it was quite delicious I might add! He also played bartender and made his own version of his brother Joe's margaritas. It was fun watching my mom get tipsy and seeing how hard we all laughed at eachother. We all played a game on the Wii that had darts, ski ball, and other fun classics on it. Not surprisingly, Dan and I did not stay awake until midnight. I have yet to do so since any of my children were born. It's sad, I know, but unfortunately its the truth. I'm told that even my grandparents (who are 86 and 87) didn't go home until after they rang in the new year with my parents! My brother was also in town with his girlfriend and their puppy. My kids are typically not too fond of dogs, but they did gain a liking to Bregan (not sure how to spell that). Zach got this stuffed animal and spent the evening walking it on his make shift leash. Very cute!

Drew decided to join in on some of the festivities, and tried a sip of Mommy's margarita. And, PaPaw and Uncle Brian helped Kylie join in the fun, letting her pretend and play with an unopened can of beer.


Happy New Year to everybody! 2009 is bringing about lots of changes for our family and we are looking forward to them all.

Christmas 2008 in Nebraska

Christmas this year was VERY hectic! The season always brings busy times and catching up, but for us, this year was especially bad. Getting ready to move has consumed all of our time, along with a short bout of the flu. I'm grateful that we were able relax and enjoy the time with family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
The night before Christmas Eve is always the annual cookie decorating celebration in the Krajicek home. This year was no different! There are two different categories of cookies... traditionally decorated and creative. Creative means taking a regular holiday shaped cookie and making something different out of it. Danny decided to take up the art of gingerbread houses last year and did it again in 2008, while the rest of us stuck to the sugar cookies. I was in another room wrapping presents for the beginning of the festivities, so I only got a couple "action" shots. Mine and Danny's "finished products" are shown also.... notice the Santa, sleigh, and reindeer on the roof of the gingerbread house :-)





The next day we loaded up the crew and went to Grandma Frederick's house to celebrate Christmas with that side of the family. All of the kids had a ball playing together and opening presents. It was a bit of a long day for us though, with Kylie getting a bad cold virus the day before and only sleeping one hour through the night. She was still feeling awful all day Christmas Eve and was only able to take a one hour nap all day long! On top of that, Zach got the flu just before present opening, but that didn't detour his excitement when he opened his "engine" turtles (as he calls them, Ninja turtles to the rest of us)! Kylie had fun playing in the wrapping paper from all the presents and climbing on the boxes, despite her inability to breathe. Heidi, on the other hand, was feeling really good and coming off of her tonsillectomy, I was glad! She let me curl her hair for the day (a rarity for her) and I think she liked it... she let me do it again the next day :-) I think Drew was a bit overwhelmed this year. He enjoyed the whole present thing to a point, and talking about Santa, but having it all at once threw him for a loop. In the weeks since Christmas though, he has thoroughly enjoyed all his presents! It must have taken time for him to process it all, including the move.




Christmas day we headed to the festivities for the Krajicek side of Dan's family. Once again, all the kids ran around and played all day, even Drew who was beginning to get Kylie's cold virus and had a high fever for much of the day. As long as he had medicine to get it down, he was good to go :-) Thankfully, Zach and Kylie had a much better day also. That evening we went back to Dan's parents house and opened presents with his siblings. We were able to get a very nice family picture also, but unfortunately, I don't have it on my computer to share it. And, I chose to have the video camera out vs. our digital, so I don't have any pictures at all of Christmas Day. We were definitely all very blessed with an extremely nice Christmas though!