Kindergarten Round-Up Time

It is so hard for me to believe that my baby is going to be going to kindergarten next year! When did she get this old! I have talked to her a little bit about school but she gets really sad every time that we talk about it because she will miss Andera from daycare and her friends. I will miss having my buddy to hang out with 1-2 days a week. The days that I am off and she stays home with me are special for both of us. A lot of times we bum on those days and stay in our pjs and watch TV for way too long. We eat out sometimes or get a cinnamon roll from Sugar Bee bakery. Sometimes we shop or run errands but that isn't what Emmy wants to do so a lot of times I save my home stuff to get done for the days that she is with me. I bake, meal prep or clean up and she stays busy playing babies, painting, doing play dough etc. I will miss our days home together. It is also hard for me to picture Emmy being able to handle 5 days of school a week and getting her out the door each morning on time seems like it will be an impossible task.

She was really nervous to go to Kindergarten round up but she was also excited. She enjoyed her morning there. She got to watch a movie, make a craft and look around the classrooms. I hope she loves it!

Supporting a Friend

This was the first year that Abby and her friend Addison didn't dance at the same studio. I think they are both happy with where they have ended up but it was still a little sad to not have them dancing together. We were still able to go to Addison's recital and cheer her on.

Playing Nebraska One Volleyball

Abby had played volleyball for the YMCA for a couple years but her last team had 11 players on it, which meant no one got very much playing time and we felt like it was time to have a coach that really coached volleyball instead of just knew the rules of the game. She tried out and made the non travel team. Everyone that was able to play at all made the non travel team. Abby, Addison, Maddie and Claire from Norris all played together on the same team. They had a really sweet coach that was a player on the Weslyan team. She taught them over hand serving and they overall learned a lot about volleyball playing on the One Z team. Robb and I will both say that club volleyball brought with it quite the sticker shock but it seems to be something that Abby really loves so we want to give her all the chances we can to continue playing as she gets older. 

This year they have to ref the games that they don't play in for the tournaments. This was very new to Abby and she doesn't love it but I guess it teaches them the rules of the game. They played in the YMCA spirit games and then they had 3 tournaments that they played in too.

Easter at the Lutz's

This year Bobs birthday fell on Easter weekend so we celebrated his birthday on Saturday with a pizza party. Susie made homemade gluten free crust and she made woodfire grilled pizza. It was fun laid back night. Bob and Susie hosted Easter but we have to share time so before we headed back to Lincoln on Sunday we stopped by to say Hi to Grammy.

Easter with Mom

We attended church with the Lutz's on Easter morning but then we headed to moms for lunch. Susie made the girls super cute dresses this year. I love the floral print!

Emmy and Weston always have the best time together! They are wild and crazy and all the extra candy doesn't help. 

The weather was nice enough that we were able to do an outdoor egg hunt.

The older kids looked for eggs like it was a competitive sport!

Grandma Jody and the kids

Jim and Barb with the kids

Happy Easter

We were headed to Norfolk for Easter so our crazy Easer Bunny brought the baskets on Friday night. It was the year of the sports ball. Basketball for Bryce, Golf balls for Caleb, and Volleyballs for the girls.

Easter Egg Hunt at Daycare

Andrea is the best daycare provider! Every year she plans a big Easter Egg Hunt for the kids. They look forward to it all month! They each have a certain color of egg or a certain amount of eggs that they can get. She also buys fun things like bubbles, wands, balls etc that they get to find too. Emerson had a blast!

Doing our Part

It was hard to sit around and see the devastation that so many people were facing in communities close to us. Tasha and I decided that we wanted to do something to help so we organized supplies and loaded a semi truck for the day at one of the local churches. Emmy was home with my for the day so she also got to help. It was fun to see her be so into giving back and being helpful. 

Nebraska Flooding

While Bob and Susie were in Chicago we got crazy weather! It was really cold and then it warmed up enough to rain instead of snow but we got a ton of rain. Lincoln got a 3 inch down pour in a matter of hours. This was a recipe for disaster all over. The ground was still frozen so no water could soak in. Gutters and down spouts were frozen so water was getting in houses and basements. The large amount of snow we had piled up from a large snowstorm a week earlier also started to melt. There was water everywhere! Norfolk had went into a flood warning and it escalated quickly into an evacuation order for all of low lying Norfolk which included Steph and her family and Mom. I had talked to Steph the night before and she was in tears because their basement that they had started to renovate was flooding with muddy water and the water just kept coming. At work she was taking calls from people who were floating away in cars and there was a tragic death of a fire fighters brother who had drove into a flooded area and been washed away. Norfolk was declaring a state of emergency and the worst part was no roads were open to get there. We couldn't even get there to help them clean up the basement. The next morning I got a frantic call early in the morning that all low lying areas of Norfolk needed to immediately evacuate because they were worried that the levee was going to breech. After a couple quick phone calls I got a hold of Bob and Susie (they weren't in the evacuation zone) to see if Steph, Lester the dogs and my mom could all go stay at their house while they were away. I knew this was a ton to ask but I felt so helpless! They of course agreed and they all spent the next 2 days at the Lutz's house until things got back to a safe level in Norfolk. The flooding devastated so many areas of the Midwest! Roads into Iowa are still closed 9 months later and so many people lost livestock, fields and homes. The pictures and stories are hard to hear of how bad it got in some areas. The bridge by Niobrara was closed and the Spencer dam gave way sending truck size ice chunks flooding through towns and rural areas. Lincoln wasn't hugely affected by the flooding since we aren't bordered by any major bodies of water, but all of Lincoln's water supply comes from Ashland and at one point it became a huge concern as to if we would be able to continue to get water from the Ashland plant. The large amount of debris in the water knocked out a couple of the wells and at one point they only had enough water stored for Lincoln for one day. At the time they didn't let onto how bad this could be but Lincoln first went into a voluntary water conservation plan where they urged people to not wash clothes or run dishwashers. 8 hours later they were mandating that businesses that relied heavily on water usage shut down. They had banned laundry, dishwashers, urged people not to shower and not to flush the toilet. Then people panicked. Bottled water was flying off the shelf like crazy! Restaurants were serving food on all paper products and even hospitals were ordered to decrease water usage by 25% and household by at least 50%. This is about the only time I have been thankful that we have rural water. That only last 2 days and then things were up and running I had just never had a water crisis happen. It was pretty crazy.