Hanson Crew

So it looks like the cooling fan in our computer is dying (or is dead?), not sure...it turns off most of the time it is on and says "Service your cooling fan right away"...anyway, I think we will be out for a few days while John tries to put a new one in...so no blogging for a few days. Just in case we are not back on by Friday - Have a great 4th of July :)

So John shared this great website he found at work one day with me last night. This site is a collection of photographs (mostly panoramas) that have been taken using a gigapixels camera. It allows you to zoom way into the photograph and is amazing (basically it takes a million small snapshots inside the one big panoramic). John thought this would be a great investigation tool for a crime scene... My favorite pictures were of the Boston Waterfront and the Grand Canyon . When you find a picture you like, there will be snapshot photos on the bottom that you can click on (i.e. a flag) and it will automatically zoom into that part of the picture for you. You can also just zoom in yourself using the zoom function on the left to look around the picture (this was pretty cool with a graduation picture to check out the people in the stands). It is truly awesome! Enjoy!

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. Check them out at http://wordle.net/ . Here is the book of Romans, one of my favorite books (click on the image to see it bigger)...thanks to Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds , for this idea. We might have to add some color to one and print it for a bathroom frame...

So I am not sure if Joshua gets this "please don't take my picture again" look from mom or dad, but he has mastered it. John thought he looked cute because he had put his helmet on backwards and it was 3 times bigger than his head...we are hoping he is in a better mood when we try to take new pictures for our living room on Sunday. We'll keep you posted!

So in keeping with the tradition of "momumental or X00th" posts, I am giong to share my 500 favorite quotes...not really, I can barely type a few words in a day. Here is an old favorite song from an old favorite movie called "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles) by the proclaimers. It is actually the song that played when I walked onto the stage to get crowned as Winter Sports Queen my senior year in high school (cheesy I know)! Enjoy!

and our official walker! Taking about 6 or 7 steps at a time, falling, and getting back up!

THE GOOD: Because of all the rain, our garden has really been growing ... We officially have green tomatoes on one plant and have flowers on the other 2 plants and strawberry plant. BOTH GOOD AND BAD: Our Cilantro has really taken off and is about 2 feet tall (although John said it is not good because of the heat it grew too tall and will fall off so the good stuff can grow) THE REALLY BAD: Poison Oak reaching through my neighbors fence into the garden area...we plan to spray it tomorrow when it stops raining with our poison ivy spray so it doesn't get all over our food (both Joshua and I are really allergic) or garden soil!

So I worked on Ashlyn's school website these past couple months and had a lot of fun with it. It was launched last night for the world to see! The neat thing about this project for me is that it was my web page photography debut (in addition to Evers Dental where I updated pictures while working on this project). I went one day to the school and took a bunch of pictures of kids together and studying with my new fancy camera. I tried to do some angles and blurred pictures too. I also added some photo slideshows, similar to the ones on L & B Expressions and our family website . I think it turned out pretty good and it was pretty easy to code since we used a template program for a blog (similar to the one we used for our new church website I shared a while ago). So take a look when you get a chance at http://www.fcaclassical.com/ or click on the image to go there directly...

1. Fresh sweet corn on the cob (coming the first week of July at our favorite farm in Kearney) 2. Swimming (well, usually running through the sprinkler and slip n' sliding because of child ratio per mom) 3. Summer Reading Program at the library (free books are the best!) 4. Drive-in movies 5. Riding bikes and power wheels John Deere 6. Summer Programs at the Library (free and usually right before nap times :) 7. Catching lightening bugs (the kids caught 20 last night at Shepherding Group) 8. Car washes (spraying it yourself, driving through, and washing it yourself in the driveway) 9. Grilling (although we usually do this year round, it is more in the summer) 10. Ice cream (from the store and eaten at home, bought at the parlor, or Popsicles in the backyard!)

Yeah, we finally got our hall and living room all painted to match the new color in the entry way and stairwell... We put up our hobby lobby decal on our main wall above the kids pictures. We are hoping to put some updated pictures in these frames soon too. My vision is to get one of Ashlyn and Jonathan together for the big frame on the left, a family picture in the smaller frame on top, a picture of the four kids on the bottom smaller frame, and one of Caleb and Joshua together on the right...we'll keep you posted. We moved the couch on the bigger wall again with the side tables and matching lamps on each side... I put the sofa table behind the love seat and put it at an angle at the top of the stairs again... I moved the curtains from our bedroom in to bring some other colors into the new look and got a new curtain rod for them. Jonathan kept bending the cheap old old we had when he would look out the window so this was great timing... I moved my "Love is Spoken Here...

We sure are...and already excited for it. We don't watch much TV, but during this time sure enjoy it. Go USA!

So for Christmas I had gotten one of those shirts that look like it would fit on a doll, but stretches really big (I guess to fit the shape of your body). I recently inherited Carol's old shirt too and the kids were playing dress up in my clothes yesterday (in between speech, library fun, and t-ball). It was sure cute to see them walking around in my shoes and clothes holding hands while the other two were napping. I had to take a picture of them while they were playing so great together. Don't you just love these moments...I finally finished painting my hall and living room this week to match my stairs too...I will post pics this weekend. Have a great Friday!

So last night I went to a Scrapbooking class with my friend Cari at Archiver's to learn how to make a School Days Scrapbook. It was so fun and helpful! Because I am so behind with all the baby albums I have started, I agreed to start this one for Ashlyn to do. It seems pretty simple and has a simple pattern to follow for the other pages. We made the first 6 pages in class (K-2) and then got the layout ideas for the other 10 grades. We are going to pick out an album for her and then put these pages in it already made (yes, this is the way I need to do all my albums to get them done I think!) for her to work on. She is excited to have her own and to put the pics, artwork, and fun stuff she would like to include in it. We even talked about maybe doing a monthly scrapbook time in our office/schoolroom alone while the boys go do something else for a couple hours - we'll see if this happens though, I am hoping it does - or bringing this one to hobby night sometimes. The best news is...

So we finally sorted through all 300 pictures we took on our short Omaha trip last week and managed to make a 3 1/2 minute video to share. We will definitely have to go together A next time you come to visit because Abby would really like the zoo...they even got a new Butterfly exhibit that the kids got to see for the first time and really enjoyed... Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Yesterday, we all finally got over a stomach flu we had all weekend and made it to our Kearney Customer Appreciation day at our bank... They had free lunch, pop, cookies, yard sticks, water bottles, sticky notes, coasters, and highlighters. It was sure fun... Because we live in a small town, our bank people all know us very well and enjoy seeing the kids. It was kinda neat to see some other people from Kearney we normally see at stores and our recycle center there too. Jonathan enjoyed playing in the grass there and has started making the "cheesy" smile look all the other kids have mastered. The best news is when we got home there was a message on the machine that Ashlyn won one of the drawings - a brand new dual slip n' slide. This was something the kids had wanted to buy when they saw it at Target earlier and I thought it was a little pricey ...boy, were they all excited to find out that was what she won! So we spent the afternoon/evening running through a new flo...

Once upon a time there lived a calm looking jungle bird (maybe duck) who was drinking by the walking trail in the Jungle Exhibit at the Omaha Zoo. A fun little boy came walking by the little bird and saw him and his curious mind wandered. "Daddy, look at the bird!" Daddy excited to see an animal in arms reach suggests to the young innocent child to go touch it. Mommy just shakes her head in denial. "Oh, look at him daddy. He is so cute." The bird looks a little worried as the little boy who is getting a little too close now giggles. Everyone holds there breath as the boy reaches out his hand... The little boy runs in the opposite direction faster than the mommy can take the picture. The innocent (I mean, vicious ) little bird begins to chase him away. "I guess we shouldn't touch the animals at the zoo," the father laughs out. Again, the mommy shakes her head in denial!

I was browsing the Internet this afternoon for some Father's Day specials at restaurants and came across this neat website to share with my KC friends: http://kceatcheap.com/ Most of these places have Kids Nights, coupons, or specials worth trying some time and would be handy to bookmark for later. Enjoy!

We have our tickets, room, and are so excited already...it was all announced yesterday. Click on the image to preview what we'll learn about!

Waiting for the game to start Her first hit She made it home and then the game was canceled for weather

Grandma Sue got all 3 boys an early Christmas present yesterday at Overstock and man was it a hit! The best news, it was only $140 (brand new and all charged). Ashlyn used to have a pink Barbie Jeep and we gave it away when our house became full of testosterone. We couldn't decide between the Gator and the Firetruck, and ended loving this one more because of the canopy and bigger back tires... Now if we can only figure out how to steer it!

John has always done a traditional bedtime routine with our babies when they are about 9 months to 18 months. We used to have a glider rocker in their nursery (for Ashlyn and Joshua) and he would rock them and sing old hymns to them at bedtime. This was such a great thing we started when our babies were all weaning so they no longer needed me to help fall asleep. So Jonathan continues in our tradition (he is held like Caleb was) starting about a month ago. He loves it and of course can tell the difference when his mommy has to sing to him instead of daddy sometimes when he is not here. He is stuck with children bible songs those days! So anyway, it was cute the other day when I saw him in his car seat getting sleeping and he started to hum. It was clear as day that he was humming a song to fall asleep. Now we can't wait to start hearing him sing Amazing Grace and Come Thou Fount!

Jonathan used some of his birthday money to get these 3 shadow boxes at Gordman's for $14. We sprayed them white and hung them around his hobby lobby decal to help it stand out more. I was excited with the way it came out and think the depth of the boxes really helped this space of the room. I am still looking for different things to put in them, but for now we put some stuff we found in his room already. Don't ya just love Gordman's and all the great decor stuff there for cheap!!

Okay, so many of you are mommy's out there. When we first became mom's we had to learn to balance a home, being a wife, and now a baby. It was hard at times, but we adjusted and if you were like me spent most of your waking (if not sleeping too) hours with your baby. Playing, learning, and shopping were favorites for Ashlyn and I. It was pretty hard to imagine life with another child then and how scary it seemed to go from 1 dependent to 2. So then it happens - for those who had a big gap in between the first two like me, you're so excited to finally have a playmate for that first one. Someone who can take your place half of the time so you can get some things done. Then comes fun things to adjust to like sharing toys, time, and your love between 2 little ones - what a joy that time was and how memorable those times were in my life :) Then came 3 for us, which truly is I believe the hardest transition. I am not sure if it is really what they say - more children than hands ...

John was reunited with a friend named Jeff who he hadn't seen since he was 8 years old (they were old Star Wars buddies before they moved in Omaha). He became a Catholic Priest this weekend and we attended his dinner/reception with my in-laws A tornado passed over our heads at about 2 am and we were awakened by sirens and loud blowing - thankfully we only had tree limbs down where we stayed We discovered an awesome little park around the corner from John's great-grandmas house with a kids fishing lake and a neat trail...we found a letterbox there too! Caleb really bonded with his Great-grandma this trip and it was really neat to see them together We had the best weather at the zoo this year - around 65 and never once said we were hot (not even in the desert dome)! The kids had a blast and we took way too many pictures (a slide show to come) "Watch out Caleb, that bird will pee on you that is why he is called a Peacock!" - words of wisdom from Joshua running after Ca...

and minutes from our house!