Congratulations Tom and Amy!

Congratulations to our friends Tom and Amy who welcomed twin boys, Jackson and Grant, early Wednesday morning. Amy is already supermom in my mind - she carried the boys to term (39 1/2 weeks), she was induced, but gave birth to both naturally, and they were both perfectly healthy, weighing 6 lbs 7oz and 7lbs! What a woman!

And Congratulations to John and Kari who found out today that they're having another boy! That means between now and October, among our friends, we expect to welcome 5 boys (including the twins) and 1 girl (ours). I guess our girls will grow up surrounded by boys. As Anna pointed out, they'll have plenty of quality boyfriends to choose from!

Last MOPS Meeting

Today was our last MOPS Steering Meeting. (I decided not to continue to be the finance leader for next year. We'll still be in MOPS next year, just not in a leadership role.) It's a little bittersweet - it's one less task on my to do list and one less meeting to attend, but at the same time, we'll miss seeing our friends there every week. As an end of year celebration, the kiddos had a pajama party. The picture below is of Kaia in her stylish jammies (another garage sale find), reading a book before we left this morning. How do they sit like that??

The following pictures were given to us from Phylicia who does childcare during the MOPS meetings. I just thought they were so cute. Every time I leave her with the teachers, she cries, but I can tell from these pictures, she gets over it and has a good time with her friends.

Little Stinker

Kaia enjoys taking her clothes out of her dresser drawer and playing with them. This morning I stepped out of the shower to this - EVERY item of clothing taken out of both dresser drawers. Apparently, she tired of the clothes quickly and moved on to reading books as you can see. Of course, she had to help clean it all up, not a task she was excited about. I remember a day when my bedroom looked like this...again, is she 13 already??

Memorial Day Weekend

The Loos family had a nice weekend. On Friday, Mike and I had a date night while Kaia went to Tyler's. We went down to LaCrosse for dinner and then racked our brains trying to think of something else to do. If anyone has any good, cheap date ideas, PLEASE tell me. We ended up driving back to Winona and by chance stopping at Lake Park as the sun was setting. It was really beautiful. I didn't think we could see a good sunset in Winona because of the bluffs. Here's a picture. Kaia and Tyler had a blast together. When Anna gave them a bath, Tyler kept trying to touch her "buttons" (aka nipples). Watch it there boy...

On Saturday, Mike wheelbarrowed half of our dirt pile from the driveway to fill in the backyard while Kaia and I went to the park for a picnic with Jakob and Connor (and their parents). In the evening we went to Ben and Katrina's for a grillout. It was delicious! Katrina is way more classy of a host than the rest of us...the chips actually get dumped out of a bag into a nice serving bowl! Wow! The kiddos had a great time playing in the backyard. There were some boys playing next door. Kaia spent a great deal of time watching them (they had a trampoline!). At one point she was staring at this little boy through the fence and I said, "She's already attracted to the bad boys." Just then the boy says to Kaia "Wanna see my tatoo?" Oh great!!

On Sunday, we went to church, then Mike and I spent the afternoon cleaning out the dishwasher. It hasn't been cleaning right and leaves these black specs everywhere. We took the whole thing apart. Turns out there was a piece of plastic stuck in one of the sprayer things. And we have a theory that the black specs come from mineral deposits building up on the heating element. We scraped off lots of lime buildup off of all the parts. Put it back together, and now it runs great! Yay us! In the evening, Joel and Anna went out and Tyler came over to play. Once again the kids had a great time! This time, there was no funny business in the bathtub. Tyler must know better than to touch Kaia in front of Mike.

On Monday, Mike got to take a break to go golfing. Kaia and I again spent the morning outside. In the afternoon, Mike finished off the pile of dirt. Our driveway is now clear of dirt, trash, and other debris! Yay! I no longer feel like I belong in Alabama. In the evening we grilled out at the Kelners. Here's a picture of Kaia showing off her tummy for everyone on the swingset. We decided that if things continue to progress, we are going to be in serious trouble when Kaia is 13.

Fun at the Y

Today, we had to bring the van in to be serviced, some factory recall. While we were waiting, Kaia and I walked to the YMCA to play in the Family Fun Center. They have a big open room with ride-on toys, a playhouse, and a big treehouse type thing with a slide. We saw Connor, Ava, and some other friends who were with the group from Kids Korner (babysitting service for parents working out). Kaia had a great time, but got bored after all the kids left. When they were lining up to go back to their room, she jumped right in line. I see where I stand. We were there for an hour and a half and still hadn't heard from Chrysler so we walked down to the library and Kaia read books, which means pulling a book off the shelf, looking at it for 30 seconds, then getting a new one. So we worked on putting books back when you're done with them.

American Idol Finale

In case you have no access to technology, just an FYI, David Cook won American Idol. I'm surprised. I thought that little David Archuletta was more vocally talented. But I do think David Cook was more of a pop singer. It's about time a rocker won! Still should have been Daughtry two seasons ago. Anyway, I'm happy, I liked David Cook from the beginning - he's talented and a genuine, nice guy. Both Davids will end up making an album anyway! That's the most eventful news of my day today.

Freezer Cooking

Yesterday I spent the day mass producing Breakfast McBiscuits - the homemade version of Sausage McMuffin with Egg from McDonalds. I made 60 sandwiches. I was exhausted! And my house stinks of fried food. Now I know what it would be like to work at McDonalds.

What for, you say!? Well, some women in my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group formed a Supper Swap co-op. Once a month, we each make 7 of the same recipe, freeze it, and then exchange. I come home with 6 new and different meals to stash in my freezer to take out and cook anytime I want. The nice thing is that most meals are made for a family of six, so Mike and I get several meals out of one. It's a lot of work smashed into that one day, but it's so worth it.

A few people have asked about recipes for freezer cooking since you can't freeze just anything. I thought I'd try to post them on the blog when I come across good ones. There's also a link to the right for 30 Day Gourmet which is a good freezer cooking site with tips and recipes.

So the recipe for the McBiscuits is really easy:

BREAKFAST McBISCUITS (recipe is for 1 family)
12 english muffins
12 sausage patties (fully cook them before assembling sandwiches)
1 dozen scrambled eggs (I baked the eggs in a baking pan and cut with a biscuit cutter so they'd

be round and perfect!)
12 cheese slices

Split muffins, and top with 1 patty, 1 cheese slice, and some scrambled eggs. Wrap each McBiscuit individually with foil, and freeze. You may need more than 1 ziplock to store all of them. To serve: place thawed, foil-wrapped biscuit in the oven and warm at 400 for about 15-20 minutes. You may need to then unwrap and wrap in a damp paper towel and microwave for a minute or two.

I don't think we'll eat these as a dinner, but they'll make a quick breakfast or lunch. I have a few more recipes, but I'll post them later. For future reference, if you ever want to view just the recipe postings, you can click on "Recipes" to the right. Try it, pretty cool, huh?

Recapping the Weekend

Mike worked REALLY hard this weekend! He started by hauling away our garbage pile in the driveway. Then planted grass in the front and side yard which included mowing, tilling, raking, watering, seeding, raking again, and watering again. Suddenly we realize just how big our yard is. And we still have the back yard to go! It will look nice when it's grown in though.

I went garage sale-ing of course. I bought some clothes and some toys, but my biggest find was this rug for $5. I wasn't even going to stop at this sale, but I drove by and saw the rug near the curb and I had to turn around and go back. I knew it would be perfect for Kaia's big girl bedroom!
We did have some time to relax. On Friday, we caught up on some TV we missed on Thursday - The Office and Lost. I'm sad Jim STILL didn't propose to Pam. And I'm certainly hoping that we get more answers on Lost next week! On Saturday we grilled out at Kelners and Mike went to a movie with the boys. Three day weekend next week!

Happy Birthday Brian!

My little brother turns 18 today! It's like seeing your own child all grown up. Finally, he can buy cigarettes and lottery tickets! This is a pretty sweet picture of us from many years ago. Can you tell from the poor quality film camera photo? Or the braces? Even at a young age, that kid's noggin was bigger than mine! Happy Birthday, Big Guy!

Goin on a Wagon Ride

To close the weekend, we had a little grill out at the Yearous house. The wagon was a big hit, as long as the kids could rope an adult into pulling them around. It brought back memories of last summer, when the kids all had chubby baby faces, could hardly talk, and Kaia wasn't even walking yet. Here's a picture of the three musketeers in the wagon last summer.

Wow, how they've changed! And now we've added Connor to the group. We need some more girls, Kaia's a little outnumbered. But no problem, she can hold her own!

Cute Stuff

We've been takin in easy the last few days, catching up on our to-do lists and the Winona gossip. The picture above was taken as Mike and Kaia caught up on his latest issue of Computer Shopper, stimulating! Mike was busy reading and Kaia walked up, held out her arms, and said "Cuh-oh" (translation: Cuddle). She's learning so many new words, I can't even count them. The other day I said, "Crap" about something, and she quickly repeated it. Oops!


Since it's been so nice out, I've had the windows open. This freaks Kylie out. There's all kinds of new noises and smells, the wind blows and doors slam. She's constantly under my feet, on my lap, or burrowing in the basement if she can get down there. Today, she found a safe spot in the baskets under a side table in Kaia's room. I really don't know how she fit in there, but she sure looked cute and cozy.

Twinkle, Twinkle

I've been trying to capture some of Kaia's singing on video. In my attempts, I've caught bits of Twinkle, Twinkle and some cute Kaia expressions. I thought I'd share a video anyway, because I know at least Grandma will like it. There are two I wanted to download, but I keep getting an error on the second one. I'll try again another day.

Long Time, No Post

Sorry it's been so long since I posted something. Mike's grandma, Bernette, passed away last week so we were gone all week for her funeral and to visit some friends. I didn't take many pictures when we were gone, but here are a few from our visit at Aaron and Asher's house. Asher is a friend of Mike's from high school. They have two boys, Ezekiel who's almost 3 and Izak who is a month older than Kaia.

Izak, Kaia, and Ezekiel takin a bath.

Izak and Kaia jammin out with Mike.

While we were gone, Kylie stayed with the Kelners. She was a good girl and apparently slept with Tyler at night. She even let him cuddle with her! Very cute. She was happy to have us back home though. Kaia must have missed Kylie too, because she tried to convince me to take Kylie with us when we were leaving to go play at Connor's yesterday.

I also have a picture from a few weeks ago I've been meaning to post. Kaia woke up from a nap pretty crabby one day, probably because she spent the first hour in her crib playing instead of sleeping. When I went in to get her, she was standing there crying with her shirt off. I didn't even know she could take off her own shirt! What a silly kid!

Softball Season Opener

Softball season started last night. Mike's team "The 500 Club" won 6-5. Mike got the last two outs and hit 3 for 3. Not so shabby! It was a little chilly, a little rainy, and a lot windy, but Kaia and I braved it anyway. We're dedicated fans! The top picture is (L to R) Chris, Bob, Mike, Eric, and Rick Hamilton's ear. Mike cannot find his 500 Club t-shirt, has anyone seen it? My guess is that it was in the basement during the flood, but with Mike, it could be anywhere. The second picture is Mike hitting (duh!? like I needed to explain that). I discovered it's hard to get good action shots while trying to keep track of a curious toddler.

My First Time Blogging Video

A few weeks ago, Kaia learned to say "I love you". It took me awhile to catch it on video. Watch out, it'll melt your heart! Mike also taught her awhile ago to give kisses, as you can see. She has been known to kiss us, Kylie, her stuffed animals, even pictures of animals (mostly puppies) in books. No boys yet...not till she's 30.

She also loves watching herself on screen. She was in a trance watching the videos I was taking tonight, that's why she's trying so hard to get at the camera in this video.

I went to the doctor today, and I'm at 27 weeks already, that means I start the third trimester next week already! Wow, I can't believe it! We have a lot of preparation to do yet. Baby's doing well, though. She's an active little one, always kicking me in the ribs.