A New Record

Yes, we are still here. I guess this isn't the kind of record to be proud of, but what can I say life is busy. So this is going to be the brain and picture dump. Hey, we love looking through our year books from these blogs, so I have to make sure I have a ton of pictures! Heidi, you can go first this time.

Sweet! Well the past 3 months have been full of lots of activities. But first let's talk about my graduation. Yep, I am now officially ready for Kindergarten. They had a big party and program at my school for my graduation. Luckily mom & Lena were there to see me do my thing. Amelia and dad had school/work so they had to settle for the videos. Which of course I'll add for your enjoyment. Although, I'm sure you have already seen since it was 2 months ago! 

I had my last day of school too! I was so ready for summer. On the last day of school we met Ava and Henry for some ice cream. They make it right in front of you and then roll it like a burrito. It was cool. Ha, get it. ICE cream is cool. Now I can't believe I only have 1 month till I start 2nd grade. 

Seriously summer goes way too fast! We have had lots of fun days. Where do I begin? We have had lots of fun outings during the days with mom to places like the zoo, lots of different parks, the farm, and of course the swimming pool.  

We go over to our friend Lucas/Colin's neighborhood pool and swim in the lake. And then we have swimming lessons almost every day and then we go sometimes after dad gets home from work! Really you think Heidi would be a better swimmer. Hey! I graduated to Wave 2 at least. I am getting to be a good swimmer and I love going off the diving board and slides. Oh boy, don't get dad or mom started on the slides. Dad wants to sue the city for height discrimination since Heidi can no longer go on them. Dad is right. It blows, I could go down last year and I can go off the diving board now. It is weird. Lena and I measure ourselves every day when we go to the pool. We both (ok, esp. Lena) have a long way to go.
 

Another fun activity is family bike rides. Now that I am a really good rider like Amelia we have gone to the park and even rode to Chipotle for lunch one day. Lena really loves going on rides too! I do! Well look how cute I look in a helmet. And I get such a good view from my seat. I like to wave to people. I also like going on walks, especially walking my best friend Nala.

After watching Amelia for years, I finally got to take my stab at playing t-ball. It has been fun, even though I have skipped like all my practices (dad said I shouldn't have to practice on Sundays so I just go to the games!). I have my last game next week so hopefully I'll hit a real bomb. I'm a pretty good fielder. As long as the ball comes within a few feet of me that is! I am also back into gymnastics again, just waiting for them to move me up a level. They said I could start going to the big stuff, but we decided to wait a bit since I had that bone infection not that long ago. I think my leg is all better. But we did have to go back a few weeks ago because it hurt so bad. They took my blood again, which I hate. Everything turned out ok though. I am going to try my best to not complain or limp ever again so I don't have to do amy more blood draws!

The obligatory picture with each of our letters!

Speaking of baseball, we have gone to a couple of Royals games. Not nearly as much as in prior years, but we are trying to get out when we can. We also went when the Pinkelmans came to town and I went on my date with dad there. It was fun just the 2 of us. The cool thing is we can get really good seats like all the time since the Royals are so bad. Dad says its ok, by the time we are in high school they will be good again! 

Oh, I went on my date with mom we went to see Incredibles 2 at the drive-in! It was SO cool. The weather was perfect (not hot and gross like it is now). I loved sitting in the back of the van with mom playing cards, eating LOTS of buttery popcorn (with M&Ms!) and staying up super late for the movie. It didn't even start till after 9! Mom tried to get me to sleep in the back so she could stay and watch another movie, but I was so tired and wanted to sleep in my bed. I knew Heidi was missing me. Yes, we still sleep together. Although, Heidi has been kicking me out of the bed a lot more, so I have told her she better fix that or I'm going to sleep alone again. But that's how I sleep!

Speaking of sleep, I enjoy it too. But I am quite adamant that only mama puts me to bed, dad doesn't enjoy me screaming mama at him...but it's how I like it. I think that annoys them both. She reads a bit longer to me. Some of my current faves include Brown Bear, Pout Pout Fish, Olivia, & Snuggle Puppy. As you can see, sometimes I am feeling extra cool and even wear my shades while reading. Ok, mom reads...I sometimes help but am told that I better start spitting out more words. Now they have a speech therapist coming over, so I eventually will have to give in and say more than the 5 words in my repertoire. But I can take a selfie like no other. Mom has like 50 of these on her phone at all times.

Yes, she is a bit self absorbed. Life revolves around Lena. I drop everything to come save her and/or yell at someone else if she even starts to cry. This makes mom & dad so mad, but I just CAN'T let her cry. It makes me cry. 

Let's move to happier updates. On to a few road trips. All to Nebraska of course. We have seen all grandparents and a majority of cousins, etc. Starting back in May with a trip to Harrington for both Jason & Mallorie's graduation! It was lots of fun. Then..we got to stop in Omaha on Mother's day. Siera even rode home with us (which helped with Lena screaming) and then joined us at the super cool water park at our hotel! Elmo even met up with us for a mother's day dinner and gave us a bunch of new clothes. It was all awesome!

We also went up there over Fathers day weekend. Huh...interesting planning there. But that time we stayed at Uncle Matt's lakehouse with get this...the Noeckers! It was SO much fun. We got to play a ton with Tess & Norah and we love playing with them. Jack took us out on the boat which was a blast. I love tubing and just get swamped. I watched Jack & Bailey surf. And dad & Kaiden try...all was fun. We had campfires, ate s'mores and other yummy food and swam in the cold lake! 

i found a new love for the game battleship!

The girls!

Had to get Kaiden in one too!

We even got to take a trip to check out the dam and the nearby go-kart place. It was fun. Dad and I smoked Heidi and mom!

ahh...mom  & dad even got a date in

 And most recently we had a trip up to Lincoln to help Elmo get house ready to sell so she can move...to Arizona. Whoa! Ok, I'll be honest, we didn't help oh so much we let the adults do the dirty work. We played! With Elmo, with her new (SUPER cute and soft) puppy Benny, a trip to the zoo with Bailey, and swimming with grandpa McLain (& of course Val's...I always have to talk him into a buffet. My favorite!).

Lena is a great kisser lately

 We get grief for not giving Nala love (esp. after loving on Benny), but Lena is definitely a big Nala fan. She is my BFF! Lots of kisses!

We've had some holidays. Memorial Day we decided we wanted to do a lemonade stand with our neighbor friends. As you can see, I planned it all out the night before so dad had no choice but to take us to the store in the AM. It was HOT outside...and golfers get thirsty! Actually even the workers, including the drink cart girl got some of our yummy stuff. We sold a few golf balls (that we find in the yard) too. The one thing I did learn though was our earnings quickly went down once dad took out 'operating costs' and then had to split 4 ways. But we did get to add quite a bit of $ to our Disneyland fund. We have enough for 1 plane ticket, so I'm hoping not much longer till we get to go again.  Maybe another lemonade stand needs to happen before school starts back up!

And then of course we had our annual 4th of July party. It was another hot one (this has been a brutal summer), but we had a blast. We decorated our bikes with Avery & Rowan and made it down to the neighborhood parade. We looked good! Then our friends started coming over, including my BFF-big Ava, Vivian & Jack who came to stay (all the way from Arkansas now)! This is like the 4th year in a row. I wish I got to see her more, but I'm glad we have the 4th (and FaceTime). We grilled pizzas, ate bomb pops (Lena's fave), played - got sweaty, lit fireworks, and then of course watched the big show. They were a 1st for me, SO cool...but I was also SO tired from the ultra long day, so I did not make it to the end. There is always next year I guess. 

Nathan even brought his parachute used in Iraq to give
our deck some shade and made for some super
fun games on the course!

 

Like I said before, it has been a hot summer. But we did sneak in some family pictures, at least they were in a creek right? Here are some of our favorites!

And now just some random shots. We went fishing for the 1st time - at dad's company picnic. I caught a fish!

Some fun days in our pool from Rhonda and on the slip n' slide.

Fun days with (little) Ava & Henry. Trip to Science City and fun place down in Crown Center, enjoying some DQ on a hot evening, and waiting for Cinderella to start at Starlight!

And just some cute pictures/videos of us having sister fun! I love flossing. I do it so much that I have woken up in the middle of night flossing! So Lena, who likes to do what I do has started joining in the fun. 

More neighbor fun

Ok, not cute...but check out what dad had taken out of his stomach, back, etc. Gross!

Is that enough photos and videos? Serious record. Must. Try. Harder. Master A....OUT!

Stepping out

Excuse us for our once again delayed blog. But let's get real, that's how things are going these days. We are too busy stepping out and about in this crazy world to stop and take pictures let alone write blogs. Actually, luckily for you mom still takes a lot of pictures and as you can see in this blog - a TON of videos!

I get to go first this time. As you can see, a good head massage can get me to sleep - anytime, anywhere. But as you know I have been getting grief for sometime that I'm lazy, unmotivated, etc. Well after the physical therapy lady came over for a while and prodding from everyone I finally decided that full time walking is the way to go. Oh yeah, I'm steppin' everywhere! Perhaps I should have listened to them more, I am finding keeping up with big sisters much easier. I really like to do anything they do. Sometimes that is coloring, reading, playing outside, or perhaps drinking some tea in honor of the new Prince in the UK (check out video below). Whatever!

She rarely annoys me, so I'm ok with her tagging along for the most part. Amelia...she does try to pass her off when possible. Dad asked me if I will still be nice to her when we are older and I'm in high school and she is little. I told him, of course...I could always take her in as one of my kids. I do plan on having 10. Dad says not when I'm in high school, but he appreciated the love. Ok on for my big updates: Well, after last blog the big news is after 6 weeks and 12 bottles of antibiotics, one last blood draw, I finally got cleared and life got back to normal. A few weeks later I went back to the ortho and she cleared me for full activities. I was so excited, I jumped...and jumped...trampoline...anywhere that I could. Which is everywhere. Yeehaw! I got cleared faster than expected so I don't have any Spring activities planned so I signed up for some summer t-ball. In the meantime, I am gaining kindergarten readiness skills.Yep, I am SO ready to go. So much so that I decided I would check some things off the list. I taught myself to tie my shoe and in the past couple weeks I started reading. Yep, mom says I have always been like that. Once I decide I am going to do something, I just do it. Watch out world! I told mom that those kindergarten teachers are going to just put me straight to 1st grade when they meet me.  

 While Heidi didn't get into any Spring sports...I did a late add and am playing my first year of soccer. Yeah, mom totally missed softball sign up during all the Heidi craziness so I'm trying out something new. Our neighbors play, like all the time, so I thought it would be fun to try. Only had 3 games so far, but I scored goals in all of them - so that helps me like it. Jury is still out on all the running, I may need a little more action. I also showed my skills at bowling. My friend Olivia came over and we had a fun day and my first official sleepover! So fun! Speaking of action, check out some of the highlights since last blog:

Spring break - again, delayed in making any plans so we stayed around here. BUT, my godfather, BJ and family came down for a visit. It was so much fun having them here. Tess and Norah are so fun to play with, and believe me we did a lot of it. We definitely were wore out, but had fun them sleeping upstairs with us too! Yeah, we had a lot of fun with all of them. We had a BBQ, went downtown to Union Station, P&L, & rode the street cars, watched a lot of basketball (We got into it this time because dad said we would win a lot of money for our Disney fund and I was winning for the 1st couple of rounds...but I ended up out of $ in 6th place. Our cousin Jason won it all, I guess he could use the money too). Oh and we also went to Top Golf. It was a lot of fun! I did pretty good!  Now that it is finally getting nice here, I am going to try and go out back with dad and practice more too. I wish that they lived closer to us so we could hang out with them more. But...dad did say that we are going to see them again soon at graduation time. Can't wait!! 

Amelia filled her bracket all pretty. I decided #'s were much easier

We had a visit from Elmo and mom surprised us with a day out to Disney on Ice! We saw so many princesses, it was a ton of fun. I think Elmo liked all my singing along. She stayed through Easter so she got to join in on our neighborhood egg hunt with us in which Lena was deathly afraid of the easter rabbit. We tried to explain to her it wasn't the real one (we could see her hair sticking out), but Lena was still shaking with fear. Mom says I was like that too so I can't make fun of her. We also got to look for eggs Easter morning (which was yet again cold and icky) before church. We of course are still working through our candy stash. I mean we are still working on Valentines candy too. This is not by choice. I would eat candy ALL the time if I could! 

Let's be real...here are some pictures of the Lena we often see.

Nana and papa came down for a visit (or maybe a break from all the snow they get). They brought us 

some more meat, you know we got to have the best! They were here for some good weather, so we enjoyed walks, yard work, and papa got lots of golf in. And they even took us out to ice cream. Which you know none of us could ever turn down. MMMMMMMM.....

We continued our dates for the month. Heidi made a new dog bowl with mom at a pottery place and dad took both of us to the family dance at my school. I can't wait till we have more!!

Let's be realistic, I will likely not get another blog out before summer time. Here is a video of me reading a story before bed. Steffen sisters OUT!

A typical attempt of getting a group photo. No it is not easy

Who doesn't want to watch a video of Heidi getting down to the drum safari at school?!