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Two-years old!

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:51:14 -0600

This is just a quick post to wish our Josephine a happy 2nd birthday! She had a nice little party today with the play-party next week. She had some trouble blowing out the candles, but Sidney and Charlotte had no trouble assisting! Thanks to Steph, Mike, Maddie and Abby, Babi and Bumpa and Grandma Krienert for sharing the day with us. Josie just woke up after a 3 hour nap (taken a few hours later than normal.) I’m afraid she will be up playing with her new toys late into the night!

Hopefully in the near future there will be a small change to Trouba.com. The overall look should remain the same but the blog will be a different format allowing you to post comments. We had that feature once before until the site was hacked, hopefully using a blog software will prevent that from happening again.

Also I want to give a quick congratulations to two of my cousins. My cousin Nathan and his wife Jen welcomed their second baby girl, Brynlee Renee on Jan. 26th. Also on Jan. 26th, my cousin Danielle and her husband Kyle welcomed their first baby girl, Kynley Marie. Congratulations to you all!

Has it really been two months?

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:18:08 -0600

Yep, it has. I have not done a good job of keeping this updated the last two months. However, now that the holidays are officially over and the new year is upon us, I may just have a few extra minutes to get things posted. (No promises!) I personally have been keeping busy with jewelry, preschool art projects for church, teaching CCD, gymnastics classes for the girls, a little dog training and petsitting, participating in SVBT (svbt.org) and basic householding. My jewelry website is getting an overhaul by me, of course. I’m finally adding the ability to order more than one bracelet at a time and personalized charms. It will be awesome when it is done, but I’m only about 1/3 of the way through my breed list!

Overall I think we had a good year in 2011. I know a lot of people had ups and downs, as we did. It is always nice to look to a new year with excitement and encouragement. In 2011 I lost both of my grandparents. My grandpa, Adolph Krienert, passed early in January. My grandma, Margaret Krienert, just passed after Thanksgiving. While the passing of a loved one is always a sad event, I can’t help but be thankful they are back together. A love like theirs was a timeless gift. You could see the love Grandpa had for Grandma in his eyes when he talked about her. (And he loved to tell the story of their first date.) You could definitely feel Grandma’s love for him after he passed. She missed him terribly and was ready to see him again.

Rather than give a recap of 2011, (you can look at past posts for that) I’ll just highlight the holiday activities. Most of you know we took a family vacation in December. Crazy or not, we took the kids on a week-long Disney cruise. Keep in mind children do not behave better when they are not at home, but overall I would do it again, so I think it was a successful vacation. The kids got to swim every day (even if it was 60 degrees at sea!) and I got to relax in the spa and even take in a movie. In light of the recent cruise ship tragedy in Italy, I must say, Disney is a great cruise line to take. Everyone was required to attend a safety drill before we even left the port. Evacuation procedures are explained and you have a letter printed on your keycard that tells your group. Also, the ship is huge! The kids were both registered for kids club activities, so they had gps wrist bands that kept track of them. Sidney even got lost when she ran ahead of me to see a character, then took the stairs before I knew where she was. She went back to the kids club and they scanned her wristband and called me on our portable stateroom phone. Pretty cool. Sidney was pretty scared, but she was thinking clearly enough to find her way back to the kids club. I have posted a lot of photos from the trip. I also included a separate gallery of Donnie’s Puerto Vallarta Adventure (that’s my name for it.) We didn’t have a lot of time in Puerto Vallarta, but when we got back to the ship I took the kids up to nap and he took a cab through the city. He took a bunch of fun photos (none of which I have labeled). There was too much cruise stuff to write in this post, maybe some day I’ll do a post just about the cruise.

There are a couple of pictures from Charlotte’s holiday program as well. She had been crying before going up on stage, but smiled through the tears and didn’t cry during the performance. What a true performer! She was so happy when she was done.

We did have a nice Christmas, with too many gifts, but very happy children! The weather has been beyond amazing here, so we’ve been very lucky! I hear we may have a stormy spring, but as long as the hail and tornadoes stay away, I love thunderstorms.

Have a great 2012 and check back soon to see the latest happenings in Gretna, Nebraska!

Kicking it up a notch...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:09:56 -0600

I’m ready to take my bento boxes to the next level. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t resist making cute little tasty treats. I found the little treats above on Pinterest and I just happened to have all of the ingredients so I whipped up a few. They are super-easy. I’m not kidding. Cut a banana into thin slices (1/4” or so). Take two mini Nilla wafers and spread a small amount of peanut butter on each (flat side). Put a banana slice on one wafer and top with the other. Roll the edges in nonpareils (the little colored dots) or sprinkles if desired. They are cute and really yummy. I included them in Sidney’s lunch yesterday, and we made some here at home just for fun.

Today’s lunch for Sidney was in her new bento box. It is red and has two levels. It is cute and cute makes everything taste better, even carrots. I have added a “bento” gallery, but it only has three images so far. Enjoy!