She has been unleashed....sort of.

So Makenzie has had her first babysitting gig lined up for almost over a month. A couple here in Russell has had very hard luck finding a sitter and the one they currently have is going off to college. So it just so happens they were looking for someone who could grow with their baby thru the years and become a reliable babysitter. Whether it just happen to be pure luck or desperarity, the couple happen to go with Makenzie. I'm on the fence about it just because, "they took away our babysitter!" Makenzie needs some more responsibility in her life and this is a great opportunity for her to be able to do that. We will still obviously use her as our sitter, but now we will just have to work around her babysitting schedule. Eventually if she becomes responsible enough she may be able to watch all three together given approval. So for the most part, she's a babysitter!

                              Here she is feeding Aubrey her bedtime bottle. Aren't they cute together?

 I gave her some advice that if she can't remember what she did for the night to write it down to tell the parents. Picture below: She made $25 off the gig and man was it burning a hole in her pocket. Next lesson, how to save! :)
                                                

Great ideas, inspire great things...

So I've been dinking around on getting the last two rooms in this house painted. I have the girls room's left. For those of you who know the layout of the house we have the two rooms downstairs for the girls right now. Makenzie has moved into the smaller of the two rooms, the one with a door on it. Since she is older and is getting to that age we figured it was time. So it made more sense to have the younger two, Briella and Brezlyn share the bigger room. I figured it was finally time to get some painting done and make it look like a nice girls room. So I started out with Briella and Brezlyns room first. My first plan on action was to take the bunk beds we previously had together, apart. Putting them into two twin beds made more sense since I didnt feel like either of them were old enough to be on the top bunk and it just made it easier to figure out the layout of the room. I moved around a couple of other things and we were good to go. My next step was to find matching bed spreads. I came across a steal at Shopko for two twin comforters and sheets on clearance. I always thought Amy and Cissy were the one's that found these good deals, but I got lucky! So from there I took a color from the bedspread and decided to use that as the main color of the room, the paint of the walls. It actually ended up being quite similiar if not the same color as Amy and Troy have in their basement. I guess great minds, have great taste! So from their it was taping off the walls and windows, removing the electrical outlet covers and pushing the furniture to the middle of the room so I could paint with ease. The room took two coats of paint and I barely had enough to finish the room. It was close!! I have found a few discrepancies but overall I think it will do for now and I am pleased with the look. I also updated the current dresser that has red,blue,yellow, and green for the handles and trim between the dressers to match the look also with green and cranberry pulled from the comforter colors. Next, Makenzie's room, wish me luck!!

Best of friends...

Recently, Makenzie had a couple of friends spend the night. She's been doing really well in school so we made the exception. One friend in particular is her cousin, Paige Buchert. Her mom, Heidi and I have became close workout buddies and Makenzie and Paige are in the same grade and have close birthdays too. Paige is a sweet kid and I think she'll have a good impact on Makenzie and not allow her to stray when they get older and there are more influences. Makenzie has a good head on her shoulders or I would like to believe that in the way we raise her that she will make good choices and hang with respectable friends. I hope that Makenzie and Paige continue to grow closer as they get older. I know it can be tough to find a good friend that will stick with you no matter what! Blessings to each of you and your kids in hoping that they find a true friend!

Kids do the darndest things....

So I'm standing in the kitchen tonight and I'm telling the girls that we need to have them take a bath before snack. Briella has her dora dress pj's on and she takes them off and says" Mom, I got these for xmas." She then continues to look at her pj's and starts telling her Dora pj's that she is going to take a bath and that she will put her back on as soon as she's done. Now that's not the funniest part about this. Brezlyn takes off her shirt and says, "Mom, my face is not pretty". "My face is mad. " I asked her why and she said, "When I take off this shirt my face is not pretty, it it mad". She then proceeded to make a mad face and cross her arms. Not sure why she said this, but it was really cute at the time. It kind of came out of nowhere. Speaking of things kids say, I wanted to give you a sneak peek into Briella and Brezlyn's aspiring photographer pictures. Whenever they can get a hand of my camera they turn into instant super models and scenic photographers. Here are just a few examples:

                                                                       A surprised look.....

                                                                    The cheesy smile?.....

                                Well what can I say, they're all natural beauties! At least in my eyes. :)

Look at the wonderful colors and abstract art in this picture, nice!!

First day of (pre)school....

So I know it's been a few weeks since school started, but now that I have this blog up and running I thought I would share some favorite, "first" preschool moments. Brezlyn was happy to go to school. Not overly excited, but nonetheless she wasn't scared either. Surprisingly, as a mom to her last girl going to school I didn't cry. I think it helped going thru the process 2x before, but even so I was still sad that my last little girl is growing up. Of course we had to take pictures with the three musketeers. Brezlyn's cousins, Jaeryn and Olivia are also attending preschool this year. I often wonder what their preschool teacher goes thru with those three together. I truly hope that they will continue to be the best of friends during their school years. Brezlyn may be growing up too fast in my eyes, but she'll always be my littlest girl in our family, The Buchert Bunch.

Sugar and Spice and everything nice. That's what........

Our new puppy Sami is made of!!! We recently found an ad in the Russell minimart for daschunds. The price was right and Brock really wanted it since we no longer had our other dogs. Brock grew up with one while he lived in Florida. After careful consideration on my part I finally gave in considering she was pretty cheap and when the girls and I went out to meet the litter she is the one I fell in love with. It has been a joy ever since we brought her home. The girls can't get enough of her and I love her to pieces. I never thought I would enjoy having a dog as much as I do with this one considering I never really bonded much with Phil, our mini schnauzer, and Piper, our yellow lab, was always an outside dog. As you can see we love having her around and can't wait for when she can meet the rest of the family. We already have a babysitter lined up for long trips if we need. My friend at work has two dogs and no children so she offered to watch Sami while we went to Omaha. Needless to say, they loved having her and didn't want to give her back. That's a nice thought knowing we have good caretakers if we need them. She is a mix between a long haired and short haired. So her ears will be longer hair, but her body will be short hair and even though she sheds a little I haven't noticed it as much as I thought I would. So here's to hoping that you like our new addition to the Buchert Bunch!

Lions, Tigers, and Bears oh my!!!!

So we recently took a trip to the Omaha Zoo. We had been there once before, but Makenzie was only 3 and we didnt have any of the other girls at the time. So the whole family was able to experience it this time around. It actually was decided at the last minute that we were going. Brock and I had came to an agreement that if I had lost 8 lbs by last Friday that we would make the trip as his treat to me. Well, I hit my goal!! Unfortunately, the excitement from the weekend and eating out most of the time, didnt help my weight loss. Not even all the walking we did could compare to treating myself. So it's back to the drawing board on that one!! Getting back to the trip though. We found a place to stay at close to the zoo and fairly cheap. Although, they did end up overcharging us so we had to make a phone call Monday to get the charges reversed. The girls were able to go swimming(which I sometimes think they enjoyed more than the zoo), but I also put on a swimsuit and enjoyed swimming with them for the first time in awhile. Thankfully there was no else in the pool at the time so we had it all to ourselves which was nice. The best part about the zoo was the gorillas. We just happened to walk up to them as one gorilla in particular was playing games with the visitors. He would come up to the window and then all of a sudden he would start banging on the window right as you got your face up to the glass. It was alarming at first, but then we all laughed about it later. :) Brezlyn loved the giraffes and Briella the monkeys. Kenzie was really excited to look at the zebras. So as much as we enjoyed the 4 hr trip to see the animals, when we finally made it home I was so glad to be back at home with my 3 little monkeys!!

Finally getting around to this blogging thing....

So I was introduced to blogging from my sister, Amy. As many of you who will subscribe to my blog are probably already familiar with reading hers and now my other sister, Carissa's. So as a way to keep in touch with family I figured I would jump on the wagon. I really enjoy reading my sister's and I hope that you enjoy reading mine. I'm not sure what it will be based on, but family will be a big part of it and maybe some personal moments as well. Thanks for taking the time to catch up and may you enjoy this journey together with us..The Buchert Bunch.