holy freeholies

derek has been planning on going to vegas this weekend for about 3 months, but the plan was he would be leaving friday. well, our friend, debbie, is a flight attendant and we are able to buy "buddy passes" from her...MUCH CHEAPER. the only catch is that you have to fly stand by. anyway, derek started freaking out today worrying that he wouldn't get on a flight tomorrow, so he decided to leave today. which is great, except we had signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner at 5pm. so, i asked my other friend, teri, to bring her family over for dinner too...can't just be me and the missionaries. anyway, it was 4:40pm and derek leaves. at 4:41 my sister calls, but i tell her i'm too busy to talk. at 4:43 my mother-in-law, marjean, calls but at 4:43 and 10 seconds debbie calls so i ask marjean to hold on a sec. debbie called to remind me that midwest airlines has a policy that standbys can't wear jeans (oh @$#&)...they have to be in khakis etc...i started freaking out, because derek was in jeans. so i hang up with debbie and then try to hang up on marjean so i can hurry and call derek. the first call to derek marjean says hello (apparently i didn't hang up on her) and i tell her i can't talk and hang up on her again. 5 calls later derek picks up and i scream "DO YOU HAVE KHAKIS IN YOUR SUITCASE?!?!" he's like, "ya........why?" so i tell him the story and it's no big deal he just changed at the airport. well, now it's 4:59 dinner's not ready and teri's got about 20 minutes before she can come over, and like usual the missionaries are right on time. i open the door and say "derek's not here, but the kellers are coming over so you can still eat here, but not for 15 minutes so can you go visit someone else for 15 minutes?!" they did, and when they came back we actually had a really good dinner...and it was a good time with the kellers. (teri and i had a good laugh watching wildboyz. i love steve-o...for thoses of you who don't know, or haven't noticed...he's derek's identical twin!!)

crossroads victims

a few weeks ago in omaha a guy went into a department store in the mall and shot the place up. he ended up killing 9 people, and himself. that mall is probably 5 blocks away from the apartment we lived in our first year of law school. there's two other malls in omaha, but that one is our mall. it's the one we ALWAYS go to. even so, i never wrote about it because it didn't seem real. i heard about it from a friend who saw it on the news. well, the other night we went there to finish up some shopping and to take the girls to see santa. 2 of the outside entrances of von maur (the department store) each had about 3 or 4 stanely steamer vans parked by them with a bunch of workers coming in and out of the building. it creeped me out knowing what they were cleaning out of the carpets. at the main entrance of von maur the stairs were COVERED with flowers, stuffed animals, wrapped gift, and tons of other things. i just started crying. that's the stuff you see on the news...it never feels real. it was so weird seeing it in person at a place that is familiar to me. inside the mall von maur has to indoor entrances, and at both of those the doors were covered with letters and pictures. i feel so bad for those families. i just hope their holidays are tainted for the rest of their lives.

times sure does fly

so i can't believe it has been about 2 weeks since my last post. time is getting away from me. my lil' bro is on a mission and i totally planned on being the coolest sister and sending him stuff all the time, like for halloween, thanksgiving, etc... i had the 12 days 'til Christmas in the works for him, and on the 13th (12 days 'til Christmas) i realized i hadn't sent him anything yet. man i'm awesome. at least i did get all the stuff i bought him in the mail so he'll have it for Christmas! maybe he'll feel like he hit the jackpot. next...i really wanted to have family pics to put in our Christmas cards...and here it is and we still haven't taken one. i'm scrapping the idea and putting a pic of the girls with santa in the cards instead...which i will be working on ALL FREAKIN' DAY so our friends get them before 2008!!! i have gotten all of my shopping done, stockings and all. that is a huge accomplishment for me, because i'm usually finishing up on Christmas Eve!!

another way time is flying by is that derek just finished his 3rd semester of law school. i remember the day he came home and told me he wanted to quit the police department and go back to school. it felt like we would never graduate with BAs let alone actually make it to law school....now we're half way through. i'm so proud of derek. he's worked so hard, and it's totally paying off. it feels like i'm going to wake up and he'll be graduating!

i was watching my girls play this morning (they didn't know i was watching) and i about started bawling. annie will be 5 in february, samantha will be 2 in may, and katleyn will be 7 in june. holy crap i can't believe they are getting so big. time is going WAY TOO FAST!!!

shopping with samantha, the saga continues

today i dropped annie off at school and then samantha and i headed to old navy and walmart to get some christmas shopping done. she did really well at old navy, but of course...we walk into walmart and sami instantly starts freaking out. she hates that place. i put my purse in the cart and then put her in...unfortunately the cart i picked had a broken seat belt, but i was to lazy to switch carts. so i got sami a treat and she did pretty good long enough for me to pick out every barbie thing a little girl could want. i was standing there trying to decided between a baby belle doll, or a strawberry shortcake doll for sam, and i look up to see her standing up in the front part of the cart and falling over backwards into the back of the cart smashing everything i have put in there. ya it would have totally been worth it to get a cart with a seat belt. anyway, she liked being in the back, but the ritual of throwing things out started so i put everything on the bottom rack of the cart and left her in the back. she was actually really good the rest of the time. so, i finish getting the things i needed and proceeded to check out...and realized MY PURSE WAS GONE. um ya...i totally started freaking out. today was my turn to pick all the kids in our car pool up from school, and it was already 3:15 and now my cell phone and keys were gone. the people in the check out line in front of me were nice enough to let me use their cell phone, so i could let my friend know she needed to go get the kids. then i left all the crap i wanted to buy sitting on the conveyor belt thing and took off like a bat out of hell going down every isle i had gone to. about half way through my search i see the missionaries. (we know them really well, because we feed them about every 2 weeks.) they were like, "hey sis. oliverson. what's up?" i start bawling and tell them i lost my purse. elder beck said, "i'd give you a hug, but i'm not allowed." ha ha anyway, they tell me if i don't find it they can give me a ride home and then they suggest i go check at the customer service desk to see if someone turned it in. why would someone steal it, and then turn it in....unless...what if samantha CHUCKED IT OUT OF THE CART. i had a glimmer of hope that it wasn't gone forever. i went to the customer service desk, and sure enough...there it was. i was SO relived...and then i wanted to seriously damage my child!! just kidding. (oh, my friend called derek to let him know what happened so he immediately called and had all my cards cancelled! luckily i finished checking out before he got to my credit card! that's what happens when your husband is so efficient!!!)

all she wants for christmas is her 2 front teeth

katelyn's top 2 teeth have been loose for-ev-er. finally last night at about 10pm she got out of bed and told me that one of her teeth was driving her crazy. i told her i could pull it out, but she would have to be tough. so she got annie up so they could hold hands. i got a paper towel and pulled on her tooth. it popped a little and she freaked out...she could taste blood and that grossed her out. i told her one more pull would get it out. so she grabbed annie's hands and said, "just do it...annie, i'm going to squeeze really tight." so i pulled and it popped out. kate started laughing and crying at the same time...it was so cute. then she tried talking and she kept saying her S's with a lisp! we all started cracking up every time she talked!!

WARNING: ICE STORM IN THE MID-WEST (aka Omaha, NE)

yesterday afternoon a severe weather advisory was sent out on the news, warning us about an ice/snow/rain/wind storm. we were told to plan on not going anywhere today. so, at 11pm last night my girlfriend and i went to walmart to stock up on groceries "just in case". on the way there we were cracking up about a stand up comedian, henry cho, who does a skit about whenever there's a crisis the bread is always the first food to be sold out at the grocery stores. well, we turned onto the bread isle at walmart and this is what we found!!! freaky, eh?!

these are some of the effects of the ice storm. my van is the blue one in the back ground. luckily there was about 1/2 inch of ice on the cars, so the tree branch didn't do any damage to my neighbor's car. welcome to nebraska!!! i'm so glad i went shopping last night because there's no way in heck i'm trying to drive in this.