Safe From The Storm

This is what the storm looked like on radar as it was bearing down on the heart of Omaha Thursday afternoon.

Wednesday, we warned the girls that the National Weather Service would be testing the tornado sirens twice as part of "Severe Weather Awarness Day." The first test would occur at 10:10 a.m., while they were in class. The second would happen at 6:45 p.m., in hopes that families would practice their emergency routines.

Dad asked Lauren who in her class would be most afraid during the drill. He told her to whisper to whomever that was that "the tornado probably is destroying a lot of houses, but probably not yours - or the school." But Lauren told Dad she would be the one most likely to be frightened during the drill.

So what do you know... the next day, the sirens go off - and this time it is not a drill. The girls were out delivering Red Wheel fundraising food items - headed toward Envoy, when the sirens began sounding to indicate a tornado warning.

They hustled home and went straight to the basement. "We could still play, though," Lauren says.

Meantime, Dad was actually sweating it out himself when someone in the office heard reports on the TV that a tornado was on the ground just about a mile away from Envoy. He immediately grabbed his portable radio (thanks, Grandma YD) and hustled into a first floor stairwell. Eventually, nearly two dozen people - some from a nearby restaurant - gathered amongst paper dumpsters and supplies beneath the stairs, listening intently to the radio reports.

It turns out the tornado report near Envoy was an erroneous one. But it still had Dad a little concerned. He's always been out chasing the storms or watching their movement on radar. Now he was reduced to being "blind" and cramped in with a bunch of people who kept asking him what was happening.

Hey Olivia... Uh Julia!

Olivia, left, wanted her picture taken. Julia wasn't so sure.

Dad sometimes has trouble telling Olivia and Julia apart. It should seem simple, but sometime it doesn't play out that way. Like today. Both girls wore overalls and a red shirt. Nice.

Veronica: Baby Food Is For Babies

What goes best with breast milk? Cheerios, of course!

Unlike her older sisters, Veronica is not acquiring a taste for baby food. Perhaps it's because she doesn't see anyone else in the house eating out of little jars. Or maybe she's never referred to as a "baby" in the YD house, so why eat something that's "so yesterday"?

But when it comes to "people food," she's ready to start dining out more regularly. For the past month, she's been in the habit of grabbing mom or dad's food off their plate or eyeing anything they put in their mouths. Some of her sisters have gotten to sneaking her bits of bread and other soft stuff. But when you only have three teeth, it's a little tough to swallow a whole slice of pizza. (Are you listening, Olivia?)


Veronica is getting ready for the Easter Bunny.

Stacy Takes The Plunge

The new "Stacy Danielson" poses with the YD girls at the reception.

Our friend, Stacy Bohls, has talked about getting married since we first met her while she worked as a lifeguard at Robin Hill Pool back in the late 90s. Saturday, her dream of "taking the plunge" or "tying the knot" or "getting hitched" finally became reality.

Stacy married Michael Danielson, more affectionately known to the girls as "Michael Jordan." The girls all played important roles in the wedding, with mom serving as one of Stacy's bridesmaids, Olivia acting as a flower girl and Emily, Lauren and Julia handling the roles of "bubble attendants" (passing out bottles of bubbles immediately after the wedding mass at St. Thomas More).

Dad and Veronica also did their part Saturday, staying quiet during the mass and out of trouble at the reception. The night ended with two surprises: Uncle Neil gave Emily her birthday present and we saw Dr. Stevens (pictured below this post, removing Emily's braces) as we were leaving the reception at the DC Centre.


Olivia poses with her Godmother, Stacy, before the wedding.


Stacy and Michael spent a good portion of their reception on the dance floor. That's how they met.


Michael even saved a dance for the littliest guest, Veronica.


The girls enjoyed The Village People's "YMCA" song.


Mom drew laughs when she told Stacy she can't wait to be in the delivery room when she has her first, second, third and fourth baby.


Mom made a terrific shadow box for their wedding gift.

No More 'Brace Face'

Thursday was a big day for Emily. After more than a year, she would finally get her braces off.

Dr. Stevens "yanked pretty hard" to get them off, Emily said. "It really hurt," she said. "But I didn't really care, because he kept checking on me - once in a while - on how I was doing."

Afterwards, Emily, Julia, Veronica and mom went out to lunch at Dairy Queen. Emily had a hard time eating because her lower back teeth wouldn't allow her to fully bite down.


Emily with braces (left) and without. The funny headwear is courtesy of Dr. Stevens.

Look Who's Six Months Old

Emily said Veronica was chasing her reflection in the mirror.

Veronica turned six months old this week and like the old Virginia Slims ads used to say, "You've come a long ways, baby!"

Veronica is nearly ready to roll over. She loves her "tummy time" (she used to cry when we put her on her stomach). For some reason, she likes to grab mom's ear and pull her closer so she can eat her nose, which mom says resembles a "makeout session." In fact, Veronica did this when she was at Dr. Williams' office for her six-month checkup.

She loves playing with her toys while she sits in her walker. When she doesn't have socks on, she covers a lot of ground - and we have to make sure the door to the family room is closed so she doesn't fall down the stairs.

Snow Days!

Lauren, Olivia and Emily (left to right) enjoy the nearly foot of snow that fell between Sunday morning and Tuesday afternoon.


Emily took Mom's advice and completely covered Julia.


Julia said it "felt good" to be under all that snow.

A Rare Night Out

Yes, we know Veronica is not buckled in a car seat.

Saturday was a rare night out for mom and dad. We attended St. Mary's of Bellevue School's spring fundraiser. This year's theme was "The 50s." We decided to take advantage of the opportunity and don our 80s gear. It still fits... pretty well.

Uncle Karl's Wedding

Keeping with the theme of the wedding, Veronica wore a specially-made T-shirt. The front featured a picture of a young Uncle Karl with the words, "He ain't heavy" and a funny picture of Uncle Karl on the back with the words, "He's my Godfather."


Uncle Karl and Tante Shirl pose with our gift, a shadow box featuring their wedding invitation.


Mom poses with her brother, Michael, at the top of the Space Needle.


One of the highlights for Mom was eating seafood.

Veronica's First Plane Ride

It's not easy to heed the instructions of a flight attendant's call to "please fasten your seatbelt" when you don't have a seat.

That's what Veronica found out on her first plane ride last week. Mom didn't buy her a ticket, so she was left to find a lap here or there to sit in during a pair of flights to Omaha and Seattle, via Denver. Mom made the trip to see her older brother, Karlie, get married.

Veronica managed just fine, and wasn't bothered by the descents from 36,000 feet. Back at home, her older sisters monitored the progress of the flights via "flight tracker" on the Internet. I believe they spent nearly the entire two-hour flight from Denver to Seattle on Thursday loading and reloading the page to see if the plane had moved any farther on its journey across Colorado, Idaho, into Wyoming and up to Washington State.

We'll be sharing more details of the trip (and pictures) soon.

Strange Faces

There were some spooky faces in our house.

Lauren was a sick grandma, Julia was a cow, Emily was a horse and Olivia was a rainbow. Could you tell that from the picture?

The girls decided to paint their faces because Lauren had been home sick for a few days (a week in fact). Lauren wanted to be a sick grandma, and soon, the other girls each wanted to be someone. But Julia wants you to know that she was the first person to have her face painted.

Julia chose to be a cow because Aunt Dee-Dee likes cows. Since Emily and Olivia aren't here as we write this, we're not sure why they chose to be a horse and a rainbow, respectively.

It was a lot of fun, they said, until it was time for bed. That meant trying to get the face paint to come off. Lauren said it "felt really bad" because the paint was so close to her eyes. Dad and Mom will remind them of this before they go off and paint their faces next time.

Lauren Still Feeling Green

There's a few YDs in the dumps this morning. For one, Dad's basketball team absolutely got hammered last night, 30-5. It sounds horrible. It was. The team's leading scorer fouled out early in the third quarter. And, for the second time against this opponent, she didn't score. Can you believe they only trailed 2-0 at the end of the first quarter? Crazy. Yuck. The team's final game is Saturday.

Lauren is still feeling a little green. Tomorrow will mark one week since she came down with the flu. And there's more bad news. Mom heads out of town tomorrow, leaving sicky at home. At least Veronica, who has an ear infection, will be heading west with her. I'm not so sure I'd like to be sitting next to Veronica, though, when the aircraft starts descending from 30,000 feet.

By the way, the Ben Stiller picture from Sunday's Academy Awards is a little pick-me-up on an otherwise dreary day. The girls thought this was hilarious. (Yes, two of them were still awake at 10:04 that night!)

Bung Bung And A Bad Night’s Sleep

Well, here we are with another weekend under our belts and the YDs still don't have any new pictures posted up. However, there is a lot of news to share.

First, the good news: Lauren's thumb-sucking habit appears to be in remission. Since a visit to the dentist last Monday, she has rarely sucked it. Dr. Rensch gave her a stern talking to and it seems to have worked. The bad news is that she is like a smoker suddenly going cold turkey. Her body seems to be rejecting the idea, which has led to fevers as high as 105 degrees since last Thursday. (Yes, mom, we'll take her in to the doctor today.)

Dad's basketball team and Emily's team will be playing tournament games this week. Dad is trying to round up a huge crowd for his team's third game this season against St. Mary's of Bellevue, the tournament champs. Tipoff is at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at Holy Ghost. Emily's team plays Holy Ghost at Holy Ghost on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Win or lose, the two teams will play again on Saturday (but not against each other).

And now the lowdown on "Bung Bung." Those will officially go down as Veronica's first words, uttered on Tuessday, Feb. 28. Yep, clear as a bell, Veronica said "Bung Bung," which means, er, uh, well, we don't know. She'll probably tell us when she learns how to say, "What I meant by 'Bung Bung' was..."