wondering if I'm the only one waiting to see some life come from my Japanese maples.
Once again... It depends!
You seem to have different species, some of them grafted.
There are at
least a thousand registered Japanese maple cultivars: some are earlier than others.
I don't know what the weather is like in Nebraska, but here, the winter has been very mild, and last week, we had unusually warm temperatures, up to 22° C (71,6 F) when it's supposed to be in the 10-15 range (50-59 F), and very sunny.
Maybe you have an 'Atropurpureum' of some sort, dark-red-leaved maple: mine have buds that are just beginning to swell. Same with the plain species (green leaves), but 'Little princess' has already opened up its leaves.
Once again, it depends on the weather conditions too: when we had 71,6 F here in the afternoon (and no night frost for weeks), I saw the snow storm on the east coast of the USA on TV. But here, it's foie gras and wine, and early spring.
Oh là là, la belle vie for zi maples
Too late to take pictures: it's 18:40 here, rather cloudy and the light is too oow now for good pictures.