Happy Birthday MacKenzie!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our niece MacKenzie!

On January 22nd we went up to Milroy to celebrate our niece MacKenzie's 2nd birthday. She is Jason's brother, Justin and his fiance Holli's, daughter.

They had a really nice Dora themed lunch and party for her! It's hard to believe she is 2.

Here are some pictures from her party...

Presents!

And cake!!

We had a good time celebrating with them!

Presley's Activities!

Presley is busy, busy right now in swimming lessons and basketball!

She is taking private lessons again with our friend Jacob Meyer. That works so great! It's just the 2 of them with the instructor which means lots of time for them in the pool! We schedule times that work the best for us. I was so glad when we heard about this in the fall.

Backfloat, front strokes, breathing, diving, and jumping off the board are what they are working on in the Guppy's group. The breathing is the toughest for them at this point. Most adults struggle with this! They have a couple more times before this session is complete. They are having fun with it again!

When I told her about YMCA basketball, she was excited! She wanted to try it. The first practice took a little convincing to get her to go out on the court. A little tough love from her dad (he told her we could just go home then if she didn't want to go out there) and some bribery by the coach got her out on the court. Plus, a couple of her good friends showed up right when they were starting which helped her fears a lot! After 5 minutes, she was having a blast!

Dribbling...

Looking up and dribbling...

Walking and dribbling...

Layups...

Posing for the camera (ok, not a b-ball move but for me!)...

Madison wants to get on the court too...

Passing...

Go team!!!

She has a few more practices left of this too. Kindergarten is just a warm up to basketball. They just practice the techniques. If she decides to do it in 1st grade, then they will practice and have games! Stay tuned...

31 already! Man, I'm getting old!

Ha! Ok, so maybe I don't feel that old yet! I made it past the big 3-0 and am over the hump at 31! So far so good!

I had a great birthday! Jason and the girls took me to Sioux Falls for the afternoon to do the thing I love...shop! I didn't have a lot of places to go but just wanted to hit a few of my favorites.

They had first given me this awesome chocolate brown ring (the color is called smokey quartz) before we left. Then, I found this great purse at Target I had been eyeing and it was the last one so Jason said "get it!" I love those words! When I went to Maurices, I found the pair of jeans I had been eyeing in my size and had some Christmas gift cards that paid for them! 3 love tank fillers as my sister would say!

The girls love HuHot so we went there for supper!

Sunday we went to the champagne brunch at Kinbrae. Another favorite!

I had such a great birthday! Thanks to everyone who called, texted, FB messaged me, sent cards, etc! It means a lot to me!

Supper with good friends!

It had been a very tough day for me. I was in Mankato on Jan. 6 with my dad, Amber, and Kevin. We had went up the night before and stayed at my dad's. We were up at 3 a.m. to drive to the cities and drop Amber and Kevin off at the airport by 5:30 a.m. Insert lots of tears here! How am I going to get through the next 7 months without them? Lots of emails and Skype dates! My dad and I were back in Mankato at 7 a.m. and sound asleep by 7:05! We were both exhausted. We slept for 3 hours, shopped a little, had lunch, and I was on my way back to Worthington by 1 p.m. We had company coming over for supper that night! And thank goodness...that is exactly what I needed!

Angela and I have been great friends since 9th grade! Her husband is in the Navy and so they have lived in lots of places. They manage to get home as much as they can and we always value the chance to see them. We used to talk a lot over the phone and have found that emails are the way to go. Our lives are so busy! They flew home for the holidays and we were able to work out a night for them to come out for supper.

The kids had a lot of fun! We didn't hear a thing out of them for 3 hours. They played with every toy we own! They have 3 boys - Peyton, Korbin, and Keenan. They are great kids! The adults had a good time catching up! She had lots of words of wisdom for me as she is away from her family and sister a lot. They had just been gone for 9 months. She was confident the time will go fast and we will get through it! Thanks for the help!

Here are some pictures of all the kids...nice smiles...

And silly faces (this is always Madison's idea!)...

Angela and I!

Thanks for coming out! It was a wonderful night!

Pre-Birthday Supper with the fam!

For as long as I can remember, our families have made an effort to celebrate everyone's birthdays! It may not be on the exact day and it may not be everyone, but it's still a wonderful celebration!

We got together on Jan. 4th this year for my b-day (which is actually the 8th) but my sister and Kevin were still home and my dad was around...so it seemed like a great night! I was so excited that just about everyone was able to make it! Birthday's mean so much to me and celebrating them with the people that mean the most to me is AWESOME!

Here are a few pictures of our supper at Hickory Lodge!

When I called to order a cake, the lady asked what theme I wanted and

how old the person was! Ha! I told her "old" and "no theme please."

She said "how about snowflakes?" Perfect! It was a cute cake!

Presley was insistent that she serve it to us!

Madison loved the cake!

Thanks to Jason, Presley, Madison, my mom, Paul, my dad, Amber, Kevin, Eric, Missy, Mary, Darwin, Harm, and Rose for all the great birthday gifts and for coming out to celebrate! That meant a lot to me! Love you all!

Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year 2011!

Our last (but certainly not least) Christmas was with my dad! Despite the fear of bad weather, he made it down on New Year's Eve. Eric, Mersaydes, and Eric's girlfriend Missy came too. It was a big, ole slumber party!

We had appetizers for supper, played games, played the Wii, and all managed to stay awake to bring in the New Year! At 12:05 a.m., we were all headed to bed!

The next morning we had a nice breakfast and hung out until lunch. I made a ham and the fixings as a late lunch. After lunch and dishes, it was time for more presents!!

We all got a bunch of really nice things! Thanks Dad for putting so much thought into the great gifts! I got some great red pieces of Kitchenaid I've been eyeing!

Here is everyone opening presents...

We gave my dad this great digital camera and case! It's a standing joke that back in the day whenever a role of film was developed, there would be 1-2 self-portraits of me! I had to humor my sister and the rest of the fam with this shot!

The girls were so excited to get this grill! They can't wait to bring it outside this summer and grill with dad at our house and while camping!

Here's Jason getting the grill ready with the pink toolset! Thanks Mom and Paul for that!

Burger or hotdog anyone?

This is Presley's new favorite thing...the Wii! She is getting to be quite good at Mario Kart!

Weeeeeee!

After presents and naps, we all hung out upstairs! Read books...

Played some guitar...

And even had an acrobatic show put on for us!

Yeah!!!

It was a great couple days with family! Thanks again dad and everyone for the great memories! Love you all!