Birthday Party at MOPS

Happy Birthday Everyone! We had a birthday theme day on 3/24. Gini made the above cake giving us lots of tips on making a birthday cake. Belinda provided us with some great theme birthday ideas along with games. My Uncle Don came and showed us some things we could make with balloons. We all had a great time. Kyleen is showing us her sword with no blade. She is one safety conscious mom.

Andrea is pretty in her party hat!

Scrapbooking Fun!

Okay...so we had to take a little break from scrapbooking! Chocolate anyone? On Friday night we had a 70/80's theme night. Here are a few pictures of some of the gals dressed in their outfits for the night and enjoying the chocolate fountain. There were no chocolate fountains back then but there was fondue.

End of Swim

The girls just completed their 3rd year of taking swim lessons in Frankenmuth. They are both improving and it's a wonderful break in the middle of winter. Besides the swim lessons they get to invite a friend to the water park for one night and then they both receive a 1 day pass to use later at the water park. This year they had their lessons during the same hour.

When it was warm one day last week Amber thought it was warm enough to go swimming outside.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

My mom, Kate, had a birthday on Wednesday. Only a few of the 18 grandkids are pictured with her. Some of us were able to gather to wish her "Happy Birthday" on her birthday. The cupcakes and cake were so springy. The kids loved the cupcakes. It was a great "64th" birthday celebration for her.

Friends

Ellie and Adam stayed at our house for part of this past weekend. Sunday after church we went to Burger King so the kids could play at the play land. They really wanted to go to the park but after checking two parks that were closed Burger King got the vote. We ended up playing at the playground at Adam and Ellie's school and then the kids later played on the play equipment at church. They had fun playing together put their time went way too fast.

T-N-T Time Fake an injury night! This is a picture of the Amber's class. Everyone had fun showing off their injuries.

Mom...I don't feel good.

This is our morning.....Everyone is up, dressed, hair done, teeth brushed, backpacks packed, lunches made and breakfast done.
Amber goes back and lays in her bed and said that she does not feel well. Okay..I'm believing her. She is a little warm (I did not take her temp) and she was clingy last night.
Mackenzie starts with the "I don't want to go to school" talk. I hear it too often. She says her stomach doesn't feel good.
She has only missed 1 day maybe 2 this year so........Is she really sick or just playing me?
I hope this is the hardest thing I deal with this week. If so, life is easy.
Anyway...both girls stayed home. However, Are they sick??? I don't think enough to be home. So....I'm taking Mackenzie in to school. It has interrupted my day but I don't have a kid hanging out all day when they should be in the classroom learning.

Just a Visiting!

Last evening the girls and I took off and went to North Branch. Dawn and I went shopping while the girls stayed and played with some of their cousins. We spent the night and around noon today we stopped in to see my grandma who turned 93 last month. Grandma Cooker we all call her because food is aways offered when you stop. The girls enjoyed Cinnamon bread, bananas and an orange. I had the privilege of fixing grandma a tuna sandwich. A tuna sandwich was her Sunday evening after church meal for many years. I'm not sure if she still does tuna on Sunday night. I would say no because of the many cans that are on her shelf.
The weather is beautiful today. What a great day for a visit!

Addict

Okay...I think I'm an addict! Of what you may be asking? I've been listening to podcasts on my ipod. Today I found another blog talk radio show I wanted on my ipod and when I went to sync my ipod with itunes all my podcast disappeared from my ipod. I tried to fix it on my own and after several attempts I had to call in the big guns to help (my hubby). After 2 left messages 40 minutes apart he returned my call. He walked me through the steps and as I'm writing my idpod is getting uploaded with all my old podcasts and some new ones.
I'm a happy camper now!

Sleep

We can't seem to get enough sleep lately. Sunday, the first day of the time change, we didn't seem to do to bad. Okay..we were late to church but that was because we needed to drop Steve off at work. Yes, we missed the exit and had to cross the river and come back but we got up okay.

Monday, we forgot to set the alarm. Amber comes into our room at 7:34. I open my eyes and immediately know that we have overslept.

But since then it seems to be a struggle daily to get out of bed. We haven't been to bed early but by no means real late either. I hope our inner clocks adjusts soon.

This is a picture of Mackenzie sleeping in the princes bed on a vacation in May of 2004. This bed was amazing. It reminded me of the "Princess and the Pea" kind of bed. It was so soft. I would love to stay at that hotel again just for the bedding.

Date Night

I called my mom yesterday and asked if she was available to come over and watch the girls so Steve and I could go out. So tonight she came over and we went on a date.

We had a very nice dinner at Uno's. I ordered the Lemon Salmon with roasted veggies. The meal was good.

We then worked on filling in the "If-Then" chart and "The Blessing" chart. I'm looking forward to using these wonderful tool to help us raise Godly children. Now all I need to do is be consistent in using them and pray that each one of the girls has a desire to live in obedience to God.

I pulled this picture of us from an anniversary weekend about 5 years ago. I don't seem to have any current photos of us together in my library. Maybe I can get Amber to send me a copy of the picture she took of us together at Olive Garden.

Family Movie Night

We showed "Horton Hears a Who" last night. We had about 30 there. This was a first for us. We have the license now so I believe more movie nights are in the future. My family had a great time and I believe everyone else did also. Here are a few pictures I took.
Mackenzie really likes pizza!!!! Okay, so these pictures with Mackenzie and Jacob and then Mackenie and Rachel were staged. Put the rest I just went around and took.

Daily Devotion

I just started this week doing devotions on line. I'm using the "Our Daily Bread" from rbg.org. Today's devotion is on "God's Love and Ours". It was a great devotional. If you haven't been in the word today check out this devotion. Do some of you do a devotion on line? If so and you like it let me know the address.

Mama said there'd be days like this!

Happy Birthday Steve!
I don't think this will be a day Steve will forget ever. It probably was his worse one yet.
He still is fighting the cold. His cough is terrible. I think he would have stayed in bed today but at 6am he gets a text message that the power is out at work and the generator did not start so all computer systems are down. Needless to say he spend a very exhausting day at work trying to get HDI up and running again.
The girls and I stopped about 3:30 bringing him B/L/D because he did not have anything to eat all day.
He was able to come home shortly after that only to have a leaking boiler at home. So tonight he spend the evening try to repair our 76 year old boiler. I believe he has had success.
The picture is from Christmas. He wanted a remote helicopter. It is still in the box. I should rewrap in and give it again. I hope he will find the time soon to play.

Honey is Sick!

My honey is not feeling well at all. He has a cough, fever and all the other stuff that is going along with this crud. I came on kind of fast. His birthday is tomorrow and being sick is no way to spend your special day.
Did you notice his winter hat? It may look funny but when your out on a cold day moving snow it keeps you warm!

Happenings!

So it's not Christmas anymore but I was in the mood to post so I pulled up a Christmas picture.

Mackenzie asked Santa for a heater for her room. I'm pretty sure that was not a normal request for a 8 year old. Santa did deliver. She is enjoying a warm room when she goes to bed and wakes up.

Amber is full of funny comments. Upon returning from our anniversary get-away, Amber said "Dad, I thought about you alot while you were gone but I didn't think about mom at all!"

She sure does love her daddy. I'm okay that I'm about 4 or 5 on her top "I love" list.

Okay...I figured it out.
I forgot to mention that his mom's house is at the bottom of a steep hill and only 4 x 4's can go down the drive so we had to carry our luggage up and down the hill. On Saturday night the drive was very slippery so getting down was quite an event. We laughed a lot and Steve almost fell a few times.

Mackenzie loves to play in the snow. She is in a snow tunnel that she made in the snow bank at school.

10 years!

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary last weekend. Steve's mom came to our house and took care of the kids for the weekend. We went to her place in Traverse City for the weekend. Had a great time! It snowed almost all the time we were there. Steve had to remove snow from the van at least 7 times on Saturday. You would like that we would know enough to take our boots. No....we forgot. I hate cold, wet feet. Other than wet feet we had a wonderful time!
For some reason I'm not able to add the pictures I had planned to send. Maybe they will show up later.

Okay, I was going to add a few pictures but It's been so long since I've blogged I think I forgot how.
This was taken at the Valentine's Party. The more sprinkles the better. Of course she made it for Dad.