TinCaps Game, July 2011

On Sunday, we treated my mom and dad to their first Fort Wayne TinCaps game. We all had a great time. The kids got their faces painted and we got to see some awesome fireworks! My parents had a great time and were super glad they got to come.

Paige's Crossing

Last Friday we took the kids to Paige's Crossing in Columbia City. They had a great time, but DID NOT enjoy the roller coaster! I though that it was going to be a nice, slow, kiddie-type ride. Boy was I wrong! It was a miniature full-fledged coaster! Grace and I loved it, but Colt and Ella were in tears by the time we got off the ride. Colt did, however, love the go karts he rode with Chris - he does love his "racers"!

Pokagon Trip, June 2011

Last month we took the kids to the beach at Pokagon and to ride horses at the stables at Pokagon. This was Colt's first time riding and he had a great time! I unfortunatle can't swim in lakes, so I got to bask in the sunshine : )

Bathroom Re-model, June 2011

We decided to do some bathroom updates this summer. You can read what we did on the pics above. Chris and my dad did such a good job and it looks great!! I'm very proud of how it turned out!

Picking Strawberries & Jam Making

Every year we take the kids up to Wawaka to LeCount's strawberry farm to pick strawberries. The kids have a great time and we get some pretty great berries. This year was especially fun since Colt got to really help. He was so excited everytime he found a berry, it was so funny!! That night, I made strawberry jam. It turned out so delicious, if I do say so myself! : )

TeeBall ans LOB Softball, May

We started baseball/softball season in May. This is Ella's first year for tee ball. She's on the team Pythons and she's doing a great job!! This is Grace's third year playing, so she is playing on an all girls softball team. She is on team Inferno. He hitting and catching are improving dramatically!

Been Away for a While...

Sheesh! This spring and summer has been SO busy!! I have been away from the blog for so long!! Hopefully, I will get some time to catch everyone up on what we've been doing : )

Disney on Ice

Every year we try to go to Disney on Ice when it comes to town. We didn't go last year because it was the same show we saw the year before, so we were excited to see that they brought a new show to our town this year! This year they out on the Princess Classics stories - a short synopsis of the stories that we all know and love: Aladdin, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Mulan. Grace's Girl Scout troop got tickets for the girls, so all we had to pay for were tickets for Ella and me. We decided to make a girls' night out and went to Pizza Hut for dinner and then the show. We had such a great time! The only down side was the camera's battery ran down (I neglected to charge it before we left) right before Cinderella came on the ice. I did, however, get some really great pictures of the other princesses. This was by far the BEST one we've seen yet! Maybe next year, we'll get to take Daddy and Colt : )

Colt's Second Birthday

Colt got some really great gifts! Everyone was so thoughtful! The train was a really big hit with all the kids. I don't know if the girls thought it was theirs or Colt's but they have officially taken it over ; )

Colt's Party Decorations

On Sunday we had Colt's Second Birthday party. Of course, it was Spider Man : ) Many of the decorations were store-bought, but I decided to make a few:
On the treat bags, I hand made the little spider web tags. I found a Spider man movie font and typed the kids' names on white card stock and then drew webs around each name.

I didn't want to spend the extra money on a birthday banner, so I drew the same font as on the gift box tags on a larger piece of card stock and then did the webs around each letter. I then hand drew the Spider Man heads and threaded the letters and the heads together.

The cake was store bought. It had all the Spider Man characters on it.

We had a wonderful day with friends and family...we are truly blessed with wonderful people in our lives : )

Tobogganing!!

Lastnight we took the girls tobogganing up at Pokagon State Park. We had a great time! The weather wasn't terrible - windy though. We went down twice since the lines were pretty long. 34 MPH the first time, 36 the second. Guess who got to sit in front both times... : )

Hot cocoa at the warming station... YUMMY!

What a Busy Weekend!!

On Wednesday, Grace lost a tooth and received a $2 prize for her treasure from the Tooth Fairy. I tend to forget how excited kids get when they lose teeth.I don't particularly like this picture of her, but she wanted to show off her tooth space. We call this face the "extreme cheese." Thursday we had a day off from school since it was -22 degrees outside. It was a nice surprise to wake up at 5:30am and be able to go back to sleep after dropping Grace off at school for once. It's usually her school that has the day off, not ours.

Saturday was the big second birthday bash for my friend and babysitter, Tara's, little boy and Colt's best friend and wrestling buddy. He had a Spongebob birthday, so of course, my kids were in heaven.

Sunday was Uncle Mark and Aunt Deb's birthday. We celebrated with them at their home up in Stroh."AHHH! Sunday night bathtime!" Grace wanted lots of bubbles, so I gave her lots of bubbles ; ) My Valentine's Day surprise at work. I love lilies and this year, Chris got me a beautiful rose/lily arrangement. I especially like it when he sends them to me at work.

Adventures with Peter Pan

Saturday, we took the kids to the Botanical Conservatory for the Peter Pan exhibit. It was great!! The kids a blast on the life sized pirate ship. There were sections filled with crafts and games, a snack area where the kids could make an edible fairy wand, and the fairy forest with bubbles. Colt especially liked the bubbles : ) I liked the little crocodile that made a tick-tock sound just like the movie. It was a nice way to get out of the mini blizzard that was hitting us in the afternoon.

Blizzard of 2011

Earlier this week we had two days of nothing but pure unabashed snow. Ft. Wayne schools closed for those two days and then had two-hour delays the rest of the week - which is really unlike them! Grace ended up having three snow days. I think we ended up getting somewhere between 10-12 inches total. We also had another blizzard of sorts Saturday morning/afternoon which gave us about 4-5 more inches. So much for all the shoveling I did : )

My Birthday/Hula Party

Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. We had a great weekend: my mom and I took Ella (Grace had a prior birthday at a friend's) to get manicures and pedicures at my friend, Nikki's, salon. Sunday we went out to dinner with my in-laws to The Olive Garden. Chris and the girls got me a VERY cute Mickey/Minnie Mouse figurine and my mother in law got me a gift certificate for a facial. Earlier that morning, I took the girls to a Hula party sponsored by Grace's Girl Scout troop. We all wore leis, flowers in our hair, grass skirts and learned how to dance the Hula.
This is Ella, Grace, and Taryn (our baby sitter's daughter).

I couldn't find anything else to wear, so I wore Chris's Hawaiian shirt : )

Cousin Danyelle's Bridal Shower

On Saturday, my mom and I hosted a bridal shower for my cousin, Danyelle. Everything turned out really great, despite the horrible weather. I just hope she was happy with what we did ; ) I "stole" this idea from another shower I did some scrap booking for: guests had to fill out a piece of advice for the newlyweds and then I took a picture of the bride along with the person that filled out the advice. I'm then going to put the advice and the picture in a book as a keepsake.
I made a card box that Danyelle and Chris can use at the reception. I used a regular box, some craft paper, and the bride and groom that I hadmade for the invitations as accents for the box.

Gift table

We bought a plainly decorated cake and I made more of the bride and groom accents that I used for the invitations and the gift box.

Cake table. I found some really cute napkins with a "D" on them and I also found the cute "D" and "C" pots at Hobby Lobby. I put Gerber daisies in the pots since those are her bouquet flowers.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday we celebrated New Year's Eve at my parents' house. My brother Donnie brought his kids as well. It's rare that we get everybody in the house at the same time with our significant others : ) Grace and Kylee, my brother Donnie's oldest girl.

Ella and Peyton, Donnie's youngest girl.

Colt and my youngest brother, Tyler.

Unfortunately, Donnie's oldest boy Keegan was unable to join us and I didn't get a good picture of his youngest, Baby Remy.

Ice Skating

Last Wednesday I took the girls ice skating at Headwaters Park downtown. We were very exited to go, however, when we got there, the amount of people there already was very daunting. I hadn't skated since I was about 12 or so, so I was way out of practice. The girls had never ice skated at all, so I knew I was in for it : ) Turns out I was right: we kept getting kicked at and pushed by teenagers, it was so busy that we could barely get beside the wall so I could steady the girls, and then Grace fell pretty hard and hurt her knee : ( We only got around the rink once when Ella said "this is horrible!" so we left. I think it would have been much more fun if I had had a chance to practice a little first and it wasn't so crowded. Maybe we'll try again before it closes for the season and maybe then it will be a better experience for the girls.