December Happenings

Grandma came over to watch the girls for us while we attended Mike's work Christmas party. It was a few days before Grandma's birthday, so the girls made her a birthday cake. I'm pretty sure the girls had more than one piece of her cake!

The girls were sooo excited to decorate the Christmas tree! I would have been more excited had I remembered that I had gotten new lights and bulbs during the previous after-Christmas sales! I remembered after the tree had been all decorated, and I wasn't about to take everything down and put the new stuff up! Hopefully next year I will remember!

Above is Lilly playing dress-up! Not sure where that hat even came from, but it looks nice and warm!

Above is Macey with her two friends playing dress-up. School was cancelled last week so they had to find something entertaining to do inside.

We have been very busy getting ready for the holidays. I'm happy to report that I have only 1 or 2 more gifts to buy and have about half my wrapping done. The girls and I did all of our baking this weekend as well, so that is now done. We made cut-outs, fudge, peanut butter cup cookies and turtles. I can tell you that I will not be baking for a long time after all that! We managed to get an "okay" Christmas card picture taken this weekend as well. I thought that would get easier the older they get but apparently not! We're looking forward to getting together with our family over the holidays. The girls are very excited to play with their cousins! Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Halloween

Mike the Redneck with his little kitty cat and wizard!

Macey was a Wizard...I realize the wig wasn't great for the costume, but she wanted a long black wig and that's all I could find!

Lilly made the cutest kitty! She had the choice of this costume and Macey's old Carebear costume and decided on the kitty since it had her favorite color - pink - in it.

Below: Mike and the girls worked on pumpkins while I worked my weekend in October. I was pretty impressed! They had fun carving them.

Apple Orchard

One weekend in October we decided to head to the Pleasant Valley Apple Orchard. I drive by there every day on my way to work and have been wanting to stop in for years but never have. Since it was such a nice weekend we decided to take the girls and pick our own apples. It was so fun! We also took a hayride, and the girls loved that. We definitely plan to make it a tradition. We all agreed that we had the best apples ever (Cortland)!

Fall Fun

In Wyoming at the pumpkin patch

Below the girls getting ready to slide down at Inside Out play area in New Richmond.

Lilly is all about babies these days. Below are just a few of her favorites!

Macey Turns NINE!

I don't know how it can be, but our little girl turned 9 on Friday! It just doesn't seem possible at all. Usually we don't do a big "friends" party for Macey since she has a summer birthday and kind of gets disconnected from a lot of her friends and summer is always so busy, but this year we thought we'd let her. She invited three friends, and all actually made it. We had a little change in plans, as we were going to take the girls miniature golfing, but one of the girls sprained her wrist so we thought we'd go to the movies instead. The vote was to see G-Force, and the girls loved it. We first had our pizza and then cake and ice cream here and then headed to the movies. The girls had fun together and Macey enjoyed her 9th birthday.

Teddy Bear Park

A few weeks ago Lilly, Macey and I headed to Teddy Bear Park in Stillwater with a friend of mine and her two little girls. We had never been to that park, and I must say, it's awesome! I definitely think we will be visiting that park again this summer because we didn't have a whole lot of time that day.

Macey wasn't too thrilled to get her picture taken at this time, as you can see, but I wanted at least one of all of us.

Here is my mom with her sisters and her cousin. L to R: Betty, Penny, Vivian, Terry and my mom.

Lilly and Mike having fun in the pool.

Family Reunion

Above is all of the kids at the reunion. Lilly is the youngest and the oldest is 18.

The beautiful cheesecake that my cousin Kari had made at the bakery she works at...It was to die for!

The kids enjoying the cookout.

Macey had a blast swimming and probably could have stayed in the water all day long had we let her!

Madison, Jadyn and Lilly were hanging out in the loft area of one of the cabins. The three of them had lots of fun together.

We had been planning a family reunion for my side of the family for months and picked a halfway point (well, kind of!) for us and my relatives in Indiana and came up with Milton, Wisconsin. We found a great camping resort called Lakeland and rented cabins for the weekend, and it was so much fun! The kids had a blast swimming, playing at the park and arcade and just hanging around the campsite. My cousins had a pontoon and us adults got to take a pontoon ride Friday night which was a blast. The time went way too fast, but hopefully we can do it again next year.

Taylor Swift Concert

Macey and I met up with my friend Jeni and her three girls the other weekend and headed to CountryFest to see Taylor Swift! I think they were all just a little excited to actually see the person who sings all the songs they love! It was a lot of fun except for trying to get out of the parking lot, which took about 45 minutes, and almost running out of gas in the process!

Wisconsin Dells Trip

I love the above picture of Aunt Shelly and Lilly! They are chillin' and having a drink by the pool!

Grandma with all her grandchildren: Macey and Trevor in the back; L to R: Marlee, Delaney, Dillon holding Loftyn, Maryn, Grandma, Lilly and Mabel

Wisconsin Dells Trip

A few weeks ago we met up with a Mike's family for a few days at Wilderness in Wisconsin Dells. All but one of Mike's siblings was able to make it, and we all shared a five-bedroom cabin. I wish I would have taken pictures of the cabin because it was very nice! The kids had a blast at the water park. Macey and Mike had so much fun on the water slides with Aunt Shelly and cousins Dillon and Trevor. Mike loves it now that Macey is old enough to do fun stuff like that with him. It works out very well this way because I'm afraid of heights and rarely go down the big slides! Lilly and I hung out in the kiddie area, and she had fun going down the slides, but her favorite part was the big bucket that fills up and then dumps down on your head! I got out of the way, but Lilly wanted to be pretty much right under that thing and wasn't scared at all! Both girls really enjoyed the wave pool as well. I think fun was had by all, and we hope to do this again next year.