HAPPY BIRTHDAY.........

Happy 1st Birthday Bode!!! You are so special and that smile of yours just melts my heart!

We love you :)

Uncle Matt, Aunt Jamie, and your cousins- Matthew, Mason, Makayla

Exciting News......

This evening was very exciting at our house. Mason was playing with Daddy, and as he was walking up the steps he said "my tooth" and ran to the bathroom. Here he lost his upper front tooth. Of course we were excited because we thought it was the loose one that was way crooked for quite sometime. Needless to say it was the tooth beside it! So 20 minutes later, guess what?????? The crooked one came out!!! Yes with a little help from Mason wiggling it and Daddy doing some tugging, it popped out!!! Now he has NO FRONT TEETH!!! To cute and such exciting news of Mason's that we had to share some photos :)

Nice Weekend

This weekend was very nice. On Friday we went for our evening supper to Gimmie's with my parents. Then I decided to try Giant for my grocery shopping this week. I have been trying to follow the latest guidelines of shopping cheap and with coupons, making meals based on what's on sale, etc... so I thought I would give Giant a try. I am a die hard Darrenkamps shopper, however I do have to say it was much cheaper and I really liked Giant. I will probably be going back there this week. Takes time to plan suppers around what's on sale and cutting coupons but hey, any amount of money saved is well worth it! Saturday I got up and headed to the studio to teach for a few hours. Once done, I cleaned my house with the help of my children. We then headed for a nice dinner at Damon's. We met one of my patients from years ago who has became a great friend. I met Shannon when she came to be a part of my study back in 04. I was able to help her and her husband get pregnant with Ellie who is a few months younger than Makayla. They just had a little boy Cayden, who we haven't been able to meet yet until now. We don't get to see them much because they live pretty far away, but once or twice a year we try to make sure we meet up. Dinner was great, the kids were well behaved and it was a great night. Today we headed to Sunday School and then church service, came home put on some sweats and chilled the rest of the day. I took the time to clean out my messy closet of junk at my house. Since our house is so old, there is limited closest in the house so we seem to have made a junk closet which was in need of a cleaning. With the help of my mom, I was then able to go through all my pictures I have printed of the kids and put them in date order to start scrapbooking again. I have thousands of pictures to do. I stopped at Matthew age 6 so I have lots to do but at least I am organized and ready to get started again! Now I just have to find the time :) Watching the race with Matt and getting very sleepy. Ready for bed and a busy Monday at work! Great weekend, hope you all had a good one.
FYI: Wasn't able to post the video of Matt in the tree stand, can't rotate it! Sorry :(

Valentine Mountain Weekend

This weekend we were able to head to Potter County with friends for a fun weekend. We left on Friday around dinner and stayed until Monday. Pretty uneventful trip up except for Matt breaking the back window in his truck. He hit a bump and his 4-wheeler hit the window and shattered the whole thing. Needless to say it was Friday the 13th so something was bound to go wrong. Once we arrived we settled in and hit the sack, at least the ladies did. The men on the other hand stayed up until all hours.

Matt and Brandon on Sat am collecting fire wood for the fireplace. The guys (Brandon, Matt B, and Matt) heading out to work on hanging Matt's new homemade tree stand. Us ladies, we enjoyed the warm indoors watching movies till they returned.
It was starting to snow and the guys wanted to get us out of the house so we went for a 4-wheeler ride. Devon and Brandon below all bundle and ready to go!

Matt and Ani

On Sunday we decided to not stay in the house for the day. Us girls went along with the guys to finalize the hanging of the tree stand. We parked the 4-wheelers and hiked into the woods where Matt will be hunting in the fall. Needless to say there was about a foot of snow in some places. Devon had some trouble walking in the woods, and couldn't figure out how to stay on her feet.

The guys doing the tree stand.....

while we sat and watched!!!!!

Matt in the tree! Video to come of the final project.

Our guys!

After finishing the tree stand hanging, we wanted to take our friends over to BigFoot's place. This was built years ago in the middle of the woods. It is a popular site in Potter County and once you arrive you have to sign the book saying you were there! Matt and I at BigFoot!

After a very long 4-wheeler ride on Sunday, we came home to relax. Ani cooked us a wonderful dinner and then we were planning on playing some games and just hanging out. Needless to say from the cold wind and weather and the long ride, none of us made it very long that night! We all crashed on the couches!

It was a great weekend and I thank our friends for a great time. I especially want to thank my mom for watching our children. We can't thank you and dad enough and we love you!!!

Our Valentine Princess......

What a great weekend we had. Sat night we spent it at Michael and Christy's Bar Party. I was able to sit and catch up with old friends, which was great. Michael and Christy have done such a nice job on their house,

looks good guys :)

Sunday Makayla and I had competition.... and she won her 1st baton title. She is now "Valentine Princess Special Beginner 4-6"!!! Yeah Makayla :) She got 3 firsts and 1 second out of 5 girls in her division. She had such a good day and is so excited to wear and show everyone her first banner!!!!!!!

Here she is getting her banner and trophy from Brooke. Brooke (Petite Majorette Princess of America) and our Valentine Sweetheart!

All of our winners from yesterday with our reigning queens Hunter and Brooke!

Here she is.....so excited!

Showing Daddy her banner and all her trophies from yesterday!

WAY TO GO MAKAYLA!

Happy 100th Day!

On Thursday, Mason celebrated the 100th day of school with his class!! He was so excited. We had to send in 100 things in groups of 10, so Mason made 10 Lego cars with 10 pieces of Legos = 100 things!!!! What a neat day at school for the kids. Below is Mason displaying his 100th Day of School hat. I couldn't resist taking a picture of him, he is just too cute!!! (No he is not wearing it upside down either, I thought that at first, but he is wearing it correctly. How silly he is!)
Here are my kiddo's after baths, getting ready to do Valentine's for their friends. We decided to NOT wait until the last minute to get them finished.

They did a great job and both wrote them out themselves! Even Makayla signed her own name which was quite impressive!

Kids Sledding!

Matt's sledding abilities!

Makayla sledding by herself!

Sledding!!!

Sunday before we had to get ready for our SuperBowl gathering we headed out to the elementary school to do some sledding. The kids desperately wanted to go out and play in the snow and before it melt we thought we try to see if we could still sled since everything was iced over. The elementary school has a very big hill which was still iced over and we were able to sled for 2 hours. The kids had a great time!!! Here are some pictures, videos will come in the next day or two :)

Matt and Makayla getting ready to go down the hill together. She wasn't sure about going down the hill by herself the first time but after a few times, she was able to do it by herself with no problem. It was so icy, Mason was able to go down the hill on his butt.
Wipe out Matt!!!!!!!!!!!

We invited Brandon and Ryan to join us.

Matt was the best snowball maker, the kids didn't want to even make their own, they just weren't as good as daddy's!

Mason and Ryan

Makayla just being cute :)