And Now She's Seven

I let Ayla invite five school friends to her birthday party this year. Apparently you have to invite at least ten to get five to show up? Only one girl's parent paid attention to the RSVP portion of the invitation. Luckily she called to say she was coming AND she actually came. We never heard from anyone else.

We called Kaia and Micah into action and were able to play some of the party games we had planned. Kaia wasn't much help actually, but she upped the cuteness factor.

Ayla and Lizzy, the girl who saved the day!

Showing Grandma Mary the boots that Grandma Tina bought.

We tried cupcakes baked in ice-cream cones. They were easy, cute & actually kind of yummy. My kind of baking!

And the gift of the day was the 99 cent jump rope I bought on the spur of the moment. I'm glad my kids are still fairly easy to please!

Up North

We visited Uncle Walter and Auntie Julie at the beginning of February. The kids were so excited to go ice-fishing for the first time.

She had no idea what was happening, but it had to be fun right?

This is about as exciting as it got. Sit. Eat. Sit some more. Get up & check another hole. Sit. Eat. Move to a different spot. Eat. Loudly whine about how boring ice-fishing is.

We didn't get a single bite, but it was fun to be outside on the middle of a lake in the middle of winter.

It certainly didn't bother this one. As long as she can talk she's happy!

A Broken Vow

I vowed to be the kind of blogger that blogs a little bit all the time. Instead I've become the kind that does a bunch of updates all at once, but once in a great while. I'm sorry about that. I hope to get back on track soon. Without further ado here is some of what's been going on. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. I have been living, but mostly without my camera in hand!

Here are some of our favorite people in the world. This was a Sunday in January. The day that their oldest daughter began a journey across the world. Skye was fortunate enough to go to China with her grandparents for 3 months! We can't wait to hear more about her travels when she returns.

Love this father/daughter shot.

Cold!!!!

We Had Too Much Fun!

Yesterday afternoon found us at the tail-end of vacation and the tail-end of some one's limit. I was seriously cracking up watching her dominating the back seat. With her little fur coat on she was like a miniature matriarch. The little tyrant sat back there & ruled over her two (much older) siblings.

We had busy, full, wonderful, tiring days. I was so busy living that I took very few photos. Unfortunately. The ten nights of vacation found us in other people's beds half of the time. Three of the five nights we were home we had company.

Little bug slept until 9:30 this morning. She was quite dismayed to wake up to an almost empty house. She shuffled through all the rooms looking for fun people to play with only to discover she is stuck with me. Hope you all had a happy new year!

BLARGHHHH!

Blogger won't let me post my videos of my kids' adorable school programs. The blog post I had in my mind isn't going to work & I don't have the energy to re-think it. Half of our supper company for tonight canceled on us. After I had two roasts cooking & dessert already made. Speaking of dessert we made cookies last night & my kids won't stop asking me for one. Even though I've said no multiple times in multiple ways. They've even resorted to making the poor innocent baby come & ask me. Right now they are upstairs putting everything they find on the floor into a garbage bag. I'm that sick of their mess. I might even go put it in the garbage can when they are done. It wouldn't take much to push me over that edge.

Videos

Anyone else having trouble uploading videos? The last few times I've tried I've gotten an error message. I'm not doing it any different than I used to. This is very frustrating......