Katie Turns 11!

Our Katie turned 11 this year and we had fun celebrating her!  Katie is a social, friendly girl so even though we are past the age we agreed on for full parties (10)- she got to have 2 birthday "hangouts" to incorporate both her group of school friends and church friends.  With her school friends we took a fun group of girls to the bowling alley and the girls had a blast.  Katie's church friends came over for an ice cream sundae and movie party.  Katie has good friends at both church and school.  There is a little drama here and there with neighborhood friends but I am always proud of how Katie does her best to always be the voice of reason and not add to the drama.  

Katie is responsible and kind.  She is smart and capable.  She always wants to look and do her best in everything she does.  She is very kind and giving and often finds little services to do for her friends and family and little gifts to give.  

For Katie's birthday this year she BEGGED and begged to let us do a room makeover and repaint her room.  As much as I despise painting, I love my girl even more, so I surprised her with all of the painting supplies wrapped up for her birthday and the next week- over spring break- we spent several days doing all the work to change her room from navy blue to light lavendar.  As much as I did not enjoy the work- the girls enjoyed their week of sleepovers in the basement, and I have to admit that the new color looks great.   We also put some shelves up above the girls beds.  It ended up looking great!  

Favorite Color:  Light Pink

Favorite Food: Casserole / Sloppy Joes

Favorite School Subject: Literacy / Math

Favorite Sport: Softball

Hobbies: Playing w/ balls, w/ my friends, reading, crafting, and hanging out w/ fam

Favorite Book: The Little House series

Favorite Show/Movie: Any Girl-Based TV show series

When She Grows Up: Pre-K through 2nd Grade Teacher

Winter Fun!

 We had a very warm November/December and first part of January and then it got super cold and snowy for few weeks mid January.  It was subzero and freezing and we broke like a 100 year record for the most snow fall in one week.  During that time we had some friends who had had to leave town for a family tragedy and were going to be coming home to a driveway full of feet and feet of snow so we bundled everyone up as warm as possible on one of the coldest sundays of the year and went and shoveled out their driveway for them with a couple of other famillies.  It was seriously freezing cold but we all toughed it out and finished the job!  It was good to see the kids working hard to help others!  

Jon also managed some fun for our kids during some of the "less cold" days with tons of snow.  He snowplowed a bunch of snow around our playset tower and the kids dug themselves a pretty fun snow fort!  We also managed some sledding down our back deck stairs when it was super snowy 😂

I had wanted to take our kids snow tubing for the first time for my birthday weekend but I was worried it was going to be way too cold.  As it got closer to my birthday the forecast showed it was actually going to be too warm!  My birthday forecast was 50 degrees and rainy so we planned my birthday tubing adventure for the weekend before my birthday.  We went night tubing and apart from it being a long drive late at night, we all had a great time!  The weather was not too cold or warm and the runs were fast and fun!  It was a great family activity to do together and I look forward to doing it again next year!

Holiday Season 2024

 Holidays are the best!  Especially holidays surrounded by friends and family.   My kids love spending time with cousins over the holidays and we've been really blessed to have been able to do that for many of them!  

For Thanksgiving this year we continued the tradition of hosting the holiday and invited the Minnesota Day crowd to join us.   Grandma and Grandpa (Paul and Janice) joined us for Thanksgiving Day into Friday morning and Mark and Jenna's family joined us for Thursday through Sunday.  We had a delicious dinner, made the kids dress up in matching cousin outfits, went to see WISH together, and took kids to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops in Altoona.  That is becoming a fun tradition to do every year!  It was even more fun than previous years because I feel like this was the first Thanksgiving in ages where nobody got sick!  It was fantastic!

We had all sorts of fun festivities to celebrate the holidays between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We had our annual Adults White Elephant Party with our friends, we decorated cookies and graham cracker houses, went Christmas shopping, and enjoyed the warmest December I ever remember having in Iowa.  We missed the snow, of course, but it was nice that kids were still playing outside all through the month!

For Christmas we went up to Minnesota this year and stayed with Mark and Jenna.  Amberly and Brett's family came as well and stayed at Paul and Janice's.  We moved over and stayed there one night on Christmas eve so we could wake up and do Christmas morning together.  I feel like it ended up working out well giving everyone some space for comfort but also lots of get together and chat and hang out time.  Minnesota was also having a historically warm Christmas season so we went for a few rainy walks together to see Christmas lights and I even worked out outside a couple of times.  We went iceskating at the rec center, watched some movies, shopped, ate, and had fun.  We also went to go see "A Christmas Carol" the play and that was a fun new experience for our family- even if it got a little long 😜

We were back home in Ankeny for New Years and Mark & Jenna's family again drove up to see us and stay for a few days!  We had a blast ringing in the new year and playing.  The kids actually all stayed up until midnight this year- hopped up on sugar and overstimulation.  

Des Moines got to host one of the LDS Church's giving machines this year at the mall so that was another unique experience our family got to enjoy over the holidays!  The kids each picked out something they wanted to "give" and we talked to them about how important it is to think and give to others who are less fortunate.