Katie Turns 7!

Oh how the time flies!  The last year Katie has grown so much, in all ways.  It was crazy to me comparing her Christmas pictures from this year and last because her face has just thinned and elongated and looks so much older.  She is such a good girl with a good heart.  She has a great desire to please others and look out for other kids at school.  A new student moved in in November and Katie was so eager to make her pictures and be-friend her so she wouldn't have to feel alone in a new school.  Now they have turned out to be pretty good little friends!  Several times she has begged and begged me for "26 papers" so she can draw a picture or write a letter to everyone in her class!

She has been doing running club at school during recess and just got her 20 mile pendant. 

She is very driven to do-well and succeed.  She always sets high goals for herself in her reading and makes sure she does all her homework and turns in her library books on the correct day.  Each morning she insists on doing a full backpack check to make sure she has absolutely everything she needs.

She loves to write and her "Over the Weekend" writing pieces from school are always several pages long.  She loves to write letters to cousins and friends and texts when I'll let her.  She always takes her time and makes sure each letter is neat and perfect. 

This year she told me she really wanted to learn how to do cartwheels and handstands better so we put her in an acrodance class.  She goes off and on with how much she enjoys the class but she frequently practices at home.  She and her friend Kenley just recently put together a little gymnastics routine for the school talent show and performed it and did a great job!

She is a great helper to me with Madi and is great at playing with her and helping her with things when I can't.  She loves to dress up and look nice and wear pretend make-up and hair chalk and her fancy shoes, but most of the time she just wants her hair in a ponytail and her boots- because they are easiest. 

Another goal she set over the last year was to learn how to do the up and down monkey bars.   She learned them very quick, then broke her collar bone and had a set back, but is now back to being a pro on all the monkey bars!

For her 7th birthday, I woke up and made her favorite muffins (Zucchini) for breakfast.  At Christmas, when she got her new blinger, she told me she was going to save it for her birthday and, sure enough, she came downstairs with it in her hand on her birthday morning- ready to have her hair jeweled!  After school, she requested we go to Smoothie King for smoothies so Jon and I picked the kids up and went for smoothies!  For dinner we had sloppy jos and a yummy ice cream cake!  Afterwards, she opened presents and got Frozen 2, hair chalk, twisty pets, a game called Simon, Frozen nightgowns, some shirts, skittles, and a couple other things.

The next day was Friday and we had 20+ little girls over for a massive Frozen 2 watching pajama party! We ordered pizza, painted nails, did hair chalk, had sugar cookies for dessert, and opened presents.  It was loud, crazy, chaotic, and lots of fun :)

Katie's Favorite Things: Gymnastics, reading, writing, being with her family, school, playing with friends, her birthday, playing with presents and toys

Katie's Least Favorite Things: Brushing her teeth (she wants me to do it every night), when people are mean to her, getting in trouble, germs

Favorite Food: Pears, Sloppy Joe's, Hamburgers from Burger King, skittles
Least Favorite Food: Pancakes, Eggs
Favorite Color: Pink, Light Purple, Teal, Blue

When she grows up: Katie wants to be a school teacher :)

A few more pictures of Katie :)

Arizona Trip & My 32nd Birthday!

This year at the beginning of February, we did something we never do.  We took a spontaneous family trip on an airplane!  How it came about is a bit of a long story, but there were some good friends near Phoenix, AZ we hadn't seen in a long time, there was a potential job opportunity there we wanted to at least check out, and we were planning on taking a pre-Spring Break family vacation anyway (since Jon knew Spring Break time frame would be busy for him at work).  So when we found pretty cheap flights to Phoenix, we thought, "Hey, let just go visit family, visit friends, check out the area and the job, and make it a fun little family vacation."  So that's just what we did!

We were able to stay a couple of nights with Jon's brother Scott and his family and it was great!  The kids loved playing with their dogs, eating all their snacks, playing on their playground, picking lemons and grapefruits from their tree, and Scott and Allison were great hosts!  It was my birthday while we were there and they even made me a cake :)  I was also super excited because Phoenix has Cafe Rio so I got to have a yummy pork salad for my birthday dinner!

We also got to spend lot of time visiting with our awesome friends Justin and Alissa.  It had been way too long since we had seen them and it was a blast catching up!  I brought the kids over one day to play at their house and Alissa bought us Chick Fil A for lunch since it was my birthday.  We went to a park together and the kids got to play and enjoy being outside.  They invited us over for dinner the next night and then we watched The Bachelor together in our sweats, just like old times.  Some people are just "your people" and these guys definitely are :)

The next day we checked into The Great Wolf Lodge and spent the next day and a half there.  It is such a fun place for the family!  This kids love the water and the slides and the crafts.  We let the kids all do a build a bear this time and they all thought that was pretty fun.  Overall, I think we all preferred the Wisconsin Dells Lodge from last year slightly better but this one had some fun new slides to try out.  Plus, Justin and Alissa, surprised us and decided to come join us for swimming one day with their kids!  That was lots of fun too!  

We had too wake up WAY too early the next morning to fly back home and that was slightly miserable, but little Madi fell asleep on take-off and slept the entire flight home!  That was a major relief (except for my sore butt because I couldn't shift positions for 2 1/2 hrs!). 

It was definitely a fun family trip and it was great to see family and friends!  My kids have asked me no less than 200 times since, "When can we go back to Scott and Allison's house?"  We will definitely have to plan another trip out there sometime!  

New Years 2020

We celebrated New Years in our traditional- low key way.  We have come to love this tradition over the years!  We spend Christmas and the days before and after surrounded by family and for New Years Eve, we are back in our own home and we just enjoy celebrating together.  We do a finger food dinner- anchored usually by buffalo wild wings (but after Jon had to wait an hour after his pick up time for our food this year we are thinking that might need to change).  Then we watch movies together in our PJs and sleeping bags and pause throughout to enjoy Cotton Candy, Snow Cones, and Chocolate Fondue.  Then we do a netflix countdown, send the kids to bed between 10-11, and then stay up together watching our own movie and toasting with some grape sparkling cider at midnight.  It's good times :)