Busy weekend

The weekend started with our MS youth group participating in a 30 hr Famine. If you are not familiar with that the kids get pledges to go 30 hours without eating and the monies raised get sent to World Vision to help feed hungry kids. We plan a lot of fun activities to keep the kids busy while they aren't eating. The picture below is of broom ball at a local ice rink that we went to Friday night.


On Saturday we split the kids up and went through the local neighborhoods on a can/food drive for a local organization named Love INC. That cares for people right here in our community.

Mark called Saturday afternoon to let me know he had shot a deer. He had been up north hunting from Friday until Sunday morning. Yeah for success!

Sunday after church we celebrated Kaylyn's birthday with my family.


My parents requested a picture of Emily to go with the other school pictures of their grand kids so my sister had asked me if I could take one for them. So after a lot of pictures like the one below from an unwilling Emily...


We did finally get one that I believe is frame worthy.

After the birthday party we had hurry off to a soccer game for Anna. She played great! The game ended in a 1-1 tie. She is #39.


Funny story... Mark was sleep deprived from hunting and I was from the 30 hour famine so we were both really tired Sunday. Anna has to be to the soccer field 30 minutes early. When we got there we got a parking spot right in front of the field. We decided to just wait in the car. Well we both FELL ASLEEP in the car and woke up with the game 10 minutes into it. Opps!

Milestones

Kaylyn's 16th birthday is coming up at the end of the month. She has been bugging me to have a birthday party that weekend. We have always celebrated birthdays with family and so have never really done the birthday party with friends for any of our kids. Since it was her 16th I did desire to make it extra special for her but it is impossible to keep anything from Kaylyn. She is known for asking a million questions and badgering you like crazy for the answers.
So a couple of weeks ago I asked the mothers of her closest friends if their daughter's would be free Friday night to come to a SURPRISE birthday party/sleepover for Kaylyn. They were all available so I started my planning. I made plans for the rest of the family to be out of the house. Mark took Anna up north hunting and Libby went home with my sister when she picked up Emily from me. The nice thing is since we have never done birthday parties I knew there would be no grand expectations to live up to. That made it much easier. We kept it a secret from her girlfriends until after youth group this past Wednesday so that only gave them 2 days to keep the secret.

It was a TOTAL surprise to Kaylyn and she loved every minute of it.



Here is the house decorated waiting for her friend to bring her home after school. I had picked up the other friends so they were waiting inside and ran out the minute they pulled into the driveway.


Here they are opening gifts. The one she is opening in the picture was really neat. It was 16 things that stand for Kaylyn. Kendra also filled out a little book explaining the meaning of each item.

Her is Kaylyn wearing part of the gift. This gift was "because Kaylyn is always silly". She was told she had to wear the crown the entire time. She even wore it out to the restaurant. The waitress thought we might be having a bachelorette party! Yikes! No they are 16!

Here are the girls ready to head out to dinner.

Here are the girls getting in a little shopping after dinner.

Here they are back home making caramel apples and decorating cupcakes. Kaylyn had asked me a couple of weeks ago, when Mark brought home a bushel of apples, if we could make some. I stored that in my "good idea for the party" list.

And here is the birthday girl with her cupcake.

Saturday morning I made them a big breakfast including Kaylyn's favorite... bacon. Then I dropped them off at the mall (with some cash of course) for a couple hours while Mark, Libby, and I grabbed some lunch and watched the MSU vs. Michigan game. Then I picked up the girls and took them to Cold Stone Creamery before coming home and letting them hang out for a little while longer.

I think it was as much fun for me seeing how excited Kaylyn got as it was for her living it.
Great memories!

My baby is Seventeen!!!

Are you ready for this? Seventeen pictures of an incredibly handsome boy.
Turns out I scanned my pictures in HUGE so that is why blogger was uploading so SLOW yesterday. Silly me. After I fixed them it took no time at all.

What is better than to see "my guy" sleeping with our "little man". Precious.

I love this picture! A long day at the beach wears a little man out.

Last picture as a single child. Maybe why he is still smiling.

What a great big brother.

Oh he wanted this race track bad! Those are his cousins to the left of him.

Zack's first time on the MSU football field with daddy. Mark was being recognized for being on the Rose Bowl '88 team.

"Come on Anna, let's go hunt something."

Fast cars and maracas what more could a little boy want?

You better believe mom hid those duck whistle when we got home.

Look. I have proof that he does have a soft spot in his heart for Kaylyn.

The guys in deep concentration. The girls... being girls.

Hey there. Look at me.

Isn't this a great picture of my men?

Pinned!

This picture just melts me. Look at those eyes. I love this guy!

The serious hunter pose.

Way to go Zack!

Well there you go a sneak peek of the last 17 years with one wonderful guy.
I love you Zachary!
-Mom

My Bella is 14 today!

Enjoy some pictures, 14 to be exact, of my sweet Bella.

Isn't she lovely
Isn't she wonderful
Isn't she precious.....

Anna and Kaylyn were flowergirls in Mark's niece's wedding.











Zack loves Anna, here is the proof.
The girls snuggling on the couch.
















Zack showing Anna how to be a detective at Grandma's house.















Here she is just being Anna at Grandma's house.
















Saturday night all clean and ready for Sunday morning church. See the dresses set out on the couch. If I could only always be that ready the night before. In case you can't tell, Anna is in green and Kaylyn is in blue.

Anna was known for randomly falling asleep at the dinner table and other odd places. She liked to play hard and that takes it's toll on a lovely little girl.


Hunting with Dad. This is one of her favorite things to do. Here she is with her first Turkey.

This is one of those pictures that I "found" on my camera. I guess the kids were a bit bored. Come on Anna you had to know I would use that.
My girl all dressed up and grown up at her cousins wedding this past summer.










Anna's deer this past fall during the Youth hunt. Way to go!















Doing what she lives to do. The girl loves soccer and she is fast.









I love you Bella! You are a beautiful girl inside and out. Your love for the Lord shines bright!





Have a Happy Birthday!
Love you forever!
Mom