Birthday celebration

So Alexis' 5th birthday is finally over! She wanted to have a party to invite some of her friends over. The only rule was it was all girls (a few little brothers joined in the fun and that was just fine.) We had the Tumblebus, a gym on wheels that I highly recommend, come over. All the kids around here love it. They had a great time with that and then we had cake and ice cream, presents and the pinata that ended up being a bust! Alexis had first pull of course and it came right open. I had to hold it up so all the kids could get a pull and then it was time...and the stinkin' candy necklaces clogged the whole! So much for exciting :) Anyway, a fun time was had by all. I only got two pictures that turned out...

Surviving the winter...

Hi all
Sorry for the lack of post's lately but we've not been doing much and I like it!! Alexis has had so many snow/ice/cold days lately, I think she's been home more than school. We're having a little birthday party for her tomorrow for some of her friends so I'll update on that.

Today, though, they wanted to paint with their new easel from Santa. Trying to stay busy and warm...it's a balmy 9.7 degrees at our house right now with the wind chill of about -15! I did, however, notice last night at 5:19pm that it was still light out-YIPPEE!!

Oh yea, the other news, I finally started back to college! Granted it's only one class-Psychology-and it's online from home but holy cow...the reading is crazy! We'll see how it goes, so far, so good.

Hope everyone is well and warm!

Painting their masterpiece and a little fun in the tub!

Happy 5th Birthday Alexis!!

Well, she did it! Alexis went and turned 5 on me. I thought the day would never come and just like that it's here. We had a nice party with our family on her birthday (12/26) . She loved it. Her Aunt Betsy sent her the beautiful party sweater and she was very excited to wear it. She saved it just for her birthday. She wanted a butterfly cake this year so that's what we made her. She has so many new things now she doesn't know what to play with first. Before you know it, I be posting her getting her driver's license........aaahhhhhhh! I don't even want to think about it :) Enjoy!

Christmas 2008

So sorry for the delay in posting. We have been soooooo busy with Christmas, Alexis' birthday and Mike's sister is in town for the holidays from Arizona so we've been visiting with her. We've had a great week. We are all very tired now but have had a great time. The kids of course loved all the presents and new toys to play with. Here are a few to share. There were too many to bore you with so I picked the best ones I had.



Daddy got a new toy for Christmas also, He got Rock Band for our video game. I tell ya, I didn't know he was so musical. The last picture is of his new "Rock Band" hairdo. I'm going to use it to promote his new album ;) We've had fun with it. Everyone from Granddad Weyandt to Pop Garner to Aunt Em, Uncle Freddy and myself have had some fun with it. Uncle Freddy is taking some time off though to heal his wrist. He has developed a case of "Wii-itis" from strumming the guitar so well :)

Lots of stuff

We'v had lots of things going on so I'll try to catch you up only to add more later this week...

Alexis, Matthew and I went ringing the bells for our church, they loved it!

We had a cookie marathon at our house this past weekend and no your eyes aren't playing tricks on you...Aunt Em IS sifting confectioners sugar for us!! Isn't she a natural?? I think we have the next Martha Stewart on our hands :) Love you Em!


Alexis and Matt decorating the beautiful cookies they made...


Check out the muscles pushing this rolling pin...



And then we had a very fun, first-time ever bowling, birthday party. It was a great time!!

Oh Christmas tree...

Ok, so tonight we decorated our tree. The kids decided to play around with the Candy Land game while Mike and I were stringing the lights. We were just listening to their conversation as we hung the lights. No biggie, same as usual. Then, it took a sudden change:

Matthew starts "flicking" the Candy Land cards around:

Alexis: "Hey Flicker"
Matt: "Don't call me Flicker"
Alexis: "Hey Flick"
Matt: "Flick"
Alexis: "Hey Dick"
Matt: "Hey Dick"
Alexis: "You're Dick"
Matt: "You're Dick"
Alexis: "Well you're Dick Lick" ( I hope you're all laughing as much as Mike and I were at this point, to each other of course!!)

And this continued for a few more minutes as Mike and I just chuckled to ourselves and marveled at how well our children can rhyme at such a young age!! I think we have a few poets on our hands :)

But our tree is up, it looks nice and we're ready for Santa to visit us!

Christmas tree and party

This was our trip to get our tree. I must point out before you get into a laughing fit at our attire that it was about 28 degrees with 12-15 mph winds. The perfect day to trek through the tree farm with our good friends, Joe, Stephanie, Jessica and Jacqui!! (Oh yea, Cooper and Carter too!)

This was the party at my dad's work. They have a Christmas party every year for the children/grandchildren of the employees. It is a very nice party and the kids look forward to it every year. Matt came home with a truck and Alexis a baby doll for the 3rd year running!! Then we were off to my cousin's for her annual tree lighting ceremony. I don't have any pictures of that...just vision lots of my family sitting around playing Wii, watching the Steelers pull out a GREAT win and lots and lots of eating! Oh how I love the holidays. Yesterday I spent the day in Lancaster at the outlets with two friends. We had a great time and we've decided we need more evidence of the "recession" because that place was booming!!