Happy 2nd Birthday Erin!!!

What an amazing two years it has been since God blessed us with our sweet Erin! We had a great day celebrating with present and pink cake. Here are a lot (and lots and lots) of photos highlighting our day. We love you Erin. Thank you for teaching us so much and bringing us all such joy.


We got ready for church this morning...

...And took some pictures outside before getting in the car. Erin hit the down slope on the driveway and thought that was so cool that she could go so fast down the hill. We could have spent all morning just going up and down the driveway!



After church it was time to open some presents. A new scooter!
This ball popper toy was a big hit. The air blows the balls out the top.





Erin thought that was hilarious!Teresa and Molly Grace picked out a new shiny purse and matching shoes for Erin.
We cannot have too many phones in this house. And if she cannot find a real or pretend phone, there's always the remote.

Time for cake!

I put this picture in because it looks like she is about to blow out the candles...but actually, she is singing Happy Birthday LOL. She doesn't know how to blow out candles yet.


That was fun. We had to sing Happy Birthday one more time just so Erin could clap again.This is as close as Erin came to eating her cake. She poked it a little, took off a few sprinkles, but she never actually attemped a bite! She is the first child in this family to turn down a piece of cake. Doesn't she know it's a Sunday of Lent??!! The other kids, who have given up sweets for Lent, except Sundays, didn't leave any spare cupcakes :).

Thank You Flat Stanley!

And just who is Flat Stanley? Here he is right here...



A friend of ours, Mary Lou, had done a little Flat Stanley project with her granddaughter who was wanting to learn more about the great state of Arizona. Knowing we are home schoolers, she thought to send a copy of this project to our family! We have now read through Flat Stanley's report twice, and did learn very much about Arizona and the Sonoran Desert. We even got to smell the wet creosote bush, which gives the desert its fragrant fresh aroma after a rainfall. Mary Lou included a sample in a Ziploc bag; all we had to do was get it wet. Most of the kids thought it smelled good...others not so :). The timing was perfect because just his week our third grader, Teresa, started a new science unit on The Desert. She was thrilled to be able to recognize some different cactus and the creosote bush in the photos of her text book.

Thank you Flat Stanley, and Mary Lou, for the extra special surprise lesson that came in the mail for our family. We truly did enjoy it very much! Little Jessica is a lucky girl to have a grandma like you!

Signs of Spring??

It never fails that sometime in February, regardless of snowstorms or freezing temperatures, our daffodils start to emerge in our front gardens. We think it is because we have a south facing house and when the sun is bright, it really heats up in the front, right near our house. That is the first place that we see the snow melting as well. At least I like to think that's the reason because otherwise it may mean that we have terrible insulation and the heat is pouring out our windows and siding. Ugh. Moira took these pictures on a morning after a beautiful snowfall.






And another sure sign that spring is just around the corner...the deer are starting to roam around again...

LOL. Just kidding.

Pinewood Derby Time

Aidan participated in his first Pinewood Derby as a cub scout. The process involves cutting out the car, painting it and attaching wheels. He and Mike had a fun time preparing their car with Aidan's friend Timmy, and his dad. At the derby, they quickly learned that the wheels are a major part of the success of your little car. Aidan's little car, Orange Speeder, had a lousy pair of wheels. I'm not sure how many little cars were in the competition....but let's just say that somebody had to come in last place :) That somebody this year was Aidan. It was a learning experience. But fun was had by all, and honestly, he didn't seem to mind!

Here's Aidan getting ready for his event...don't worry, he had a clean mouth upon arrival at the Derby.
The cub scouts watching the race track

Orange Speeder is number three, the third from the left

The Cat is Out of the Bag!

For those who know our family well, you know that we have not usually found out the gender of our babies before birth. Mike has been especially firm in his stance on waiting until the birth to be surprised. He really takes great joy in that, and for our first six babies, this has been our experience. Then with Erin, I had a very strong suspicion (90%) that she was a girl (I saw lots of ultrasounds with her), but I kept the secret, even from Mike, because I knew how much he enjoyed the surprise at the end. Last week I had an ultrasound with the new baby. Once again, I was torn between wanting to peek and waiting to be surprised, especially for Mike's sake. Imagine my surprise on the morning of the ultrasound when Mike said he wanted me to find out the gender! So I did find out, thinking we would keep this little secret between us. Then, imagine my shock a few days later when he said he didn't want to keep it a secret from the eager-to-know kids. He wanted to tell them (he has a hard time keeping a secret as fun as this!)and therefore, the world :). I agreed.

This week we were thrilled to have our dear friend, Father Eric, visiting us for a night. After morning Mass on Friday we had brunch with Father Eric and Msgr. Klister (our pastor). It was a perfect time to tell the kids the gender of our new baby! So, thanks to the fact that Moira never is too far from her trusty camera, we caught the whole event on film. It's reality blogging at it's best. So, do you want to know too??!! You'll have to watch the whole video to find out...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Krolls West

Thanks to some friends who gave us a gift certificate for Christmas, we took the whole family to Kroll's West, a famous restaurant in Green Bay. It is a little landmark to those who grew up in the area, and I cannot believe it took us this long to check it out!

Here are a few pictures. For anyone who has been there in the past thirty or forty years you will recognize it because it has not changed in that many years. We had a great time. They have famous burgers and the kids loved the milk shakes!




Then, to top off the fun, we made a little discovery when we got home. While at Krolls, Moira was reminded of a picture she had seen of Brett Favre and Mike Holmgren sitting in a booth, enjoying a meal. The picture was on the cover of Sport's Illustrated, before the super bowl, in 1997. We looked it up in a Favre tribute book we have at home and sure enough we found the picture. AND...we discovered that we were sitting in the same exact booth as them! What a fun coincidence!

Lovin' the Sunshine!

After the winter we've had it almost seemed like spring today with the temp reaching about 55 degrees. We opened our south facing front door and let the sun shine in! Erin couldn't get enough of it (these pictures aren't the greatest, probably because it was so bright, but you get the idea)...

Father-Daughter Dance!

It's that time of year again. Tonight is our fourth annual, highly anticipated, Father-Daughter dance for our local home school group. Volunteers decorate a local gym and make this a very special night! The girls get dressed up, wear corsages and meet up with many friends for a great time. This will be the first year without professional photos taken at the dance, so these will have to do. The only one missing is Mike. He arrived home from work just in time to quickly change and head out the door, so I didn't have time to snap his picture. Maybe I'll get his picture when he gets home and add it in later. Oh, and I should mention that each year that we've attended, Mike has won the prize for having the most daughters at the dance :). And that's without Erin! When she goes at the age of four, he'll be securing his title even more!


Thank you, Grandma D. for the beautiful dress! Molly Grace loves it!

If you didn't already know, Moira has recently had 10 inches of her hair cut off. It's cute, isn't it?

A Little Peek at the Baby

Today, at 23 weeks, I had an ultrasound appointment. I thought I'd share a little profile picture. Everything is going great and the baby was very cooperative. We saw many veiws of the baby sucking his/her thumb....so cute!

Ready for Easter?

Aidan, Molly Grace and Erin are! I'm afraid to break the news to them, but we have a loooong way to go before we can celebrate Easter. In the meantime, they'll have fun pretending.