Birthday celebration

I don't have many pictures from today, but i think it was a good birthday for Timothy.  It was a school day, but a fun one since it was the last day during break.  He did have one test, but they also got to watch a movie for the last 2 hours of the day.  He started his day with some Christmassy donuts!

He did not have many gifts this year, so we made him wait all through the school day to open any presents.  He was a good sport about it.  He did open a gift from Grandma before school.

His main gift was one that he has been wanting for a long time, so I guess waiting a little longer wasn't so bad.  He got a phone for his birthday--a phone with data. I think the smile in the picture above says it all.  He is a happy teen!

His choice for dinner, after 8 years of Happy Joe's, was Freddy's.  He really wanted to get a large ice cream mixer.  Since it was his birthday, he got his wish.  The first time we have eaten out in a long time.  After dinner it was back home for a Christmas movie--Christmas with the Kranks.  

It was a great day celebrating a teen who is growing up quickly, but still has a loving heart and a sensitive spirit and a lot of sarcasm!  Happy Birthday Timothy!

 

Birthday party time!

Timothy had a sleepover party planned again this year.  He was supposed to go skiing with a friend and then have another friend meet at our house later.  Well, skiing was cancelled after a 70 degree day--hard to keep the snow.  And then one of his friends was sick all week.  But, Timothy decided to go ahead with the party and we made the best of it!  (And this way he gets another party in a week or two so both friends can spend the night!)

We let Timothy open a family Christmas gift a little early.  Our computer has not kept up with his gaming, so we splurged on a new computer that works for online games.  Timothy was quite surprised and happy for the upgrade.

He wanted a cookie cake again this year.  I chose the Pokémon theme for him and added some frosting along the edges with sprinkles.  It is a pretty big cake, but we cut some to freeze for party #2!

To make the sleepover more of a party, we planned some minute to win it games.  You don't need a lot of people to have fun with these games.  One game had the boys unwrapping gifts with oven mitts on.  Another had them trying to stack marshmallows with chopsticks.  Some of the games were really hard like dropping a candy cane onto a string!  The boys had a lot of fun.

Even with our small party, we had to sing to Timothy and have him blow out his candles!  It was a fun night and I am sure party #2 will be good too!

It's upside down, but I think it is cute the pieces the boys wanted from the cake!

 

Gingerbread houses

For fun this year,I bought a gingerbread kit for St. Nicholas day.  Usually the kids just get an apple in their shoes, but I changed it up this year.  We all had fun decorating our houses.  There was a few issues getting the houses to stand and figuring out where the pieces go.  In the end, all the houses stood on their own and looked pretty festive.  You will also notice in the pictures that we are all wearing our new Comfys.  They were a gift from Aunt Mary.  A cozy wearable blanket and gingerbread creations...a perfect combination!

 

Thanksgiving

We began our Thanksgiving weekend by decorating around our house.  We used to do this after the holiday, but it is nice to come home to a decorated house!  The kids are getting so big that they block the whole tree when they stand in front of it!  Oh well, the tree does look pretty.

Our first stop on our travels was at Susie's house.  Troy and I were not as excited to travel this year.  We were jealous of everyone who just gets to stop in at gatherings and then go back to their own home.  We did not get packed up and on the road until after lunch.  The trip was good except for a text informing us of a possible covid exposure.  We made a quick stop at CVS for rapid tests and holed ourselves up in the bathroom for 20 minutes.  After we all tested negative, we unpacked and began the weekend!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with Troy's sister and niece, nephew and their families.  It took the kids awhile to warm up to each other after not seeing one another for 2 years.  A highlight of the meal was the Thanksgiving question can cards that Timothy read.  We had some good conversation!

Relaxing at Susie's house.

On Friday we went to my mom's house.  We skipped the repeat of the turkey dinner and had some charcuterie boards that pleased everyone.  A highlight of this gathering is the after dinner football game! One team had great strategy, one team had great creativity!  I kept trying to get a Hail Maria play...when it happened, I couldn't catch it. I tried!

On Saturday some more of the cousins came over for the afternoon.  There were SSS plays by Teresa and Fiona, a few video games and lots of laughs.

It was a great visit after all.  I am thankful we got to be in person with family again this year!

 

Halloween Fun!

We have done a few things in the last few weeks to celebrate Halloween and enjoy the fall season.  The kids had some neighbors over for pizza, a movie and cupcake/cookie decorating.  They watched the Nightmare before Christmas and then made some crazy dessert creations. Overall it was a pretty fun night.

Decorating desserts!

Teresa's creations

Timothy's creations

Another afternoon, we went to the pumpkin patch with some friends and church youth.  The highlight was the corn maze.  The boys were eager to try the paintball wagon, but all the times were sold out.  It was still a beautiful day to be outside.

One night for dinner we had our cute pumpkin face appetizer plate.  It's cute and the kids actually like this dinner, so a win-win!

We make these pumpkin chocolate cupcakes just about every year. The first year was 2014 at Grandma's...the picture below.  The originally were decorated all as spiders.  Now we are a little more creative and crazy with whatever supplies we can round up!

At work this year I got to celebrate two days with my preschoolers.  One day I dressed up as a cowgirl.  The other day I was an elephant with my elephant hat and gray sweats.

It has been a fun fall!

 

Fall mini vacation

 We had hotel rewards to use, so Troy booked us at a nice place in Wisconsin with a mini waterpark to enjoy.  We tied this in with a visit to my Aunt. We only stayed one night, but we got in a lot of swimming in.  Two swimming times on Friday and a couple hours Saturday morning.

The little slides at the waterpark

In addition to swimming, we walked to picnic point on Lake Mendota.  We went to the fall fest in Verona. And we also had some yummy Hurt's donuts for breakfast.  We got to visit and have dinner with my aunt on Friday night and returned to visit on Saturday afternoon.

Enjoying Hurt's donuts for breakfast!

Troy and I enjoyed the short walk near the lake.  The kids tolerated it!  They loved the swimming, so it was all good.  We stopped for an hour at the fall fest.  The kids had a lot of fun in the petting zoo with chicks, bunnies, ducks and goats.  They also had a brief run through an obstacle course and got to make sucker ghosts and stained glass Halloween decorations.

Timothy and a chick at fall fest.

After the fall fest, we had our traditional pizza hut dinner with Aunt Mary.  It has been quite awhile since we have done this and it was fun! When we visited on Saturday we got to open a few gifts from Aunt Mary.  The kids were excited to have new blankets! We had a fun time visiting with her.

It was a quick trip, but we did a lot and enjoyed the family time!

Birthday time

 We were able to once again celebrate Troy's birthday with others.  Last year we had to take a break from the party with friends that has become a tradition it seems!  We had great weather, and it was so nice to be together with friends and neighbors again.  Troy did some grilling and we had a delicious and simple dinner!  Of course I failed to take one picture except for one with his birthday cookie bars.

We continued the birthday week fun with a family outing to see the Marvel movie Sheng-Chi and the 10 Rings.  We had the whole theater to ourselves!  It was a better movie than I expected and a fun thing to do on a Tuesday night!

Troy's birthday was a busy work day for him, and a confirmation night for Timothy, so the celebrations were not huge.  But Troy got some gifts...a few coffee themed things and dark chocolate of course!  He also got a new Cubs mask and a Fathor shirt that Teresa wanted him to have. 

He and I had a dinner of his favorites after I dropped Timothy at church.  Salmon, brussels sprouts, cheese and bread.  For dessert we went out to Culver's for some ice cream after confirmation.

It was a pretty fun week of celebrating a very special guy! Happy Birthday Troy!

Baptism Day!

 Teresa celebrated her baptism day yesterday. It was a Sunday just like the year she was baptised.  We went to the pool and she had Troy dunk her in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  No tiny splashes of water on this remembrance day!  She also had fun doing jumps off of the high and low diving boards.  The water was chilly (no heater working) but we still had lots of fun.

We let her have her pick for dinner food.  She opted for the favorite Freddy's!  We lit her candle and prayed a blessing over her before dinner.  She also requested mint oreo icebox cake.  She had a pretty fun day celebrating being a precious Child of God!

Book lover!

Teresa has loved books since she was little.  These pictures illustrate that well.  8 years difference in the photos and still the same huge stack of books.  We visited the library yesterday and Teresa picked out so many books that she had to seat belt them to keep them safe on the drive home!  I hope the love for books never stops!

 

First day of school!

School kicked off this week for three of the 4 in the house.  Teresa actually had her orientation day last Friday, but started the regular schedule this week.

Teresa at her open house.  Checking out her locker and practicing the combination.  Middle school has lots of new routines to learn.

She was nervous to go, but had a good first day and seems to like many of her teachers.  Timothy and I picked up a little treat while she was at school to surprise her and all her buddies were waiting for her when she returned home!

Timothy started on Monday.  A rainy day which he thought would mean no first day picture!  Of course we had to get a picture--the porch was nice and dry.  He wasn't nervous at all and ready to at the top of the middle school this year.

The first day of school was good for both kids.  The got to see friends, meet teachers, and get a taste of what the upcoming year will be like.  We celebrated with "Death by Chocolate" icebox cake.  That is why Timothy appears to be "dead" by his cake.  The chocolate was too much for him!

I also started my first day as an assistant preschool teacher.  It felt good to be back in the classroom!  I enjoyed the change back to working with little ones.  One week in, and I am glad I made the move back to preschool teaching!

 

Party time

 Teresa had her birthday party this past week.  It was Avengers themed, so we had fun being different superheroes for the various games.  Thor's hammer throw was pretty fun.  Troy always adds an extra touch to the games, like when he sped the hammer back to the kids' waiting hands complete with sound effects like in the movies.  I should note that many of the great pictures during the party are thanks to my sister-in-law.  She not only remembers to take pictures, they always look great too!

Teresa posing with the hammer.

Troy returning the hammer to the hand of a worthy party guest!  (The hammer only goes to those who are worthy...gotta watch the movies!)

Searching for the Soul stone during the search for Infinity stones game.  You give a life to find the soul stone, so a group of buddies was hiding the stone.  We went through almost all of the buddies before Teresa found the stone under the cougar.  Troy came up with this idea to add more fun to searching for the stones.  We make a good team--I plan the games and he makes them extra fun with creative touches!

This was a favorite game too--Black Widow's sharp shooting.  Using a nerf gun, the kids tried to shoot down water bottles.  Everybody hit at least one.

After games, it was present time.  This bag fit in well with the party theme!

Teresa requested hot dogs and chips for lunch.  That was followed by cake--brownie cake batter ice cream cake this year--decorated with the Avengers A.

All the party guests!

The grandkids with my mom. I was thankful she could come down with Lisa and add to the fun and celebration.  I gave Fiona permission to give a grumpy about pictures face!