What a Crazy Weekend!

We had such a busy weekend, Sat morning Mike & Kaiden left for Kaiden's football game in Brookings and Karsyn rode down with Mike's mom Lori. It was awfully cold and a little rainy and Karsyn and Gramma decided that shopping would be a little more fun then sitting in the cold wet SD weather! I stayed home to cook and clean my house before the birthday party started at 2.

We had people start coming around 1 and had quite the houseful for Kaiden and Karsyn's party. It was so nice to see some of my good friends from high school and college along with their kids. I had 9 people that stayed with us Sat night so they could be here for the portrait party on Sunday.

The portrait party was awesome, yet crazy! We had 13 different portrait settings, plus she did a lot of extra photos here and there! We worked that photographers tail off and she did such a great job! I can't wait to see all the pics! She had so many different new ideas for each session it was a lot of fun to see! I would highly recommend her, and her website is www.thruhimphoto.com, She arrived at noon and left around 8pm, I'm sure it was a long day for her, but she seemed to really enjoy it! After she left I hung out with a good friend of mine from Watertown for a while, then cleaned the kitchen and crashed out. I was exhausted. This morning came tooo fast and I did not want to get out of bed.

It's a Slumber/Pajama Party!

Well Karsyn had her birthday party on Sat. The plan was for it to be a pajama party and we were going to take the bus to the movie theater and then back home for cake and a sleep over for those who wanted to stay! We got all of the kids loaded in the bus and started out the drive way to find that tornados were being spotted in towns all around us... So we headed to the movie store instead. It worked out wonderfully and the girls were all awesome! There wasn't one fight the whole night! They watched movies, played dressup, barbies, babies, and in the garage with bikes, scooters and our puppy Jake. Then we had cake and presents and it was time for the girls to settle down and we put another movie on. The girls that weren't spending the night got picked up and the rest crashed out in their sleeping bags! The next morning the girls got up and played quietly downstairs until all of them were up and then had breakfast and waited til they got picked up! I think the girls had an awesome time!

I will post some more pics later, it is being kind of stubborn right now!

Here are the girls on the bus after going to the movie store!

It's present time!

Some of the girls hanging out playing!

Movie time

More Birthday Girl Pics!

Here are a couple more pics of Karsyn on her birthday, she got a flower crown at daycare, and was so excited to wear it after gymnastics to Football practice!

My Little Birthday Girl!

Well Karsyn is 6 today! She is growing up so fast I can't hardly believe it! It seems like just yesterday she was a tiny little bundle all wrapped up in my arms, and although I still enjoy snuggeling up on the couch with her, she has sure grown up! She is having her friend birthday party on Sat. which will be a Pajama party/slumber party and we will be either going to a movie or possible bowling??? Depending on what movies are playing.

Here are some pics of the birthday girl this morning before school. For some reason my camera was a little grainy, but they are still cute!

Extreme Makeover Update!

Well we made it down to the building site Sat night. It was very cool to see the behind the scenes of how they do it! The had everything so well organized and it kind of reminds me of an ant colony on how so many people all work so well together on one project!

The VIP area was under tent with some seating and great food, where we could watch the progress! They Completely framed and enclosed the house and roof on Sat and was working on shingles and plumbing and electrical while we were there!



The only members of the cast was Michael and Eduardo, There was one other cast member on the roof filming but we couldn't see who it was! He is above in the 2nd pic eith a black shirt on.


This is as close to Ty that I could find!!! Pretty close hu!

I think we will head back there on Wed to see the reveal, when they bring the family back! I would like to see the finished project.

Extreme Makeover!

I am so excited about the Extreme Makeover Home Addition being in South Dakota! This is one of my favorite shows that I hate to miss! What an opportunity for a deserving family right here in our area!

Mike's Friends is sponsoring part of the show through the company that he works for and got us VIP passes so we will be able to witness this amazing task first hand. Hopefully we will be able to help out in some way as well! I can't believe what an unbelievable experience this will be! They are doing the Demolition tonight and then we get to go to a special VIP Party tomorrow.

I will post more later!

The School Report!

Well the kids had great first days! Kaiden was excited because his teacher was really nice and the kids in his class were nice too! Those were the two things he has been stressing about. He said recess wasn't much fun because it wasn't done yet so there wasn't anything to do. They have the blacktop and that was it. He said he played football, but he didn't have much of a chance to play with some of his buddies from last year which kinda bummed him out!

Karsyn was very excited about her first day too. She was most impressed with lunch and recess. She was so excited that at lunch there was a salad bar! and at recess she said the boys started yelling that the girls chase the boys... So they all started running after the boys!!! Oh, what a game... I think I am in for it! She liked her class and school but really couldn't remember what they did in class all day!

Kaiden's closing comments was "The new school rocks!"

Day two started off pretty good, Mike had to leave early for meetings, so we got the kids ready, then I sent them down to the bus stop. Last year the bus pickup time was 7:45, but it was gone by the time the kids got down there this morning. I was just getting out of the shower when the kids informed me that it was already gone, so I made a mad dash to get ready so I could drop them off at school this morning!

First Day of School!

Well School finally started today in Madison! and the kids were so excited! Karsyn hardly slept last night as she had fallen asleep when we were on our way home last night and ended up on the couch. We thought we in the clear at 8:30 so we headed to our room so she wouldn't wake up and sure enough she woke up! So we put on Sleeping Beauty hoping she would crash out. Well she didn't, I think with that and the anticipation of school it wasn't going to happen. She was up 4 or 5 more times, to report that she couldn't sleep going from our bed to hers, and finally I went to bed with her and that did the trick. She bounced right out of bed this morning and didn't skip a beat!



Mike and I took the kids to the school, the outside still had quite a bit of work that couldn't be completed do to the rain and so there were cars and kids everywhere! We parked down the street and walked up to the school where we sent Kaiden with his class and took Karsyn to hers! She went in and unloaded her things and we gave her a hug and kiss goodbye, then headed over to see how Kaiden was doing! He seemed to be fine but a little embarrassed that his mom & dad where standing in the doorway waving and snapping pictures! (Don't worry we weren't the only 3rd grade parents there!)

I will fill everyone in with their full report of how their day went!

A Very Busy Weekend!

We had a very busy weekend. It all started off on Friday, we had a birthday party for my cousins husband. He was turning 40 and they were back for my cousin Kayla's wedding from Washington. So we headed to my uncle Don's farm In Langford for a BBQ supper. Due to the tremendous amount of rain that we got, we had the party inside instead!

Sat. We had breakfast with my uncle Carl, then headed to Sisseton to see some friends of ours from college! They had a baby since the last time we saw them and their baby was already a year old! So he wasn't much of a baby anymore. It was great to see them again.

From there we went out for lunch and then headed for Dakota Magic which is where the reception and dance was held. We got checked into our hotel and had a little down time before we needed to go to the wedding. The kids went swimming and Mike checked out the Casino!

The wedding was in Sisseton and was very nice! Kayla looked so beautiful and her dress was so unique. It was one of the prettiest dresses I have seen! Then back to the Casino for a wonderful reception with great food and great company! The dance was great and Karsyn had waited all day to dance the night away... Which she did, she was the last kid standing from our side of the family. She even outlasted her brother. The biggest surprise of the night was my 90 year old grandmother who wasn't about to miss a thing, she sat and watched until the dance was over. She headed for bed around 12:15, then asked my aunt if she had a magazine so she could stay up and ready! That women never ceases to amaze me! At the wedding we got a chance to reconnect to a lot of family that we never see and it was so much fun to visit with them and get to know them a little more. I guess that is one of the drawbacks of having such a big family, it is hard to know them as much as you would like!

Sunday Mike left early to go to Roy lake and fish with one of his good buddies. We went to a birthday brunch in honor of my grandma's birthday! From there we headed to Roy Lake to check out my families new cabin and see how the fishing was going. This cabin has been in the family for years, and this summer it was time to retire the old cabin and put up a new one. It is a very nice place and I hope to have a couple relaxing weekends there some day!

We then headed to Mitchell and spent the night at a good friend of mine from high school. Kaiden had a State tractor pedal pull there on Monday, so we went the night before so we could spend some time with Christie and her boys. We checked out her new house that she just purchased and it was very nice. I am so excited for her!!!!!

Monday we got up and moving and headed for the Corn Palace, which Kaiden informed me was the world's largest bird feeder! We got him all registered and ready to go! The pedal pull was pretty fun to watch, I had never been to one before so it was interesting to see how it worked! Kaiden was in the 2nd round and there were about 30 boys in his group. He pulled 20.7 feet which finished him about in the middle. He wasn't too happy about that but you can't win them all and I guess it is a hard lesson to learn!