Spring...

Some little photographer in the house must have used my camera, because I found these:

Happy Birthday!!

To our hard-working, cake-making, fire-building, sleep-reading, playhouse-building dad! One lemon chiffon pie, hopefully coming up!

TKD pics

Grandma and Grandpa visited this weekend, and Grandma took some pics of us at tae kwon do. I broke my second board, and she got some great shots of the kids sailing through the air!

M3 working on breaking with a flying side kick.

M4 working on the same.

My feet planted firmly on the ground at this point. Good timing, Mom!

It's fun to do it together. The kids are ahead of me, so they can teach me the forms and help me. It's nice to turn the tables that way.

State Swim Meet!

The state swim meet in Ft. Dodge, IA, was yesterday for the girls (boys swim today). What a great day! They had so much fun together, and they all swam well! M3 placed 5th out of 18 in the 100 Free and 10th out of 22 in the 50 Free...great results! Her Free Relay team placed 4th out of 13! Her medley relay team did well, too, but I forgot to look at their place. It was just a nice day of being together as a team. All the other swim parents are so nice; the coaches are great; the kids are so impressive. What a great organization we have!

I had the flu, so I barely pulled it together to pack what we needed for Ft. Dodge; therefore, I forgot the camera!! Waaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! But I took some pics with my friend's camera, and I will pressure her to send them to me to post. It is a bit of a let down now that swim season is over, but it will be nice to have our weeknights a bit calmer!

Party 2!!

Pizza eating:
The scene backstage:
Old bridesmaid dresses:
A random tiger in the mix:
The crew posing:

Party!!

So we let M3 have a big party this year. After all, she was 11 on the 11th in 2011. I was trying to think of something fun to do, and painting pottery just didn't seem like it. So I asked my fellow yogi, Jenny, owner of Studio Z and Zink Photography, if she could do a photo shoot with M and some of her friends. We took over the studio; I hauled a bunch of dress-up clothes there; the girls brought some of their own; pizza was consumed; we cranked the tunes (no Bieber, thank you very much); and it was a hit!! It was really a fun night!! The girls had a blast, and they got out their ya-yas before we headed back home for a slumber party.

These aren't Jenny's pics; just some I snapped throughout the evening. I can't wait to see Jenny's!! M4 was there early in the evening for a few pics...a tiger in a bomber jacket...go figure:

There was dancing:

And Mark worked his usual magic in the cake department:

I took a few videos, too. I'll try to get some posted.

Why Walmart is Evil...

I try not to shop at Walmart. I try to get what I need from our smaller businesses in town. But I was at Walmart picking up items difficult to find anywhere else, and I thought I would grab some Valentines for the kids to take to their classes. (No, I didn't have the kids carefully craft Valentines from paper doilies and construction paper. The past two weeks we're lucky if we get to eat together.)

So I got cat and dog themed Valentines. Safe enough. Today we opened them. And on the Valentines are messages like, "God is love" and "God made us friends." I quickly scoured the box they came in for any indication that these Valentines were trying to make us their mission project. None. Zero. Nice move, Walmart. They were returned.