Cowgirl Birthday Party

The girls decided to go with a cowgirl theme for their birthday party this year. Unfortunately, Aubrey came down with the flu and was sick all day Saturday (on Chloe's birthday). By Sunday, her stomach wasn't hurting anymore, and she felt much better, although she was very tired. Hannah and Gabe were already at our house, and Mom, Dad, Danielle, and Kathy were also able to come, so we had a mini-birthday party on Sunday for them. They still had a good time opening their presents, eating birthday cake, and then playing with some of the things that they received. 

We found this cake on Pinterest and I love how it turned out!

Chloe turns 7!

Chloe had her golden birthday a few days ago - she turned seven on February 7th. It's crazy to think how fast time flies by and here we are at yet another milestone for her. She grew a little over two inches last year and is just a little bit taller than Aubrey was at this age. She is so full of life and loves to be around other people. She almost always has a smile on her face, although she can be pouty at times. She is very cuddly and loves to snuggle and have her arms and back rubbed. She is a good reader, although she doesn't like to read much on her own. She has sailed through piano and is almost done with her first lesson book. She likes to have things her way and always wants to pick out the biggest and best of anything (muffins, cookies, etc.). She's a great helper, whether that be helping set the table, sweep the floor, or just occupying kids for me. She can get along with anyone. She's very creative and imaginative and comes up with some interesting "games" to play. Her toys of choice would be her American Girl doll, doll house, Barbies, and Lego Friends. She also loves to color, draw, and play school. She still says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. She's only lost one bottom tooth, but has three others that are loose and would be ready to come out if she would only wiggle them. She is very sweet and loving and always ready with a compliment to brighten your day. Our house would be much quieter without her ceaseless chatter, but who would want that? :) We love this little girl and can't wait to see what God has in store for her.

Papa took her, Coye, and Gabe out to play in the snow on her birthday and she built her first snowman of the season - Olaf.

I didn't make her a birthday cake since we were having their party the next day, but I did make her one cupcake so she could blow a candle out.

She asked about ten times throughout the day if she could open just one present, but I made her wait until after supper when Calvin was home so he could see too.

She really wanted new cowboy boots for her American Girl doll, McKenna.

She also got a bathrobe and new headphones to use with her tablet. She was one happy girl.

Lutheran Schools Week

The end of January was Lutheran Schools Week for the kids. Lutheran schools all across the country celebrated the fact that they are able to talk about Jesus and learn about Him throughout each school day. The theme this year was "Serving Others". They worked as a school to raise money for a missionary family and also to gather items for a local family in need. Their motivation to raise money was to see Pastor Meyer get two pies in the face if they raised $500, wear a Cubs shirt (he is a huge Cardinals fan) if they raised $600, and to shave his goatee (in the seven years they have been at St. Paul's, he's never shaved it) if they raised $1,000. I figured it would be a stretch to reach $1,000, but they did great and ended up raising $1,390, so Pastor had to do all three things. The kids had a fun week dressing up different ways, guessing the candy jars (Chloe won the Lifesavers), and picking from the Prize Vault. 

Pajama Day

Twin Day (they dressed up like their friends)

Twin Day

Western Wednesday

Throwback Thursday

School Spirit Day

We Moved?!

For the past several years, we've been talking about building a house at my in-laws. Calvin's always over there working on something and we knew that someday we wanted to be over there so Calvin can help more with the farming. I always thought about it as a someday thing, not any time in the near future. Well, back in the beginning of March we had a realtor (actually the grandma of the little boy I babysit) come over and give us her opinion of what work we could do to our house that we would be able to get our money back out of. We had no interest in selling - just doing some fixing like redoing the main floor bathroom, possibly new flooring in the kitchen, and tearing down two of the chicken houses that were falling apart. She came and walked through everything and gave us her opinion - don't do anything. It was fine how it was. A week later she called and said that she had a couple who was interested in our house and wondered if she could show it to them. I was in shock - I had had no thought of selling our house. But we both agreed that it wouldn't hurt anything to have them look at it. So she showed it to them and then showed it to them again a week later. A few days after that, they made an offer to which we countered. They countered again and we countered again before they made an offer we accepted. It was so crazy to me that all this happened in a few short weeks - I went from having no thought of selling to actually selling my house. I'm not going to lie, it was really hard. While there were many things that drove me crazy about our house, there were so many memories that made it difficult to leave. That's the house I brought my babies home to and the house that they had grown up in. We couldn't take the pool, so that was very sad too. I managed to get the house all packed up in less than eight weeks. Thankfully there was a house for rent right down the road from my in-laws (about 7/8 of a mile from them). It was only about a mile from our house, so we didn't have to move far. There were plenty of tears (mostly from me - the kids were pretty good about the whole thing), but we did our final moving of big furniture and things May 17th. We had so much help from family that it didn't take long to get everything unpacked. Plus I had started moving things weeks before we actually moved since it was so close. I'd drop the girls off at school and then stop at the rental house on the way home to carry in as many boxes as I could fit in the van. So it wasn't long before all of the boxes were gone which made it feel like home.

Our first meal in the new house

They rode in the cattle trailer from the old house to the new house.

Last picture of the girls in front of our old house

We knew we wanted to get started building right away this fall, but we hadn't found house plans that we really liked yet. After about a month of looking and looking for plans, we finally found one that we both liked. It took forever! There were changes that we wanted made though so we worked with a local architect to get the plans drawn up. We worked with him for about a month making changes here and there before we finalized them last week. It's such a relief to have that part done. I know it's only the first decision in an incredibly long line of decisions, but it's a pretty big one. Here's the plan that we chose. We love it and it's going to be perfect for our family!

Front and rear views of the house

Side views

Main floor

Second story

And yes. We will be putting it on a basement. :)

Jenna's Bridal Shower

We had Jenna's bridal shower the end of March in Lafayette. It was so much fun to plan and so great to spend time together celebrating Jenna and her upcoming wedding.

Cake out of cupcakes

Easter

We celebrated Easter by going to church and then heading to my parents' for dinner. 

 Hunting for Easter baskets….