holidays & occassions

Karli had a great 8th Birthday party with a bunch of her girlfriends. It was supposed to be a swimming party, but it was so chilly that day we ended up staying indoors. I had a few games planned, but the girls were more interested in running around like wild animals and jumping around on Karli’s bed. Boy, was that a long 3 hours. I set up a makeshift photo booth and I was able to get the girls attention for long enough to take some fun photos. Here are just a handful of my favorites. Click here to see the entire set along with some more photos from Karli’s party. We also had a Make-Your-Own-Sundae bar that was a huge hit with the girls.

Karli was lucky enough that not only did she have a party with her girlfriends the following weekend she had another birthday party with all of our family!

Karli looked so beautiful in her First Communion dress. Fortunately she was able to wear her dress 3 different days. Once for a quick photo for her invitations, once for the official photos taken at the church and then at mass for her First Communion. She was so cute, she was nervous about it, especially drinking the wine. I tried to video her receiving communion but Ken was helping her and got in the way of my camera 8(

We had a small luncheon at our house afterward which we ended up ordering catering so we didn’t have to mess with cooking. Sometimes it is just so much easier so you get to enjoy chatting with everyone rather than cooking. Everything turned out nicely, including her yummy cake which was party chocolate cake with Ho-Ho cream and carrot cake with cream cheese filling. I love Cakes by Stephanie, but they are pricey so I save it for special occasions.

Where is the slow down button for this life of mine? I have so many blog drafts that I never published it crazy. It’s often that I will start writing something and then save it until I have time to resize photos or whatever and then I never seem to get around to finishing it.

Life is freakin’ insane people!! If you have little kids at home and you think your life is busy, just wait. It doesn’t get any easier and if people tell you that it does they are lying. Well I suppose it gets easier in the sense that you aren’t wiping butts and faces all day long, but now you have so many more things to deal with. Sports, dance, the endless birthday party invites, trying to keep the fridge filled, the laundry done…my gosh I can’t even keep my receipt pile empty. HOMEWORK!! My gosh, is homework meant for the kids or the parents? I sometimes wonder. I haven’t read any books since the Shades of Grey series because I haven’t had the desire to read at night after reading with the kids. This is the last week of school so hopefully I will be doing some reading in the near future.

Anyways, I want to get caught up here at the ole family blog and I don’t just want to skip things because my lack of extra time. So don’t mind me and the fact that I am sharing things that are a bit old.

For today we have some photos from Easter. Look at those cute kiddos and puppies!

If you want you can view the photos individually here.

We all had a blast at my cousin’s recent wedding reception. I wish they would have had these photo booths back when I got married…how fun!! Even my grandma joined in on the fun!

Even though there was no snow for Christmas it was a perfect day. Santa came Christmas Eve and when Ken and I woke up at 8:30am we actually had to wake the kids up! What a bunch of sleepy heads. We watched the kids open presents from Santa and then from Ken and I. Our kids get one present from Santa – usually the biggest of them all (price-wise) and then the rest of the gifts are from Ken and I. Chase and Karli both got an iPod Touch, Blake got a custom stitched Notre Dame jersey with his last name and number, and Andrew got a new baseball bat since they have to have a certain kind this year that he didn’t already have. We got them all tennis shoes, cases for Chase and Karli’s iPods, Andrew got some clothes and baseball gloves, Blake got a bunch of video games and football cards, and Chase and Karli got a bunch of other miscellaneous toys. The younger kids are so much easier to buy for than the older boys. Their gifts just get more expensive as the years go on.

We had Christmas dinner at our house this year and all the food turned out really good. Ken did a lot of the cooking and preparation. He made kielbasa and we stuffed a turkey will all the fixings. We also got a ham but we had his mom cook that for us and bring it over. There was so much food and it was all so yummy. Christmas Eve we had brunch with my parents and my sister’s family came in town. There are pros and cons with having everything at your house – it’s nice that you don’t have to go anywhere, but then you feel like you are cleaning for several days straight. Cleaning before the day, cleaning during and cleaning even more after. It was all really enjoyable this year and everyone chipped in to help out.

We were going to take a 5 day trip to Washington D.C. during Christmas break but the kids were all whining that they didn’t want to go. My kids just don’t get it sometimes, how lucky they are to be able to experience some of what we do. Andrew didn’t want to go because his buddy from Cleveland was coming in and town and he didn’t want to be away from his friends and girlfriend for an entire week (God forbid, LOL!) and the younger kids just wanted to play with their gifts and hang out at home. I didn’t really care, I mean…to spend money looking at objects from history isn’t really my cup of tea. I would rather spend the money on a couple’s massage somewhere in the Caribbean or something. You should have seen my face when I learned that the “National Mall” in DC is not a shopping mall?? Whaaat? Anyways, it’s hard to come up with ideas of places to visit that don’t cost 10 grand over Christmas break. Flights are so expensive and we have 6 people in our family. So we try to stick with things within driving distance. Then we were going to go skiing again and that is sort of a problem when there is no snow around here. And look here it is Friday already and I feel like we have done a whole lotta nothing. I sure am organized though, I cleaned so much of this house it’s crazy. Enjoy looking at some of our photos below and then the rest are at Flickr.

See rest of our Christmas Photos Here.

A little smile, a word of cheer, A bit of love from someone near, A little gift from one held dear, Best wishes for the coming year… These make a Merry Christmas!

We wish you all the best this Holiday Season!