How to turn a annual family pow-wow into a 50th birthday celebration:

Add 1 cake

Add a dash of old photos

Have the recipient realize it's all about her!

We had such a great time with family and friends. My favorite picture of the night is below. Suz needed a picture with her dad and brothers (one is missing) and to get them to agree we threw in as many of the grandkids as we could get our hands on. Please tell me this isn't adorable?

Oh, and don't worry, Grammy did a good job of teaching her grandkids the art of sneaking frosting off the birthday cake!

Rory has taken her first steps! It took lots and lots of convincing. Daddy and I have been sending her between us for a couple weeks now, and it finally paid off. It was only a couple steps, and only two times during one of our "training sessions", but I'll take it! She is now picking herself up to standing from the ground and has even taken to walking on all fours as opposed to crawling. Soon she will be walking, soon she'll be able to chase Max more easily, soon she will be a toddler. Wow!

Enjoy Rory's new crawl!

Don't you just want to reach out and grab at those thighs? They just kill me!

(For you Auntie Cyd...) Stay tuned for photos from Dusty's Family Pow-Wow/Suzanne's 50th Celebration and others from yet another eventful weekend!

The other day I went to go pick up the kids from daycare and they were playing outside. The way the daycare is laid out is that they have blacktop directly behind the building and then there is a playground to the right that is fenced off and designed for the older kids, a playground to the left that is fenced off and designed for the younger kids. There is also a soccer field and garden behind the blacktop that is fenced off. If that confused you, there are four separate fenced in playgrounds and usually Max and Rory are completely apart with the blacktop area between them.

Since Rory is still small, she only plays in the playground for younger children. Max is now big enough for all playgrounds and the other day I walked out to see him rolling a ball back and forth with one of his friends on the blacktop. While I walked out I was looking for Rory and I spotted her sitting at the fence watching her brother play with his friend. I was feeling a little sorry for her, since I know she wanted to play with her brother but then I saw the cutest thing. Max got up and walked over to the fence and sat down on the other side. Then he and Rory started "talking" to each other through the fence. I just stopped and stared, it was such a special moment for me to see my two children showing such affection for each other.

It was such a special moment and made this Mama so proud!

The Twin's game was so much fun yesterday! We started out walking around the plaza, taking the traditional pictures. Check out how cute Katie and I are in the golden glove!

Then we turned, gave our tickets and walked into Target Fields. Once we got through the gates I just looked up and realized that we were at the game - OUTSIDE! Yes, I realize that is the thrill of going to a Twin's game this year, the new stadium and all, but seriously, until you actually walk into Target Fields I don't think you can understand just how cool that is! Naturally, I had to give a big "Hello" to Target Fields and introduce myself.

I also had to get my face painted since I don't really own any Twin's garb and I had to make sure people knew I was cheering for the home team!

The Twin's didn't win but the game was close the whole time, the crowds were crazy, and we got the first home run! Brent and I had fun slapping hands with everyone around us. (Side note: Slapping hands with complete strangers is extremely fun!) Look at how happy he is.

It was a really fun game and I was so pumped from the experience I didn't even get tired on my drive home. It was 1am by the time I made it home so I was pretty impressed; the Diet Coke may of helped. Thank you Andrew for letting me take your seat, and thank you Katie for inviting me to fill Andrew's seat. I had an amazing time!

Two pictures from my phone that I had to share. We had a potluck at work both last week and this week. (We split up into groups, and then brought food two Tuesdays in a row. Excellent idea for the weather change, run with it!) Our group ordered an ice cream cake from DQ for dessert. While ordering the cake the DQ staff asked me what I wanted the cake to say. So many choices! But you all know me, the decision was made almost instantly and I think it turned out great.

Also, Dusty snapped a picture from last Sunday while we were being lazy at home. Here I am getting ready to take Max and Rory down the slide.

Have I not mentioned that I have the cutest kids in the world? Because here's the proof - I do! :-)

One more great news story to share? I am going to the Twin's playoff game tonight. I'm super excited since I have not been in the new stadium yet, it's a playoff game so it's going to be wild, and I get to hang out with Katie and we can kick back without having to worry about what Max, Lyla and Rory are getting in to. Well, at least we won't have to check in on them. I may worry about what Dusty and the kids are getting into while I'm away...

10 things that have made me happy recently:

1. The woman from the county that analyzed Max called and sang her praises of our daycare. It's nice to hear it in person as we only had her written report prior to this.
2. Dusty told Randy that he and Ashley could stay at our house for a couple of days while they were between rentals and then completely forgot about it, let alone to tell me! If it was for more then a few days I may be upset, but instead I have this in my back pocket to use for a rainy day.
3. Rory has learned how to hug! Need I say more?
4. I started a Zumba class this month and it feels great. It also gives me one day a week to not have to rush home and be able to run errands.
5. My back appears to be finally healed and I even got the OK from my chiropractor to come back when necessary since he didn't see anything out of place. That was really putting me in a grouchy mood!
6. Dusty was able to sell both of our cars and purchase a newer, more reliable car in their place. We only own two vehicles now. It's been a while!
7. I was able to prepare and freeze quite a few meals which means that we'll be eating good for a couple weeks thanks to one day of hard work. We're also saving money this way as it is much cheaper to make your own meals then to order or go out to eat.
8. Rory is interacting and "talking" with us so much more. She uses her signs and will sing and dance all the time. Now if only I could convince her to start walking. She keeps standing on her own but refuses to take those first steps. Come on Rory!
9. Max has taken to covering his head with his blanket or pillow in the morning if he doesn't want to wake up and will say "I'm sleepin' Mama". Seriously? Is there anything cuter then a 2 year old acting like a sweet little teenager?!
10. We've actually had a few quiet hours this last weekend where we got to just relax at home with the kids. I know I say this all the time, but they really are great kids. Max, Rory and I would ride down the slide together, then Max and I would crawl back up and Dusty would hand Rory to us so we could all slide again. Dusty is excellent at spider swinging with the kids, they both got giggles doing that with Daddy. And both of them loved getting dirty while we cleaned up the garden. It was a great to have some quiet, unstructured family time.

1 Thing that made me stronger:

1. While hosting my mom's birthday party this weekend Rory took a spill from the chair to the tile floor below. She was crying pretty hard and between that and all the junk food she threw up. Since I was comforting her at the time she threw up all over my hair, my sweater, my jeans and her shirt. Someone gave me a towel and I whisked her away to my parent's bathroom. Thankfully I only had to remove Rory's sweater and she was good to go since it all ended up on me anyway. I had to remove my sweater, wash all the vomit out of my hair, and get it off my jeans. Once the jeans were vomit free I cuffed them to cover the wet spot and threw on a sweatshirt. Within 30 minutes Rory and I were presentable again. There may not be such a thing as Super Mom, but I can claim Puke and Rally Mom instead!

My dad, sisters, and I threw my mom a 50th birthday party this past weekend, and it was so much fun! We'd been planning it for a few months now, and it was not a surprise, my mom was even in a bit with the planning as we wanted to make sure she had some say. Thursday we were at their house cleaning and doing the pre-prep work. There was lots of food to buy and many pictures to go through as we wanted to have a good spread of times, friends and family. It got to be a late night!

Saturday was a whirlwind of greatness. The pig was roasting when we pulled up at 9am (they got there at 6) and the smell was so good. It was impossible not to dream of bacon and ham and everything delicious. I should mention, pig is my favorite meat and bacon is exactly what Grandma G used to convince me to stop being a vegetarian back in those trial adolescent years. Yeah, I love me some bacon. So needless to say, I was so happy to start the setup with that aroma in the air.

Some of the greatest showed up early to help us out and were even kind enough to do the rest of the food setup while we were busy getting some family pictures taken. (Thank you Cindy, Barb, Grandma and everyone else!) We paid to have a photographer at the party for a couple hours that took our family pictures and then also took a bunch of pictures of everyone at the party so that we could focus on visiting with guests and keeping everything stocked. It went really well and I'm really excited to see those pictures in a few weeks.

We had a really great time and I absolutely love our family and friends, they made the party so great. It was certainly not warm out and everyone trooped along. Eventually we moved to the bonfire pit where drinks and merriment went hand in hand, along with some great stories. Thank you to everyone that came, it meant a lot to us and we had so much fun!

I didn't take a lot of pictures since we had the photographer and I was busy, but enjoy what I do have. 

Sorry if you're squeamish!

The birthday girl's cake.

My sister's and I before our family pictures. No, we did not wear dresses all night, it was just for the pictures.

The twins, can you imagine?!

Me and my fake cousins.

Mom and a bunch of her girl friends.

My #1 daughter glass, because you know I'm special!

It was quite a night!