Year: 2015
It’s been almost 25 years!
Mike was one of my best friends in high school. We missed seeing each other at both our 10-year reunion (he was sick) and 20-year reunion (I had just moved back out of state) and then we were never in town at the same time…until now!
I wish we’d have had more time to catch up than the 10 minutes we had before the AuSable River Canoe Marathon started…but beggars can’t be choosers!
Len Christmas in July, Year 2
This year the party was at my mom’s house! Katie “helped” with the party prep!
Katie loved her Anna dress from Grauntie Rose!
The cousins being silly!
If there’s water, the kids will come.
Bubble wands at the ready!
The annual by-age lineup: Katie (3), Owen (6), Aubrey (7), Gracie (9), and Nick (11). You’ll see a direct Owen/Nick comparison tomorrow. 🙂
Everyone always complains but I think they secretly enjoy the family photo! 🙂
Our little Santas.
Owen was GIDDY with the bazooka Grauntie Rose got him! It’s almost like she knows him exactly like I do. :p
Katie LOVES her Frozen magic music wand from Grauntie Marilyn.
No snow? Grass angels!
Ice cream face!
Overall it was a great day—the kids all had a blast together, the food was abundant and delicious, and everyone had fun relaxing and playing games. I think it was the right decision to move our Christmas to the middle of summer!
Owen’s first Fun Run!
Owen ran his first Fun Run (with daddy!) this morning during the AuSable River Festival! (Sidenote: it will always be Milltown to me…though AuSable River Festival does fit better.)
Katie wanted to run…on daddy’s shoulders. 🙂
We had time to waste before the race started so we wandered around downtown and ran into Papa and Grannie! 🙂
And a pout for good measure.
Pre-race announcements:
Heading to the starting line!
There they go!
Heading a block back to the finish line—it won’t take them long!
Here they come! There was no official time or finish places, but they were in the top 10!
And here’s the start—and finish—all in one video!
Post-race snacks! 🙂
Teaching Owen how to play Sorry!
We taught Owen on the exact game board Gramma Jean taught me to play on 35ish years ago!
Spiderprincess!
Katie and the Christmas Tree
We were getting the house ready for our Len Christmas in July and got out this ceramic tree. It’s old—my mom made it for my Grandma Katie (Len) in the ’70s and I’ve always loved it. Katie was enthralled with it, too…and one of the first things she said was “There’s no star!” My mom said that Grandma Len had said the very same thing and even attached a fake star to it. I don’t think I ever really noticed that it didn’t have a star—or I did, but didn’t think it was any big deal. Amazing how the original Katie AND her namesake both had the same thought. 🙂
Maggie’s new outfit!
Watch out when I go to an arts and crafts show!
A day with Grandma Marsha!
35 years later…
See the tree right next to the stump? I planted it in elementary school with one of the tiny saplings they send home on Arbor Day!
Swimming with the grandparents
Finally jumping into a pool that has a deep end! All the pools we frequent are a max of 5′ deep so he always hits bottom! This was a new experience for him and he loved it!
Showing Grannie Lin that he can really float now!
And this little stinker! Here she is jumping into the shallow end…BUT!…Earlier, she walked down to the deep end where Papa and Owen were, walked right to the edge, and jumped right in! Went completely under and everything—and came up smiling! SHE HAS NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE, even with prompting! It was so unexpected that I didn’t even have time to get a pic of it! She swam over to the ladder, got out, and DID IT AGAIN! I missed it again, too, because I had a brain fart on how to take a video with my real camera. ARGH! Of course, she refused to do it a third time!
She loves her brother!
Strangely enough, her in the pool doesn’t bother me…but her climbing up this ladder scares the crap out of me.
This is a horrible picture but I need to use it as an illustration. You can see I was a bit away from her and she had climbed up there. No biggie. Then she reached up and grabbed the first bar. Still no biggie. Then she leaned out and grabbed the second bar (as seen here) and right as I snapped the picture, she swung her legs off the bar so she was hanging there. I practically dropped the camera and rushed over there—knowing she couldn’t hang there very long on her own and not wanting her to come crashing down. EGADS. I grabbed her and she proceeded to work her way across the bars like no big deal. NO FEAR!
Kid(s) in the window
And Owen in the same spot back in May 2011. 🙂 (As a sidenote, I didn’t think so at the time, but looking back…HOLY WAH does Owen look like Tom at that age.)
An awesome new playground!
Gramma Jean said there was a new playground by the house so on the way home from Kid Fest we stopped to check it out.
HOLY CRAP.
It’s bigger and nicer than the playground at Owen’s school!
Hopefully we’ll make it back at least once before we leave!
Kid Fest!
It’s Milltown week so we took the kids downtown to Kid Fest! They had a blast!
She LOVED the popcorn. The SnoCones…not so much.
Making bracelets and necklaces with Gramma.
Then Owen got to ride in a racing canoe!! Some of the racers were the back seat paddlers and took the kids up and down the river. It was his very first time in a canoe and he loved it!
If you notice, he’s watching what the pro does and copies him to steer the boat!
He said he was a little scared at first but then he was okay! We were SO proud of him!
Owen loved sitting in the big fire truck—and even got to turn on the lights and the siren! Katie wanted NOTHING to do with any of it. 🙂
Getting a ninja turtle mask!
And lastly, our crazy photo booth pictures!
Owen got a yahtzee!
Gramma Jean has been teaching Owen how to play Yahtzee!
Sleep happens on road trips!
The kids had a long, busy, fun-filled weekend with our friend’s kids and the babysitter (while we were at our TiVo events) and didn’t get their normal amounts of sleep…so this happened pretty early into our trip.
Sunday morning swim lessons!
She wanted to play before class! (I’m guessing because it felt like 100° in there.)
And of course she immediately swam down to where Owen was playing (his class is after hers so he gets to play for a half hour).
She’s slowly getting less panicky when floating. The instructor can almost get through the ABCs before Katie sits up.
Katie’s funny. She doesn’t mind being in the water with the instructor but after each turn in the water she comes over to me and asks if she’s done. I tell her no, she whines a little, them she goes and sits back at the edge of the pool and waits her turn while playing with water toys. Every. Single. Time. 🙂
She also normally doesn’t want to play much afterwards because she gets cold but today she was all about it! She swam down to Owen again and he taught her how to swim over the lane dividers! So, she had great fun showing me her new skill!
While she was playing, I took a moment to go watch what Owen was doing.
Owen is getting really good at the backstroke!
Headed home!
I love that he still does this.
Tivo 10 Year Reunion
Ten years ago, there was a huge Tivo meet in DC. While we weren’t at the original party, we were still invited to the reunion! :p (We were on the Tivo forum but didn’t attend our first meet (and meet people in person) until New Year’s Eve 2006-2007.)
We don’t take nearly as many pictures as we used to and the parties start dying down around 11p instead of 2a…but we still have fun!
With two of my favorite peeps—Andrew and Sheryl.
Most of the attendees:
Adoration all around.
Katie ADORES Maddie and Owen and Mason are best buds (and Mason has introduced Owen to Minecraft…).
Dinner with TiVo peeps!
The start of our weekend activities! Heading out to dinner in Arlington!
Taking a break from the excitement that was attempting to move our seats. Let’s just say the tracks work VERY well and VERY quickly when on a hill. And the boys may have gotten kneed in the back. 🙂
Part of our big group!
Cheer vs. Chair
Mark asked Katie for a cheer (since she was wearing her MSU cheerleader skirt)…and she brought him a chair! 🙂
Tomatoes aplenty!
I picked tomatoes today.
Then added them to what we had left from previous days (on the right). Holy wah.
I had to do something with them before vacation…so I did my first crock pot tomato sauce! With our basil, too!
Then blended the crap out of it with the stick blender because I didn’t skin the tomatoes…and it’s really tasty!
Katie is unpacking almost as fast as I’m packing.
This was upstairs in the clothes box to go back to the Besons. Then it came down. 🙂
“Mama! I want to wear this!”
I got sucked in!
I got sucked into my friends dermatology stuff (Rodan + Fields) and made a purchase. The stuff is EXPENSIVE, but if it works half as well as the photos I’ve seen, it will be worth it. I figure I’m working on my body…now I need to work on my skin.
So after a week of diligent use I don’t see any difference.
The lighting is a bit different between the two, but you can still see red cheeks and a red forehead. Yes, it’s only been a week, but with all the great success my friends have seen in the same amount of time, I’m a tad disappointed. Of course I’ll keep going—I have 60 days to test it out—so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 🙂
Personally I think it’s insane to use all the products in the morning and the evening—well, four in the morning and three at night (a cleanser, even though I’m not wearing any makeup?!)—but I figure what I was doing before wasn’t working, so I needed to try something new. And I promised myself I would do it exactly as instructed—but doing that makes it seem like I’ve been doing this MUCH longer than a week!
This was long overdue!
The appointment started out a little rough—my stylist ran 30 minutes late!—but it turned around and I love my new cut! It’s long overdue—my last haircut was almost 1.5 years ago!
I’m not saving that Lego.
Subtitled: Well that’s a first.
Subtitled: That’s not how you play with Legos.
Subtitled: Owen put one up his nose, Katie ate one.
Subtitled: There will be NO pictures of this.
Subtitled: SERIOUSLY?!
Submitted: Katie ate a Lego head today.
Tom and I were in the office and Katie was watching TV. She came into the office and said she put Elsa’s head in her mouth. She knows she’s not supposed to put toys in her mouth and she usually tries to hide it, so we were interested. Tom asked where Elsa’s head was and Katie pointed to her throat.
What?!
We asked if it was in her mouth. No.
We asked her to go find Elsa. She was indeed headless.
We asked again where Elsa’s head was and she pointed to her throat.
Kids. 😐
Someone was excited!
We surprised the kids with a bouncy house and this was Katie’s reaction to seeing it for the first time. How can that not make you smile?! 🙂
I think that’s Owen’s.
Tom grabbed the first apron he saw. 🙂
A three minute nap.
Katie fell asleep on the way to pick up Owen…about three minutes before we got there. 🙁
