kennedy turned nine!

okay... yes it was two weeks ago... but well... life has been busy... as usual.
On the day of her birthday party she was up at the studio with me for a bit so I tried to snap a few photos of her, but she would have NONE of that... So... this is what you get I guess!

She had her party at Whipper Snippers where each girl got a manicure and pedicure and got to pick out something from the shop! Kennedy chose the rockin' sunglasses. Afterward we went out to dinner at Mexican Village, and then back to our house to play for a while.

The next day was her actual birthday... so we had cake and ice cream at our house. I took Kennedy out on her birthday to pick out her birthday present and she chose a new pink Kodak digital camera with a pink camera case. Love you Miss Kenn!

wefest

Awwwww.... how cute are we???

already august

Summer is just zipping by... as usual. August is here and all of the kids activities and busy schedules are over. Hopefully we will get some nice weather soon so we can just sit back and enjoy summer. This weekend we will again head to WeFest. Iwill only get in one night there though(Tim ... alone... at WeFest? Is that a good idea???) I fly to San Diego on Friday afternoon for a photography workshop. We are still trying to figure out what we are going to do for our family vacation the week before school starts too. Any suggestions?

Last weekend we went to the new Trollwood Perfoming Arts School to watch The WIZ... Katelyn performed with Totally Trollwood before the play. We all thought it was Fantastic... especially the costumes!

And... we got in a quick visit with cousins Jillian and Elliott at a family get-together at Grandpa Dan's. (Delaney stayed home to play in the championship game of her soccer tournament!)

Don't you think Katelyn and Elliott look a lot alike? He really liked hanging out with Katelyn ... and wanted her to help him with everything. Sure wish they lived closer... like in Moorhead (hint,hint!)

bachelor night

It is Monday night... but for the first Monday night all summer, I do not have "Bachelor Night" tonight.

For the past couple of years, I have been getting together with this fun group of girls to watch each episode of every season of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. And when I say watch, I mean eat tons of junk food, gossip a LOT, make fun of all the the "contestants" on the show and rewind the previews for the next week's show relentlessly in hopes that we might get a glimpse of some very important information to predict what may happen NEXT WEEK on the MOST SHOCKING EPISODE in BACHELOR HISTORY!"

At the beginning of each season, we watch the first show together, and then make our picks ... fantasy football style. Each "player" puts $10 in the pot and those who pick the girl/guy left standing at the end get to split the money. I have never EVER picked anyone who finished in the top three.

This season my pick for The Bachelorette Jillian was JAKE.

I sure did like him after that first show. But by mid-season he really got on my nerves and even I was happy when he got the boot.

The winner was this dude... ED.Here are the gay green shorts he wore all.the.time.So here we are... (most of us anyway) before watching the The Most Romantic Season Finale in Bachelorette History. I brought the cake...and gagged a little when the guy in the gay green shorts won.

monday ramblings

First off, I'd like you to meet the newest member of our family....
In our hearts that is.... we fell in love with this little guy at the pet shop this weekend. We named him "Mauer" and dreamed of bringing him home with us, but our daddy said, "No. No No No. No WAY. Seriously, NO!!!" Poor us. He was the cutest little thing we ever did see.Dad said he just loved his little princess Emme too much and he didn't want her to ever think she had been replaced.
Okay... that's not really what he said. But... she is his little princess even if he won't admit it.

On another note, Tim and I went to the movie The Hangover this weekend and laughed so.dang.hard.

We both agreed it was one of the funniest movies we'd ever seen. So go see it... but leave the kids at home. Just about every seen has something that is totally and completely inappropriate.

rip-off

Whatever happened to some good affordable fun. I took three of the kids (Carter and Tim were in the cities for another soccer tournament) to the Red River Valley Fair last Friday and was not quite prepared the amount of cash that would be needed. So after we paid our gate admission, walked in, realized our lack of funds, walked back out, drove to the bank, went back and purchased the ride wristbands for the kids, I was already more than $100 down. And then there was the food...

The kids had fun at least.

Dear Hazel,

I think being naughty is very fun too!

our weekend

We had a very busy weekend and packed in lots of fun. Friday night Tim and I went out to the RRVFair with some friends for the Zac Brown Band concert. On Saturday the girls and I headed to Pelican Rapids for the Turkey Days parade and to the craft show at Phleps Mill. We also visited Grandma Sandi's lake cabin and went to Maple Beach for supper. The girls painted rocks at Phelps Mill.

On Sunday it was my birthday so I got to choose the activities! First we went to the Flea Market by Detroit Lakes (which nobody else enjoys, except my COOPER!) Then we went to Go Putt & Bump for mini-golf and go-karts, and finally to Zorbaz on the lake for supper.

4th of July

at Little Cormorant

I promised...

a baseball post for Cooper! The boys are in Babe Ruth baseball again this summer in the 9 and 10 year old leauge and their team this year is CashWise. Unfortunately it hasn't been a very successful year for them... but we are proud of them anyway!

Katelyn is way ahead of me and already has a slideshow from our July 4th weekend up on her blog... http://katiemacsblog.blogspot.com/

wait a minute...

Is June really over???

Here is a little re-wind of our month...

Katelyn performed in the production of Honk Jr. that was put on through Trollwood and Moorhead Schools. It is a modern re-telling of the children's story The Ugly Duckling. She played the part of the TURKEY!


Each cast member got to decorate their very own rubber duck. Katelyn's was painted to look like a bumblebee.
Jack and Ella even came to watch one of Katelyn's performances!
Miss Kennedy and mom had a whole Saturday to ourselves so we headed out to the mall and Kennedy got a PERM!
It turned out very cute...

Time with BFF Kenzie at the Village Green Pool...
And Carter has continued to have traveling soccer tournaments each weekend. I broke out the long lens a couple of weekends ago when he played in Fargo.

Carter scored TWO goals during this tournament that were headers from a corner kick... pretty AMAZING!

And in case you noticed that one of our children has been completely left out from this post, not to worry. I plan to take pictures of COOP playing baseball tonight and will post them very soon!

Funny Cooper story.... He was asked to play with Carter's soccer team for last weekend's tournament in the cities because they were short a few players. Carter was a little worried about how his brother would do.... turns out that in the second game Cooper scored not one, but TWO GOALS! Way to go Cooper Man!

our night with kenny

Kenny was in town last night... so of course we went to hang out with him for a couple of hours.I think this was the 6th time we've seen Kenny in concert, and we never get tired of it. I'd have to say, though that this concert was the best one yet. (It could have something to do with the killer tickets we had...) See you next time Kenny.