Thank you!

Celebrations

On Thursday, I was surprised to walk into my office after lunch to find a beautiful display of balloons and a teddy bear...

Bryan and the kiddos really surprised me because I was not expecting a belated birthday surprise!  But later, I would find out that this was not the intention, they were suppose to be delivered on my birthday but apparently the driver got lost so the delivery needed to wait until the following day! I thought the story was funny but Bryan informed me that he had a full day of dealing with the flower shop and it was not all fun :)  But the surprise but great, and really made my day!  Mission accomplished :

Yesterday, we finished off my birthday celebrations by going out to dinner with all our family at Pizza Hut!  I'm so thankful that I have such amazing family and inlaw's that spoil me!

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of everyone, but we had a group of 17 !  Now that I am in my "late" twenties, going out for dinner is what I look forward to every year so I'm so thankful that everyone could come!  My 26th birthday was a special one thanks to all of you!

Another year older...

I am officially in my late twenties now, because today I turned 26 years old!  And like every birthday after you turn 21, it is just another day!  But my family never fails to make me feel special on my day.  My hubby and in law's surprised me with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen last night...

 And a mani/pedi gift certificate!  This will be great to use before our Mexico trip in March...if I can wait that long :)

And today, I brought in donuts for my co workers! Which was a great idea because I had my own little pity party in my office today after I recieved my not so wonderful birthday surprise that my co worker (whom I just finished training) put in her resignation :(  So now we are in search of a social worker...so please send any social workers you know my way :)  

But my day  always gets better when I see these two smiling faces!  They helped me open my present from my parents which was an SD card reader for my Ipad!  

I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me this year but I'm ready for whatever he has to offer!  My twenties have been my best years so far and I have so many blessings in life to be thankful for on this birthday and many more to come!  Thanks for all the birthday wishes,  my phone has been beeping all day with sweet friends sending me Happy Birthday messages :)  

Election Day

I voted....

Did you?  If not,  GO VOTE!

And if I wasn't excited enough about voting, I'm ecstatic to not have to hear any more campaign ads after today! Woo Hoo :) 

But most importantly...

Amen!

Our Little Gymnast

Tonight was Bryleigh's first night of Tumble Bugs!  I've been trying to find activities for 2 year old's in our community and it is so hard to do (One of the joys of living in a small town). But I was able to find a 4 week gymnastics session for 2-3 year old's!  So off we went...

My mom came along too and was able to get some cute pictures!  I'm so glad we went, although very informal, it was perfect for Bryleigh!  She was our little go getter and wasn't afraid to try anything!  The instructor was a bit shocked when she hopped right up on the balance beam and speed walked forward, backward, and with kicks! Little miss independent!

I'm so glad we signed her up. It was a fun activity that just Bryleigh and I could enjoy.  Our 1 on 1 time is few and far between so I'm going to soak it all up on our next few Monday nights together!

New Class

I finally have a chance to stop and take a breath.  I started a new class yesterday and it appears that it is going to be a tough one. I just finished writing the first draft of my paper and thought I would sneak in a bit of blogging lately.

It has been a bit crazy around here this week. With Halloween and Bryleigh being at Grandma's for 2 days last week, her routine was all messed up.  That makes for very long and rough evenings.  Even Christian has gone to bed early one night this week.  It was a week that tested our patience for sure.  I'm hoping that we are back to our routine, and things will start looking up.  I'm not liking this terrible two's and five's!

We had movie night at Grandma and Grandpa's on Friday night and yesterday was pretty laid back after I got back from school, since I had lots of reading and writing to do.

Unfortunately, I have been so busy that I haven't been taking many pictures.  But I do have some pictures from my phone from the past for weeks.  So here are some randoms:

Yupp, sleeps just like her momma!

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Happy Halloween (a day late)

As to be expected, Halloween was a super busy but fun day!  We were go, go, go from right after we picked Christian up from school until we all went to bed at 9:00.  We had a super "healthy"  dinner of cereal! (This is the price we pay to give our kids a fun evening :) And we headed out to show off the kiddos to the grandparents! Christian was Batman once again but since Bryleigh had two costumes this year, she was our little Damsel this time :)

We started off downtown on 3rd street but considering past years, not many people had their lights on.  But we still had a lot of fun because the older Victorian  neighborhood always has their houses decorated for the occasion!

Cousin, Marcus

The weather was fairly nice but still a bit chilly. And since we had a very cute (but tiny) cow with us, we needed to warm up a bit.  So went to the mall for their trick or treating!

My favorite part of Halloween is seeing all the kiddos in the their cute and creative costumes!  And we always have a large group of cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles.  And the group just keeps getting bigger every year since we are very good at pro-creating :)  I just couldn't get me enough baby time yesterday!

After the mall, we visited Grandma T. and received more goodies and our last stop for the evening was "red" grandparents house for some late night pizza. The kids were good and tired by the time that we got home, and so were us, parents!  But we had a successful Halloween and even Bryleigh can't wait for next year...she thinks this is a nightly routine now!  "Me get costume, go trick or treating,"  she says!

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!