happy birthday, Matt

Today is Matt's birthday. We celebrated by driving home from Eburg with two crabby boys. I'm pretty sure it was the best birthday he's ever had!

It wasn't all bad. We got him this M's hat (that Mason told him about the second he came home from work the day we bought it). I made Pop Rock cupcakes for him and Mason to celebrate on Saturday. I was (way more) excited (than I should've been) that the 3 could be for Mason, then together they could be for Matt - awesome, don't you agree? : ) Then we had pizza and root beer floats tonight.

We also got to go out with the Ryan's on Saturday! They happened to be in town for the weekend so we met up for dinner and drinks. It was only a couple hours, but it was fantastic! We hit up The Tav for dinner and then walked to Iron Horse Brewery for a drink. What more could you ask for?!

Mariners vs Twins

We had our annual M's vs Twins night with the Gamradts on Saturday. It was a beautiful night and the M's even decided to win a game!

Yep, still funny... We did this last year and it was just as hilarious this time! : )

first snow

We had a pretty great snow day today!

The kids played in the backyard, came in for a cocoa break and then headed out for some street sledding...

I borrowed a hat. : )

the last of our never-ending Christmas celebrations

As we've done the past few years, we celebrated Christmas and New Year's with my family on New Year's Eve. We were all spoiled, ate as if we were never going to see food again and had a great time.

Andrew stayed up until midnight and celebrated the start of the new year with us. It wasn't how we planned it, but he had so much sugar he couldn't get to sleep. : ) Even though he didn't quite get what the big deal was, he had fun being able to stay up and party with us.

happy thanksgiving

After the birthday breakfast we watched the parade (and the football game, then the parade...). Mason was really loving it - he sat in my lap and watched it, got up to dance every once in a while and then sat back down. He also likes football, so he was pretty happy with whatever was on.

Then we headed to the Miller's for a wonderful feast!

They had such a cute table set up for us all. It turns out Madisyn and Alli were in charge of it and found all the ideas on Pinterest! : )

We also celebrated Andrew and Uncle Ed's birthdays.

And we ended with a serious round of Pit! Happy Thanksgiving!

I asked Andrew what he was thankful for almost every day this month and he tried really hard to come up with something new every time. A few of my favorites for the Thanksgiving record... My whole family, soccer, Ice skating with all of my very best friends, God, all my money, bees (because he likes honey), spiders & bats (purposefully the two things I don't so much care for) and the Lego store.

deutschefest

We went to Odessa to join our friends at Deutschefest again this year. It was really fun to be able to visit and stay out past 8:00 since we were both there without our kids. And I scored the raddest winter hat ever! I'm hoping it'll fit Andrew, but it's an adult-sized hat so I'm sure it'll be way too big. There's a good chance you'll be seeing a lot more of me in it. You guys are so lucky!

I seem to like to take the same picture at different times in the day. Wearing my new hat...

11 years of love : )

Happy anniversary to us!

While Alex & Anna enjoy day two of marriage (this picture was taken at their wedding), and Matt and Karee celebrate two years (we had fun celebrating with them at their wedding on our 9th anniversary) Matt and I celebrate 11 years of wedded bliss. : )

Life is good.

I'm pretty good at drinkin' beer

Matt and I both love a good beer, and oddly have a similar taste for our favorites (it's odd because it's really the only thing food-related that we agree on). Anyway, we found that we didn't really have a strong opinion on light beer, so we did what any normal couple would do and conducted a taste test...

The exciting outcome of the test: we both selected Bud Light. So now we know.

I feel like adding a disclaimer. I actually prefer Corona Light over these three, but unfortunately they seem to have forgotten to put alcohol in it, so it loses a few points based on that...

we camped

We finally made it out for our first camping trip since having kids - it was fantastic! We went to Chelan (25 Mile Creek) with a group of friends and couldn't have asked for a better weekend!

I was pretty sure the boys would love camping since they both love being outside - the one thing I was worried about was bedtime. No need to be worried - they slept like champs!

Our tent became a bit of a bouncy house because we had 3 air mattresses and not a lot of rules about not jumping... We had three because we weren't sure what would happen at bedtime. Andrew has his own but has never wanted to sleep in it and we weren't sure what Mason would do, so we planned for all options. Andrew loved his bed so we basically all had our own mattress. We plan to get a sleeping bag for Mason for our next camping trip - we're pretty sure he'd sleep just fine in one.

We lucked out with a great campground - our camp sites were nice and they had a great swim area.

This creek was across from our campsites. It was separated by a little driveway/road that made a very obvious boundary for the kids but was close enough for us to step in anytime we wanted. On top of it just being really cool looking, we're pretty sure the sound of it is what helped the kids sleep so well.

At one point we had 7 kids between us. Jeannette thought it'd be fun to line them up by age, so of course I took advantage of the lineup. It turns out it's not real easy to get a picture of 7 kids.

Even though we've seen Charlie and Annie a few times over the years, this was the first time that Andrew and Charlie really had time to get to know each other and hang out. They spent a lot of time together and are slowly becoming bff's for sure.

Since we camped over my birthday weekend, Jeannette brought a s'mores buffet to celebrate! Andrew chose the classic, with a few m&m's on the side.

And I must say, it was one of my best birthdays ever!

They guys... I couldn't resist including my favorite picture of Krust. : )

Mason picked up this new trick today. It's a great way to end the trip - thumbs up. : )