Happy 37 Lars!

 Tuesday was Lars' 37th birthday. Wow...where are the years going? Crazy that he was not quite 24 when we met. His birthday was the next week and I always remember him bring me cake on his birthday. I really am a lucky girl to be married to one of the good guys :)

He had to work all day on Tuesday, but I got up and made muffins and smoothies for breakfast. Then during the day I made cupcakes and had fun decorating :)

 Ashton was home all day, but is really at an age that he could care less about helping with any of that stuff anymore. Gunnar did have school, so that was a rare thing for Ashton and I to be home alone for a couple hours. There were no friends around to play with so he and I built playing card houses for a little while. It reminded me of old days when it was always just him and me.

Anyway when it was time to go pick up Gunnar at 3:15 Ashton started saying "So who's coming to Dad's party tonight?" Well I hadn't really invited anyone just because parent/teacher was at 5:15, then I figured we'd go to dinner and just come home and have our cupcakes because it would be getting late for a school night. But he didn't like that at all! He said "That's no fair! That's not a party if no one is coming!" "What about Grandma and Grandpa Harry & Aunt Kelli?" "I'm gonna call them and invite them." So I let him use my phone on the way to get Gunnar and he invited them. Super short notice, but they decided they would come and made it in time to meet us for a yummy dinner at the CopperMill.

Then we came home and had cupcakes and Lars opened his few presents. What he told me he really wants (and what inspired the cupcake design)...is to go to the basketball tournament in Vegas in March.

So besides that we got him a couple of Amazon.com gift cards and a drill.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Ashton turns 7!!

I still haven't figured out how to slow down time and these boys just keep getting bigger & bigger :(.

January 6, 2012...Wow we have a 7 year old!

Can't believe it!

We started out Ashton's special day with a trip to McDonald's for breakfast with Nana & Papa...

Then it was off to school for Ashton and home for us to make preparations for his first party.

I have to say that after last year's crazy party at firehouse (just LOTS of kids)...I had said that we were going to keep it simple this year and probably not do a party. Well that's no fun, and Ashton just wasn't really going for that idea, so what did we do this year?

Had two.

That really was not my intention, but that's how it worked out. Mostly because with a winter birthday and if we invite everyone we want to invite, there is just not enough room in our house! So we split it into two groups...Friday night we had family and our friends the Hansons, and the Villas over for cake and ice cream.

And then on Saturday morning we had a "pancakes & pajamas" party

(Here's the invite :)...

Back to Friday for a minute. Lars took the day off, so he actually got to take donuts to Ashton's class with me. It was fun...I love knowing that Ashton feels special on his birthday :)

Now back to trying to keep it simple. I tried to talk Ashton into cupcakes. No. Then I talked up the idea of a fun ice-cream cake from Coldstone. No. What he wanted was a Lego Ninjago cake (yellow cake, white frosting) made only by me. So I couldn't let him down.

Here is the final product.

 I just couldn't get into the mood this year to do fondant or be super-creative with it, so I just put the boys' Ninjago guys on top...

 ...and decorated it with Legos and printed out the Ninjago sign so that everyone at least knew what it was supposed to be.

He loved it and that is all that matters.

Oh and Kelli and I made this guy :)

So we ate pizza, then opened presents... 

 Then sang to our birthday boy...

 Make a wish!

 Then had our cake and ice cream. 

It was a fun night.

But our celebrating had only just begun.

We got up on Saturday and started getting stuff ready for our big breakfast.

Ashton and all of his neighbor buddies :)

Lars and his Dad did all of the cooking... 

Chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and strawberries. It all turned out so good and ended up being such a fun idea for a party. The boys all came hungry and ate so well!

Then they played for a bit downstairs till it was time to open presents...

 ...then they played a little longer, then we sent them on their way...all before 10:00 am!

Happy Birthday Ashton!

We sure love you and are so grateful for you every single day :)

Fun way to start the New Year!

Well first of all with New Year's Day falling on a Sunday, we went to church. I actually love that it started on a Sunday and that was the first thing we got to do in 2012 :)

Afterwards we came home and loaded up to go ice fishing with a couple guys from our church. They go out to Mantua pretty often and the one guy Chuck has the perfect spot saved in his gps where he goes and catches tons of bluegill. We have rarely had any luck at Mantua, so it was fun to go with him and just like he promised as soon as we put our lines down we started catching them.

It was pretty non-stop the whole 2 or so hours we were there.

Lars was laughing at me because I was catching them on 2 poles and each time I would catch one, I'd run it over to him to take off the hook and hurry and run back and drop the line back down, just in time to catch one on the other rod and run it over to him :)

Ashton and Gunnar were interested for a few minutes...

 ...but they are pretty much fished out this season :)

 So they played in the tent and on the ice more than fished that day. But it was another beautiful day. We have really lucked out this year with the weather!

Here are just some of the fish we caught...

We put tons back that weren't quite big enough to be worth cooking.

Caught lots on my new pink rods :)

Fun way to spend New Year's Day...

I love this picture of Gunnar...ahh to be a kid :)

We rarely ever keep fish to eat just because it's kind of a big pain, but that day we decided to and after lots of work (ask Lars)...they turned out really good!