AHHHH....

The sun is shining BRIGHT today...the warm rays of light are just uplifting and warm! I can hardly wait for summer to arrive...

Be Mine

It was a grand Valentine's Day- look at my roses!

Started the day off with PINK pancakes and some new "buddies" to love on. Griff enjoyed his new rattle- we thought they made cool glasses...

Then it was off to Skate World for a birthday party! It was a "groovy" time. Pat is below in the stripped shirt with Mac behind him.

Lilly and I made a lot of laps together...

This is the 4 of us- just not a great picture.

taking a break to feed Griff. He did awesome. Slept some and enjoyed all the sights, sounds and lights!!

This is the Birthday Girl, Molly. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOLLY!!
Thank you for inviting us to your party- it was a blast.

The kids totally took advantage of all the sweets that were around. Cotton candy, popcorn, ice cream and cupcakes...oh my. Good thing they burned off their "sugar highs" skating!

We ended the day with heart shaped pizza...mmm good- doesn't get much better than that.

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Good Times Roll...

January & February have been eventful/busy months around here- but it has been lots of fun! I hosted Bunco in January with my Sandy group and we had a good time. When you get a Bunco, you have to wear whatever silly "get-up" the hostess comes up with. The glasses seemed fitting with Valentine's and all- they now belong to Lilly...

This is Lesa (above) and JoDell (below). I think JoDell enjoyed the glasses much more than Lesa! Ha- hope you don't kill me for posting this Lesa...
I am hosting Bunco in March with my Canby group. Will have to come up with another silly "get-up" very soon!

Mac and his buddy Noah at one of our many b-day parties. February has been full of b-day parties!! Oh-by the way... Happy Birthday to Tim today!!

Basketball has started and the team is doing well. Mac is a bit tired of me hollering at him to look at me for pictures...

I have finally finished Griff's room. The quilt on the glider was my inspiration- I am very pleased with it!

I get bored sometimes at b-ball practice and find ways to entertain myself... Griff is paying the price here. This is one of Lilly's hairbands...Pat was thrilled with me-

Look at this boy's tummy...eat much???

Now...this is all Lilly's doing. Griff has become her "baby doll". I have to really watch her because she can have him stripped out of his clothes and into her dress up clothes in record time! It is truly amazing...I turn my back for just a minute and the boy is transformed into what she calls her "princess". Yes- he will probably hate her for this later...

Just too cute-

Getting some grub from Paris (above) and some lovin' from Avery (below)
He is already very popular with the ladies.

Loungin' in Momma & Daddy's bed on a Saturday morning.

This is a short video of Lilly jumping off the diving board at the pool. She gets mad at me for making her wear a life jacket because she can swim- but I get too nervous when she is in the deep end of the pool. I wish I had gotten a video of her a bit later in the day because she was attempting some dives and doing twirls off it after awhile- of course my camera battery had died by then!

He's a growing...

Griff had his 2 month appt. on Tuesday and the boy is big...
He weighed in at 13.9 lbs and is 23 1/2" long. He has had a growth spurt! He coos and smiles and is starting to make lots of babbling noises and even blows raspberries...I think Lilly helped him with that trick. When he is on his tummy, he can push himself over onto his side and then squirms enough to get on his back. Rolling over at 2 months is pretty early. Anyhow, he is doing well and just getting too big, too fast. I hate it-
The rest of us are doing well too. Mac is playing basketball and doing great in school. Lilly is "flying" around all the time, talks non-stop, loves to pester Mac, dress up Griff and will start swimming soon. Pat has been keeping busy with work and trying to keep his sanity with all our water leaks/problems with our house. It's nuts that you buy or build a brand new house and have as many problems as we have had. For those of you who didn't know- we finally got our bathroom completed and the very next day, woke to another BIG leak in our master closet. It had to be torn apart and redone too. Then about a week or two after that, our washer went out and leaked water all over the laundry room! We went and bought a new washer, got it home and all hooked up. I did one load of laundry and found water again all over the laundry room floor...YEP...our brand new washer has a leak!! That was 3 weeks ago and Sears is FINALLY coming out today to look at it. Ugh...we have been very frustrated with some things lately.
We did get away for almost a week after the washer incident. It was a much needed escape!
I am slammed at school with art projects, meetings, fundraisers, etc. It just always keeps coming. I am doing my best to keep up...I owe a huge "THANKS" to Destiny for hanging in there with me and keeping up with it all too! I'd be lost without her-
On another note- my Dad is doing awesome and is just about done with his 24 weeks of treatments/infusions for Hep C. The virus is NO LONGER detectable in his blood! That is just AWESOME. He should start feeling much better after his last treatment. He will be heading our way at the end of March. We are very anxious to see him!
My niece Catie Lynn is also doing fantastic. Here is an update from Sherry & Jimmy on her progress-

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to give you all an update on Catie Lynn.

I’m sorry this has taken me so long, but a couple weeks ago we had another round of testing. This included an ultrasound, chest x-ray and blood work. Everything came back cleanJ Also, they said that her blood levels are pretty much back to normal…..which is amazing!!! We now only go to the doctor once a month to have her port flushed. We are so thankful. She is doing great!! I don’t know if you all realize how much she has been quarantined. Maybe we were a little extreme, but we tried our best to keep her well during her chemo treatment. We only took her to the store or restaurants a few times during her whole treatment. She hadn’t touched a grocery cart since last May. This last month, we ventured out and she was so excited to go to the store! She loves seeing other people and is very sociable (just like her brother). She is so excited to get out, that she can’t contain herself, and runs away……but what almost 2 year old doesn’t?

We are looking forward to her 2^nd birthday at the end of March. We are so thankful that she has been healthy and happy through this whole thing (other than a few temper tantrums). She has gained weight like crazy, and is growing like a weed. We spoke with the doctor about removing her port in her chest. We have decided to readdress the issue after her next tests in April. We again, want to thank everyone for all the support and prayers over the last year. It has been a crazy year, but we truly believe that we are given hard times so we can really appreciate the good ones.

That's all I have time for now. Will get some pictures up soon. Much love to you all-