A Cupcake Party!

The girls ended up all showing up in pink! Too cute. :)

Audrie, Emily and Kada

Filling the cupcake liners.

Of course Emily had to lick the spatula!

Working on their craft and coloring.

Hannah and her cupcakes and a beautiful smile!

Emily could not wait to eat hers!

Hannah's cupcakes

Recently, my Mom had a little Cupcake Party for a few of her younger Granddaughters at her house. It was a fun morning for all.

The girls got to help mix the cupcake batter, bake and decorate their own cupcakes to take home. They did a cute little craft and my mom also prepared a special little snacky (don't think that is even a word) lunch for the girls that were served in cupcake liners!

Great memories were created for both Grandma and Granddaughter's (and their mom's!).

Get out of my house flu!!!

Have you ever had one of those weekends when you have tons of things to do and the weather is gorgeous out, but you end up coming down with the flu on Friday afternoon? That was my past weekend! Emily came down with the flu on Wednesday night. I was the 2nd victim on Friday and Kyle was lucky number 3 on late Saturday night. Our weekend was pretty much shot.

We all seem to be feeling better today. Let's hope all the sickness is leaving our house. We have some awesome weather on the way this week and I want to be outdoors!

Meet the newest addition to our family!!

No, we did not have another baby! We got a puppy! His name is Trigger and he is Weimaraner/German Shorthair Pointer and is super cute! He was born on Christmas Day 2010.

I was very reluctant on getting another dog. We have not had the best of luck with dogs the past few years. I also was not sure I wanted to have another indoor dog now that we have been remodeling our house! Made me nervous thinking about my beautiful cherry kitchen floor and a dog! Yikes.

We had been talking about the possibility of getting a dog the past couple months. Emily, actually all the kids, has really wanted a dog. Her cousin Marhea got a dog for her birthday and Emily has not stopped talking about getting a dog since. Actually she wanted 10 dogs, but we talked her down to 1! lol We knew we needed to finally get a dog when Emily started taking her invisible dog everywhere we went. Have you ever had to pull over to let your imaginary dog go potty when your shopping in Lansing? We almost had to one day because she was so determined that he needed to go potty!! Not only did we have an invisible dog, Emily started acting like a dog! She started trying to eat her snacks off the kitchen floor and even wanted me to pet her and feed her snacks to her like a dog! Silly girl.

We started looking for puppies online, looking for a breed that would fit our family. We had always had labs, but this time we wanted something different. We had pretty much decided on a German Shorthair Pointer or Weimaraner , when we happened to see a flyer at our local grocery store late one night. I grabbed a phone number and called the next day. Crazy thing is that the people that had the puppies was Kyle's Mom's cousin! We headed over that afternoon to see the 2 puppies that they still had and fell in love immediately! It was over. I was not leaving without a puppy. Emily was so happy. The older kids did not get to meet him till later that week because they were at their other Parent's house's. Everyone loves the newest addition to our family.

We are going to be installing an invisible fence around our 2 acres. This will be nice for him to be able to run and play outside without the worry of him running away, which is what happened to a previous dog we had.

He has adjusted well and is so laidback. I have never had a puppy so calm. He doesn't run to the door and jump all over people, which is a big no no for me.

We are very happy with our decision to add a dog to our family. Emily loves her new chore of feeding Trigger. I am loving that he is finally getting the fact that he needs to go outside to potty! Thank goodness we have not replaced our living room carpet yet!! A bpnus is that his breed have very short hair and don't shed as bad as other large dogs! YIPPEE!

Wordless Wednesday: Fun in Lake Michigan at Sunset

This is an Almost Wordless Wednesday! I have a hard time posting photos without saying any words!! :)

We spent 5 days at Silver Lake, Michigan last week camping. Here are some photos from our first night at Lake Michigan out on the Dune Beach. The sunset was beautiful, the water was warm and everyone had a blast playing in the water and in the sand!

Memorial Weekend Fun!

I have not been on the computer much lately. I have a hard time sitting still long enough when it is nice out! Since it is rainy and chilly this morning I thought I would do some updating on the blog.

We went camping in Grayling over Memorial Weekend this year! We had an absolute BLAST! The weather could not have been more beautiful. It was sunny and warm every day and we spent most of our time playing in the Manistee River! We camped at a Rustic State Forest Campground right on the river. The campground only had a few other people in it so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. Normally the river is way to cold this time of the year to be in, but it was perfect and helped cool us off. Our friends Jesse and Sally, along with their daughter Lilly came along too!

Our family loves kayaking, but we only have 2 kayaks right now so that presents a problem sometimes if we don't rent extra ones! This weekend I had Kyle drop me along with 1(1 at a time) of the older kids off up river and we kayaked down to our campground. It is about an hour trip and it was great getting the one on one time with each of them over the weekend!

At night Kyle and Jesse did some fly fishing for trout on the river and the kids played in the river and we also did a scavenger hunt one night. Of course a great camping weekend would not be complete without smores and tonka pies!! Lots and lots of them! :)

Here are some of our photos from our awesome weekend!

We visited the Grayling Trout Hatchery on Saturday and fed the trout!

We Kayaked! A lot!!

We tried to stay dry when we went to the river the first night.....

but we just couldn't!! Had to go in the river in our clothes!!

We played on the sandbar and got muddy! :)

We looked for cool rocks in the river!

We ate yummy ice cream at Dairy Queen! :)

We posed for those obligatory photos for mom!! ;)

Isn't the Manistee River beautiful? It is one of our favorite places to be in Michigan!

And we are off camping this Memorial Weekend!

We are headed to Grayling to camp on the Manistee River tomorrow morning. Our camper is all loaded, food is ready, just have to pack the coolers in the a.m.! I am so looking forward to getting away from home and spending some quality time with my family.

I hope you all have a great long Holiday weekend.

Be safe and look for photos and details of our weekend next week!

Wordless Wednesdays - Look Mom! I caught a Fish!

Emily throwing the fish she caught back in the water!

Hannah baited and took her own fish off the hook!


Brayden's fish is a little dirty since he dropped it, lol!

James caught 2 fish this day.

Spring Break Getaway Day 1 Continued....

Here are some more photos from our Spring Break Getaway up north to Houghton Lake! After we had a picnic lunch at Higgins Lake we went back to Houghton Lake and visited a gift shop that had Indian Tee Pees and Totem Poles out front. We then stopped for ice cream, before the rain moved in. We finished our evening off with more water fun at the pool area and a very yummy dinner of pizza at the hotel restaurant! I did not get many photos in the pool area, partly because I was chasing Emily around and it was hot and steamy so my camera kept fogging up.

My 4 little Indians!

Hanging out in a Tee Pee!

Emily looking small

Hannah and her new "friend"

Emily enjoying an ice cream cone.

Brayden coming down the water slide

James' turn on the water slide!

Emily had a blast and went down the water slide at least 25 times!

Emily and Hannah sleeping after a fun day at play!