Sebastian's 6th Birthday Party

Sebastian has his first "friend" Birthday party this year!  He chose to have it at The Little Gym.  He invited all of the boys from his kindergarten class and a couple of boys from our neighborhood.  He was so excited to play with all of his friends.  What a great place to have a party, they did all of the entertainment, presents, served cake and ice cream, and clean up!  All we had to do was show up and of course pay :)

 

 

 

What a great time.  He had so much fun with all of his friends :)

Abby's 4th Birthday!

My baby girl is now 4?  As much as I love to watch her grow and learn it just seems to be happening too fast!  She is my last baby but she is no longer a "baby".  She is so smart!  She is a little sponge and just soaks it all in.  She loves to learn and is always eager to share what she has learned.  She loves going to Challenger pre-school.  She has been doing ballet now for a little over a year and just absolutely LOVES it!  She also loves doing gymnastics.  Abby is definitely a girly girl!  Anything pink is her favorite and of course something she "always wanted".  :)

Grandma Marci and Great Grandma "Nana" came over for cake and presents.

Austin's Early Birthday Surprise!

For Austin's whole life he has wanted a dog.  We have attempted to have a dog on 2 different occasions when he was about 3 years old which didn't end up working out well.  Since then he has begged and begged for a dog and for years we have told him "no".  I have tried to explain to Austin that if he can't even keep his room clean how on earth is he going to take care of a dog?  Well 12 years later I bring home my little teacup Yorkie, Ruby.  As soon as Austin saw her he said "I have wanted a dog for my whole life and you bring home this tiny thing?".  I started to feel a bit guilty and began researching dogs that don't shed.  (Dog hair is the biggest reason that I have not wanted dogs). I discovered that Schnauzers don't shed so I was on a mission to find a pure breed.  I found one in Indiana which was almost 8 weeks old and could be flown to us soon.  We decided to surprise Austin with his new puppy for his 15th birthday.  I got a hold of the dog breeder and sent her a payment and made arrangements for the flight.  In the meantime I had done my very best to convince Austin that a dog is a lot of work and maybe it wouldn't be a good idea.  I was trying to make sure it would be a complete surprise and that he had no idea that a puppy was coming.  Well unfortunately I did my job but I did it too well and the day before the puppy was to arrive, Austin told me that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get a dog!!!  Ugh!  Really?  What have I done?  Oh well, too late.  The next day, on November 8th Austin had football practice and while he was there my Mom and I drove to the airport to pick up the cute little dog.  I was so nervous and couldn't wait to see the puppy in fear that I had been scammed.  As soon as I walked over to the baggage claim area, right there in the office was a dog crate with a black schnauzer.  What a relief!  We got home just in time to get in the house before Austin got home from football practice.   When he walked in the front door we were sitting in the front room with Max.  This was the expression on his face, he didn't quite know what was going on.

Once he took it in for a minute, I said "Happy Birthday".  Once it set it what was  happening he was pretty excited!

This is Max!

8 weeks old 

5 lbs

Father's Day 2013

We had a Father's Day/Birthday party at our house this year.  It was my Grandpa Jim's 79th birthday so we thought it would be great to get all of us together to celebrate both occasions.  We had the family over for a BBQ and a pool party!  Mindi made paper ties for all of us to wear.

Cousins!

 Pool time!

Chandler checking out the slide :)

Abby loves the slide too!

Happy Father's Day!

My Hubby hits the 50!

Yep you read that right, Vinnie has hit the big 50!!  I wanted to make his Birthday an awesome one!  It began with a quiet breakfast at one of our faves, Cracker Barrel.  The boys were all in school so it was just the 3 of us.

After the boys got home from school we had a little birthday celebration.

Later that evening my  Mom came over to watch the kiddos so I could take Vinnie out.  I wanted to do something different for him.  So I picked a restaurant downtown that we had never been too.  Bayou.  It was yummy.  It was nice to try a different place.

After dinner we headed to watch a ball game.  Go Bee's!  This entire evening was a complete surprise to him,  he had no idea where we were going until we got there.  Again, this was totally out of the ordinary of something we would normally do.

I even caught a foul ball!

The best surprise for his birthday was still yet to come.  We had a weekend planned to head to Wendover.  While Vinnie was away in Alaska a few days earlier I secretly packed an extra bag and hid it in the garage.  When it was time to put our things in the car to head off to Wendover I hurry and snuck the extra bag in.  I told him that I wanted to drive because we had to stop somewhere first on our way out of town.  He thought this was a bid odd but he went with it.  He had thoughts running through his head of what I could possibly need to stop for as we were going way out of our way.  As we approached the airport I told him that we had a plane to catch in an hour and a half and we were headed to Vegas!!!!  He was in shock!  I was so excited that I was able to keep this to myself for so long.  We stayed at the Luxor and I had booked shows for us throughout the weekend.

We went to Gordon Ramsay's Pub & Grill for lunch.  That was fun and exciting for us because we are fans of "Hells Kitchen".  It was exciting to be in one of his restaurants.  It was delicious!

That night we went to the best show ever!  Absinthe!  We had front row seats and boy were we close!  I could stretch my leg out and touch the stage with my foot.  It was a very funny show, filled with raunchy humor.  It was in a circus type tent outside of Caesar's Palace.  It was our first Vegas show ever and it was awesome!

Of course we got some gambling in...we aren't big gamblers but we do enjoy the penny slots :)

They even had one of his favorite iPad games, Plants vs. Zombies!

 

and this is a gem of all gems...oh my!!  

We went to the Penn & Teller show which was awesome!  We also like to watch Celebrity Apprentice and enjoyed seeing Penn on that show so it was fun to see him in person.  Before the show started they let us go up on stage and look at some of their props.  After the show they came out and gave autographs.

Another night we went to Cirque De Sole which of course was incredible!  

It was an amazing extended weekend and a Birthday to remember.

 Cheers & Happy Birthday Vinnie!