Sometimes the TRUTH hurts

I'm letting Rachel and Natalie watch a video for rest time and Rachel say's "you're the best mom ever!" and I said "yah, but if I didn't let you watch something you wouldn't think that." And she replies in a somewhat sly voice "But sometimes I DO want to say "you are the baddest mom ever!". Nice.......

Science Fair-off to Regionals!

Caitlin was chosen to go on to Regionals with her Science Fair project "Shaking for Suds". She was pretty excited and could barely contain her excitement. The big day is April 30th in Mankato. :)

Daddy's girls

Brian and his Dad escorted Caitlin and Rachel to this years Daddy/Daughter dance. The girls and I picked out dresses and matching ties for Dad and Gpa which was alot of fun but a little more difficult since we were pressed for time and I had two to help. Caitlin had no idea that Gpa was going to be her date. She knew someone was coming but she wanted it to be a surprise and it was! Gma Gladys came along for the ride and hung out with Em, Natalie and I. The girls had a great time and Gpa felt pretty honored to be apart of this special evening. I guess one of the highlights was Gpa teaching Caitlin to 2-step (to a Lady Gaga song!)

Luck of the Irish & Baby Crowley

Our school that the girls attend had its annual Luck of the Irish Fundraiser this past weekend. This is a huge fundraiser for the school and all the parents are involved in someway. My mom watched the girls, which was nice. Unfortunately, Rachel came down with a virus and had a fever all day Saturday and it lasted until Tuesday morning. Luckily that's all it was and it seems as though she's on the mend. Natalie is taking her turn now, but looks much better today. At the Luck of the Irish, we have a dinner, silent auction, raffle games and live auction. All are equally fun, but my favorite is probably the live auction especially when there's bidding wars. Brian was a lucky winner and won $100 on the raffle. In the past 5 years we've never won anything at this fundraiser! I picked up a cute Pampered Chef basket and a basket of books that will be read and recorded by all the teachers, personalized for the girls. It was a fun time and hopefully a big success.

Another exciting thing that happened this past weekend, was our friends, thc Crowley's welcomed little Makayla Kathryn into the world. Sharon, the mom, is quite the trooper. 30 hours of labor!!! She did a great job. We are so excited for them and they will be great parents. Makayla is adorable and I was able to spend a little time with Sharon and Makayla at the hospital. So precious!

Concert Pictures

Back stage with Chris!!

Fr. Phil, Grace, Grandma Joan, Jared and JoAnna

Gina, Caitlin, Me, Emily and Sydney

Here are a few pictures from the Chris Tomlin concert with our friends. Such an awesome concert! JoAnna and the kids got back stage passes to meet Chris which was a pretty amazing experience. She was able to speak to Chris about how much her family enjoyed his music and that they had "I will Rise" as a song at her husband Adam's funeral. Very special....

Pretty Ponies

Natalie is finally getting enough hair to put in a couple ponies so I had to take this cute picture of her. She was so excited to have "pretty" hair. I was amazed she actually sat still for me!

She's also starting to babble a lot more. Apparantly if you take the nuk out of her mouth she'll start talking! :) She's very animated when she speaks and it's hard not to laugh when she's trying so hard.

Latest Happenings

Wow, I had no idea it's been this long since my last post back in January. Where does the time go? I guess I had a couple good intentions in the past few weeks to update, but something or someone must have gotten me off track. :)



Caitlin and Emily celebrated Catholic Schools Week at John Ireland thefirst week in February. Each day they did something different; either dressing as their favorite character in a book, having a movie day, or dressing in their school colors the day the bishop visited. On their favorite character day, Caitin dressed as Nancy Drew and Emily was the Cat In The Hat.




We went to our friends house for a super bowl party-none of us cared really who was in the super bowl or who won the game. I just wanted to go for the food and conversation. :) Which was all good!



Last weekend we traveled to Iowa to celebrate our niece Abby's 10th birthday. This was the first time in a long time that we had perfect traveling weather. No snow, sleet or rain to contend with. It was sunny and warm and our annual nature walk down by the creek didn't disappoint. The first thing we saw was the remains of a deer-just the rib cage-pretty cool for the kids. I thought it was gross. We saw a squirrel tail-just the tail...a dead crow, lots of yellow snow and poop. Near the end of our trek we built two big snowmen-we called them snowmen-alope because they had antlers. When my brother-in-law sends the pictures I will post them. It was such a good time and we look forward to it every year.



Sunday, we celebrated our goddaughter Lydia's 3rd Birthday. It amazes me that she's 3 already. Quite the energetic little lady! And super cute! We all had a good time. :)



Valentine's day came and went-Lots of candy for the kids and a nice meal at home. ( i made it and did the dishes after-romantic, I know!)



This past week has been a busy one, but Wednesday night was the highlight of the week. Caitlin, Emily and I went to the Chris Tomlin concert with my friend Gina, her daughter, Sydney and met up with my friend JoAnna, her mom and two kids and our priest Fr. Phil. It was the first concert for my kids and they had a blast. It was nice for Gina and I to watch our kids together. Little did we know that this is where our life would lead us. It really was priceless... My friend JoAnna, who lost her husband this past fall got back stage passes to meet Chris, whom her kids love and it was such an awesome experience for them. I will post pictures as soon as I get them from JoAnna.