Happy 4th Birthday Zacky!!!!!

We can't believe that we are the parents of a 4 year old but it's true! Time flies and we so adore the person he has become so far. He is so smart, kind and friendly as well as polite and charming. This isn't just us being biased either. We've heard this throughout the year from our family, friends and his Sunday school and pre-school teachers. We are so proud of him and love him to pieces!

We are celebrating today with my family but had a wonderful opportunity to celebrate with the Barry's this year while we were in Oregon, (more pics/videos of OR to come this week). This was the first time he got to celebrate his birthday with the Barry's and he had a blast! Grandma D and Grandpa Al threw a great birthday party for Zack! The kids blew bubbles with their new bubble wands and had fun pushing Kiley around... in a nice way. :-) The biggest hit though was the rocket balloons that Grandma found! They were lots of fun for the kids and the adults! At one point in the night Zack said, "This is the BEST birthday party ever!"

He's really bummed that Meghan and Emily can't come to Minnesota to celebrate again. And I'm really bummed Grandma and Grandpa aren't here! They are always a HUGE help in getting the party together!

Here are some highlights of our night!

Hope you are all having a safe Memorial Weekend!

Happy Belated Anniversary X 2!

Happy belated anniversary to Megan and Chris who celebrated 6 years on Saturday.


And happy belated anniversary to Staci and Sean who celebrated 14 years yesterday!

We hope you were both able to celebrate and reminisce about your special memories!

We love you!

Whew What a Trip!

So you may have noticed a theme to the past weeks blogs. And you may have wondered why we weren't in Oregon celebrating Meghan's First Communion. Well we were actually in Oregon last week! I just scheduled the other blogs before we left.

We left last Thursday and returned on Tuesday of this week. We had a fantastic time and the kids did great on the plane and with the time change. We made sure we got them on Oregon time so we weren't putting the kids to bed at 5:00 and waking up at 4:00 am! No thank you!

We've been trying to do a bit of yard work and unpack before I leave on Friday to go on a girls weekend with my sisters and my Mom so I won't have time to post pictures this week. But I will get them posted next week. So keep your eyes peeled for some more videos and pictures to appear then. :-)

Dinosaurs in MN

Grandma D and Grandpa Al came back for a visit to MN at the end of February into March. We thought it might be fun to go to the Childerens Museum to see the dinosaur exhibit. Zack LOVES dinosaurs! It was a great exhibit and Kiley enjoyed the museum too.

A Special Day For Meghan

Our niece Meghan is making her First Communion today! We are so proud of her and can't believe this moment has already arrived! It seems like yesterday that we were celebrating her baptism!

Congratulations Meghan!

Backyard Fun With Family

We lucked out with some good weather when we got back to the Twin Cities and had a bit of backyard fun with everyone. We played a little golf, painted with some water and played a lot of baseball...

Brent and Sarah Fulton's Wedding

On October 24th Darin's cousin Brent married a wonderful woman named Sarah! We had a wonderful "Celebration" of their marriage!

Can you tell I'm getting into these videos? :-)

Rockin' It!

The best part of the wedding reception for Zack were some blow up instruments the DJ had for the kids. At least that is where we think they came from. While it was sooo much fun to watch everyone with these things, I couldn't get a dance in with my son! "Sorry Mom, I'm rockin' it!" was the response I got when I asked him to dance with me. It certainly tuckered our little ones out though!

Detroit Lakes, Minnesota

The wedding that brought our family in from Oregon was up in Detroit lakes so we caravaned up the day after the Barry's and Grandma and Grandpa arrived.

Zack took a rare nap in the car on the way up.

Then before the wedding the next day we took advantage of the pool in the hotel.

Meg was showing off her new swimming skills she learned in her lessons.

Zack wanted to try too.

Kiley even got a dip in the pool. Although at first she wasn't too sure about it. You can tell she warmed up after a while.

Note to anyone staying in Detroit Lakes, bring earplugs! The hotels are all near the train tracks and they are constantly going through the night. They woke Kiley up quite early in the morning and it took us forever to get her back to sleep! It was a long couple of nights!

Spending Time with the Barry's!

We always love it when the Barry's come to town however I never seem to get these pictures posted quickly. I'm really sorry about that! Better late than never! In October the Barry's and Grandma and Grandpa came to town for Darin's cousin Brent's wedding. They all stayed at our place which was tons of fun!

Zack loved snuggling with Grandma and Meghan and Emily.

He especially tried hard to get Meg's attention. :-)

He loved being read stories by Uncle Sean.

We made sure Meghan and Emily got to hear the story of the Cowlicks, (which he is still convinced that the cows come and make his hair stick up!)

And Meg couldn't get enough of Coko.

We also spent lots of time playing...

Puzzle races.

The kids even took some time to read a little. Meghan started the trend and of course Zack had to join her. :-)

So Emily hopped up to join them as well.

Grandpa thought it was a good idea too.

One of the nights we let Zack stay up a little later than usual so he could watch Dancing with the Stars with all of us. He asked Auntie Staci to dance too. :-)

We had lots more fun with the Barrys... so stay tuned for more pictures to follow.

Baptism Times Two!

I feel very bad for not getting this blog done sooner because we were so excited to celebrate Brynn and Rowan's baptism with them a month ago on Sunday, April 11th. Especially since we were honored in being asked to be both of their Godparents.

It was a very special day as well because the church they were baptised in is the church the 3 of us grew up in and celebrated many sacraments there ourselves and to be in front of the church all in a row was so fun and wonderful.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual baptisms with my camera. The ratio of cameras to people was too much to ask and take away from Mo and Meg getting the pictures. So these pictures start with after mass and onto the party.

Music by Pat Balder, our music director at St. Gerards.

Happy Mother's Day!

We want to wish all of the wonderful Mothers in our lives a very Happy Mother's day! Especially our Moms, Grandmas and God Moms.
Enjoy!

We love all of you very much!

(Music by Imagination Movers...Go figure, good kids music can be good Mom music!)

Edgemont Egg Hunt

So way back in April the day before Easter we went back to the neighbor hood I grew up in to reconnect with friends and hunt those tricky Easter Eggs. The kids helped out this year again and for the second time in a row Zacky, (with a little help from Daddy and Auntie Mo) found ONE of the golden eggs. Since Mommy was busy taking pictures she still had space in her carton for eggs where as Daddy's was full.

I emphasized that Zack got one of the golden eggs because this year there were two. One egg was for the traditional chocolate bunny and the other was for a 20 lb. salted nut roll!

I let Zacky choose and much to the disappointment of my family, but totally predictable, he chose the bunny.

Which made the "boys" of the neighborhood giddy and in hot pursuit. Jeff had hidden it underneath the paver stones and Derek Fore was the winner.

The afternoon was a great time. Thanks Missy, Mo and Angie for organizing again. And thanks Jeff and Angie for graciously hosting again!

More From the Egg Hunt...

...with vocals from Zack! :-)

Happy Birthday Uncle Dude!

Happy birthday to Uncle Dude, aka. Josh! We hope you are having a fun birthday!

Lots of love!