J.D. turns 14 & Maddie turns 3

On Friday, J.D. turned 14..........Maddie turned 3 on April 27th. We saw them at Grandma A's house on Friday night when Kim dropped off Tyler & Maddie for the weekend so we gave them their presents.

J.D. & Maddie with their presents. We bought Maddie 3 Disney Princess lip balms (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty & Snow White) and I wrapped them up in tissue paper & taped them to the present like 3 candles. With each one that Maddie opened, she was so excited & exclaimed, "I've never seen this one before!" :)

Back in February, we went to a Hallmark that was closing. Maddie saw the shelves of Precious Moments figurines & just stood there & stared at them. "Look, Nana, they're beautiful!" We decided that we should get her the 3 year old figurine for her birthday. :)

J.D., of course, always likes a gift card...........and what better thing to get with a gift card than a coupon to use with it?? :)

Our 5th Anniversary

Wow! It is our 5th Anniversary already! We celebrated by going up to the North Shore again.

On Thursday, May 5th, we drove up to Grand Marais & spent the night up there. This was the view from our balcony on our Anniversary morning (5/6).


On the way down to the Grand Superior Lodge for our next two nights, we stopped at the Temperance River. We had our tripod along so we set it up and got some good pictures.

Todd did really well climbing up the rock stairs to see more of the river from up higher on the rocks. Going back down was a bit harder, but we took it slow and it was really fun to be able to do stuff like that again. :)

Sunrise view from our balcony at the Grand Superior Lodge.

View to the west from our balcony.

Community Center

Today, Angela, Evan & Luke joined us when we took Tyler & Maddie to the community center to go swimming & play in the playland. Everyone had a blast! :)

Tyler, Evan, Maddie & Luke

Maddie & Luke coming down the slide. :)

Evan, Luke, Tyler & Maddie coming down the blue slides. :)

More Nanacation Fun............

Maddie & I made sugar cookies on Friday night.

We had a picnic at church on Saturday during a 9 am to 2 pm rehearsal for our Easter Production. Tyler & Maddie have been asking for a few weeks when we were going to have a picnic lunch at church, so they were pretty excited aout it. :)

When we got home from the rehearsal, Tyler & Maddie wanted to go sledding on our hill. Here is Tyler going down the hill.

Maddie laughing while sledding down the hill.

Maddie dancing in her flower sunglasses & pink hat.

Tyler being goofy in his sunglasses. :)

"Real" Bowling

Tyler & Maddie are at our house for their "Nanacation" (in the words of J.D. their 13 yr. old brother). They came Wed. afternoon (3/23) and are staying until Sun., April 3rd. Today we took them bowling at the Brunswick Zone. Tyler has been mentioning for the last few weekends that they have been over, that he hopes we can go bowling sometime. "I've never been 'real ' bowling..........just Wii bowling," he said. :)

Tyler is very excited to bowl. :)

Maddie is also very excited to bowl. :)

Tyler shows good form.

"Go Nana!....Go Nana!.....Go Nana!" :)

Tyler throws the ball...........

..........and it looks good!

Maddie gave a great squeal every time she rolled her ball down the ramp. :)

This one looks pretty good........it actually ended up being a spare! Maddie won the first game with a 93..........she even got a strike! :) Tyler got an 83 in the 1st game. They both did very well & had a lot of fun!



Here is a video of Tyler bowling. :)



Here is a video of Maddie bowling. :)

Todd's Knee Surgery 3/8/11

Todd had partial knee replacement on his left knee on Tuesday morning. Everything went well with the surgery & we are eagerly awaiting when he can walk normally again. :)

Todd & his get well balloons...........there is actually a purple star, too..........it apparently perfectly positioned behind the blue one so you can't see it. :)

Todd (& the physical therapist) on his 1st walk down the hall the day after surgery.

Art & Dress Up Fun

Tyler & I built this art easel last weekend and Tyler & Maddie had a lot of fun drawing on it.

Tyler & Maddie drawing on the art easel.

Maddie also had a great time dressing up..................

.....................................isn't she stylish? :)