Grady's joins the big guy's family. God, that is.

We had Grady's baptism this morning in Meriden.  Pastor Gary is so awesome and nice.  He makes it rather fun, rather than painful.  I'm really trying to find a smallish church with a great pastor and that's very hard to find, considering I also don't want it to be more than 10 miles from our house.  Oh, well.  That's a project.  We had a great day, today. 

My beautiful family is worth these thighs...but these photos prove that I definitely need to keep up with the diet...phooey!

The Shower

Amy and Nick are getting married July 9th.  We had the wedding shower on Saturday.  Excluding the fact that Grady had some stomach issues and had the crabbies for a short while, we had a great time.  Many people made it down to Rosemount, even though it was raining like crazy.  We really had a great day, with many entertaining moments. 

Mary Ann was reading off Nick's answers to the "How well do you know each other" game.

Jorey could not WAIT to get at this cake and needed to be in the picture.

Papa and Gramma got their hair done by Macy and Jorey, following the shower.  How pretty.

I don't know why Gramma doesn't flatten the top of her coif more often. ;)

Mary Ann made the coolest cake for the event.  Seriously, I wonder how many hours were spent on this!  I have trouble with the ole square or circle cake.  I don't know that I'd tackle this in my lifetime...or, at least until my kids are out of the house. 

Future Basketball Stars? We're starting slowly...

Ken put up a basketball hoop.  It's the mother of all home hoops.  This was a slight obsession for a while and the hoop was hindering the ability to focus on other household tasks.  When it finally arrived, it was realized that we needed LOTS of concrete to anchor its mass.  We had to hire someone to come over and dig the hole and fill the concrete.  Luckily, Mark was available to assist in putting the base in and all was well.  The hoop went up and the games began.  The girls love working on their dribbling and shooting, while Dad has started a score tally in the garage for one-on-one games and horse/pig competitions.  If you stop by, you'll notice that he's the reigning champ for these...thus, the likely reason for the tally on the wall. ;)
However, he better be careful because by the looks of these videos, the girls are going to get some mad skills...well, we'll see about that. 
Basketball Video
1
2
3

Random stuff

Jorey is totally her Mom's daughter.  There are many reasons for this, but this pic illustrates her need for sleep.  When she's tired, she sleeps.  If we sit down to watch a movie - even if she likes it - she curls up on one of our laps and goes to sleep.  She just can't stay awake.  Here she is snoozin' with Dad.

Reginald has been steadily improving.  He's shedding the last of the scabs from his wounds...and, he seems to be feeling better.  He still seems to have some joint or muscle issues, as he slops his water all over when trying to drink, and seems a bit slower up the stairs sometimes, but he's also just an old man. 

And, we found the best little craft kit (or, should I say, the Easter Bunny did) with tubes of glitter paint to make suncatchers.  They turned out great and they didn't even make a mess.  Macy was in heaven.  Jorey helped, too...but, this was right up Macy's alley.

The girls crack me up when they play house.  They now get their heels on and say they're going to "the mall of america", which is our kitchen.  Such nerds.  Here's Jorey with her baby, Hunter.


Ken put up a basketball hoop.  It's the mother of all home hoops.  This was a slight obsession for a while and the hoop was hindering the ability to focus on other household tasks.  When it finally arrived, it was realized that we needed LOTS of concrete to anchor its mass.  We had to hire someone to come over and dig the hole and fill the concrete.  Luckily, Mark was available to assist in putting the base in and all was well.  The hoop went up and the games began.  The girls love working on their dribbling and shooting, while Dad has started a score tally in the garage for one-on-one games and horse/pig competitions.  If you stop by, you'll notice that he's the reigning champ for these...thus, the likely reason for the tally on the wall. ;)
However, he better be careful because by the looks of these videos, the girls are going to get some mad skills...well, we'll see about that.
Basketball Videos

Here, Here
and
Here

And, Grady got a new seat with toys that he gets VERY serious about playing with.  See that video Here.

Easter Egg Hunt in the neighborhood

For the past few years, we host an Easter Egg hunt with our neighbor's, the Koehlers.  We "hide" or just plop eggs out all over the back yards and then cut the kiddos loose.  Good thing Anna is such a wholesome woman.  She always lends the story of the true meaning of Easter to the kiddos before we set out to eat all the chocolate. 

We were able to be in Owatonna and Rosemount to celebrate Easter with all of our family, so it was nice.  I forgot my camera, so we snagged this cute pic of the ladies before we went searching for their Easter baskets that the bunny brought.   How crazy that he makes it to all of their stops for Easter!

Reginald - He's good!

I kindof forgot to update on Mr. Reg.  He's great.  Turned out he had a bacterial staph and strep skin infection that caused all those problems...

He looks a little funky, but is expected to make a full recovery.  He's back to begging for food all day when we're home...:)

Macy Knits

Some of you may know that Auntie Natalie is quite the knitter.  Well, one weekend that she stayed with us, Macy wanted to learn to knit...and she DID!  So, now Natalie comes and helps her and she knits stuff - until she gets bored with it, but it's super cute.  Sometimes, bad things happen and Macy gets so frazzled...then, we all laugh because the whole thing is so silly.