Happy 8th Birthday, Kristen!!

My sweet girl turned 8 years old today! We went to dinner tonight and Aunt Sherri and Uncle Dave celebrated with us. Aunt Carolyn sent the beautiful flowers in the picture. Kristen is having a slumber party Friday night and it should be lots of fun.

Happy Birthday, Kristen!! You are growing up way too fast.

Gotcha Day - 6 years!!

Yesterday (April 16) was Kristen's Gotcha Day. I can't even believe that she's been home for 6 years. We had such a fun day and a great weekend. We were in Texas for an anniversary party, so we did a little bit of celebrating in between all the other fun of the weekend. Kristen, Grandpa and I went to Pollo Campero for lunch. We all loved it!! We even had tres leches cake for dessert...yum!!

After lunch we picked up Grandma from a meeting she was attending, then we headed to Caddo Mills to a garage sale. It wasn't just some random garage sale...it was at our dear friends, the Blocks. They are moving to Guatemala to do full-time missions work so they have sold their house and are selling most of their belongings. We had so much fun spending a little time with them, and we got to meet Carson and Havyn for the first time. We can't wait to visit them in Guatemala :) They even gave Kristen a beautiful tea set that they got when they were in Guatemala. So sweet!!

We went to Momo and Papa's 50th anniversary party for dinner and had a fun time with family. What a busy, fun weekend we had!!

Character Education Assembly

Friday afternoon Kristen received an award at her school's Character Education Assembly. She was recognized as the "Integrity" student of character for her class. I'm so proud of her. Here are a few pictures from the assembly, and then I took a couple of her with some of her friends in her classroom.

Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas this year. Kristen has been asking for a guitar for over a year, and she finally got one this year from Santa. It's just a little Tinker Bell play guitar but she's having fun with it. Grandma and Grandpa were here to celebrate with us, and we had Christmas dinner at Sherri and Dave's house.

This is the one present she got to open on Christmas Eve.

Putting out carrots for the reindeer.

Leaving some candy, fudge and milk out for Santa.

Here's what Santa brought to her.

One of her presents from Grandma and Grandpa was a Barbie Fashion Fairytale doll.

She got a penguin pillow pet from Momo and Papa. She named it Gretl...after watching the Sound of Music on TV.

Polar Express

Kristen's dance studio did their Christmas production based on The Polar Express. It was called 'If You Believe' and Kristen tried out for it and was cast as one of the kids on the train. She's been in Cheer & Tumbling for the last year and a half, but she was able to perform the dancing just fine. She worked very hard at all their rehearsals and was so happy to be dancing again. The performance was at Rose State College Performing Arts Center, so it was a big stage and a large crowd. Some of these pictures below were from the dress rehearsal because I didn't want to be taking too many pictures during the performance. Most of the pictures are blurry, but you can tell what a great production it was. She was in the train car on the right side of the stage, in the middle row. They had several dances they performed, plus while they were sitting in the train car and other groups of girls were dancing, they were dancing in their seats and she was having so much fun. My parents drove up from Texas, my sister and her kids came, and Michelle brought Hannah, Abby and Landis.

Catching up - Fall 2010

I have been the worst blogger ever...I can't believe I've let over 3 months pass since I last blogged. We have been very busy, but that's not an excuse to not blog. I want to capture and remember all these events in our lives, and I've just been in a blogging funk. So this is my lame attempt to catch up some and hopefully not ever go this long again without blogging.

Kristen went to Anna's 5th birthday party at Orr Family Farm (in August...see how far behind I am!!) She had so much fun with the girls, and she just loves babies so she loved playing with Mia. After a lot of coaxing she FINALLY got on a horse. She's been on a horse one other time, but it was at her daycare and she was really little so I don't think she even realized what was going on.

Over Labor Day weekend we took a little trip to Grapevine and stayed at the Gaylord Texan. We'd saved so much on our summer vacation so we splurged a little bit :) Well, we splurged on the hotel but couldn't even afford to eat in the restaurants there so we'd leave the property and go to the cheap restaurants...except for breakfast at a little coffee shop in the hotel. The hotel was having an Alice in Wonderland event so it was decorated really cute and there were pictures with characters and a lot of other special events. Kristen had a blast and I enjoyed a nice, relaxing weekend.

Kristen attended a Cheer Clinic and then they performed a cheer and dance at the Freshman football game. She had so much fun at the clinic, and then even more fun at the game. She felt like such a big girl, and I felt like I already had a teenager on my hands...she didn't even sit with me at the game much...she wanted to sit with her friends.

She's on the far left on the back row.

She right in the middle of that crowd :)

On Halloween we had friends visiting from Texas so I took Kristen, Jackie and Kaitlyn to Storybook Forest in Edmond. It was so fun for them to walk through the forest and get candy at each of the stories. At the end we went on a hayride, played games, and made smores at the campfire. It was cold but definitely worth it.