Hey! That's my house!

Brian noticed on Zillow that our old house was for sale.

There is something so weird about seeing your house, that is no longer your house, on the market.  Someone else's pictures showing off your house, that is no longer your house.

On one hand I look at these pictures and see my house and on the other I have a hard time picturing myself there.  It was nice to see that the homeowners that currently live there took good care of it and even made some improvements.  There was a staircase added on the back of the deck for easy access to the backyard, some new carpet, and a dishwasher.  I hope the families that live here enjoy it as much as we did.

And the celebrating just keeps on coming...

Today the family came over to join us for birthday celebrations!

Jennie and Tom bought the girls fish.  They wanted puppies or guinea pigs which are strictly off limits so Jennie tried her luck at the next best thing.

Meet Hailey's Ella (red) and Hannah's Erica (blue).

Hailey got hooked up with the emoji swag this year.  

(I love how she stores her eye mask when she makes her bed)

Here we go, officially pet owners again.

Sk8 your heart out

Hailey has been into skating lately.  She will frequently practice down in the basement and she has gotten much much better over the past year.

We went with the skate and bounce party which gave the girls access to either skate or use the bounce houses.  Even though it sounds like a good idea, I am not sure what Cheap Skate is thinking.  It is way too chaotic for kids to go between skating and bouncing when most of these kids can't get their skates on and off and tied.  It made for a busy afternoon but all of the kids had a good time!

Birthday Squad

Presley and Chloe slept over tonight and tomorrow Hailey will celebrate her birthday at Cheap Skate.

This year's theme is emoji.

These three girls have been besties since they met.  It's been fun to see them grow up together and stay close even though they don't even have classes together.

The girls tie-dyed shoes using sharpies and rubbing alcohol.  They turned out cute, but they sure did make the house smell for a few hours.  

8 is great!

More balloons, more money, more donuts and more sleepovers (this weekend)!

Tonight we will celebrate Hailey at dinner and this weekend we will party with her friends.

Happy Birthday Hailey Renee!

When dropping Hannah off at school today she wanted me to come and see her locker.  This is her first year with a locker and she is pretty excited about it.

Sally on a stick

This reunion was way overdue.

In 1997 I started an externship at Pediatricians for Health.  It was a pediatric clinic in Maplewood and little did I know walking into the doors that day that this place would change my life.

That 3rd floor suite of the Beam professional building would introduce me to some of the best 

co-workers anyone could ask for.  We were family.

Over the years a new clinic in Woodbury was opened which displaced some of our staff and then with changing careers and retirements our big happy family hadn't been together in a long time.

Maria reached out and said she wanted to get a happy hour thrown together.  So we started reaching out via Facebook and text and on this night we got a group of us together.

Many more joined us, just not pictured.

Sally was unable to join us but Rachel made sure she was there in spirit :-)

It was such a nice night- I miss these people.

Technology blues

I wouldn't give up technology for anything and I absolutely love my phone (or really my handheld computer that can make calls).  It's crazy how much we rely on these devices that we have only had for the past 10 years.  They have become such a huge part of our lives.  The kids on the other hand have only known life with Apple devices.  A few days ago Hailey brought me her iPod and it looked like this.  UGH.  We have tried resetting, restarting, googling for a solution, sending it in for repair and finally ended up having to bring it into the Apple Store.  The tech support at the store was also unable to figure out what was going on but instead of spending hours/days trying to fix it he just walked in the back, grabbed a new one, unboxed it and sent us on our way.  

Must be nice tech guy, must be nice....  

Missing daddy

Brian is in Germany for a work trip which is such an amazing experience for him. I am so thrilled for him that he had this opportunity.  We all miss him but it has been especially hard on Hailey.  She is definitely daddy's girl.  I have caught her crying a few times so tonight she wore one of his t-shirts.  It seemed to help so hopefully this can get her through the next few days.

DOUBLE DIGITS!

Well, as much as I would have liked to imagine that I could stop it, it happened.  Today Hannah turns 10.  Double digits!  She woke to 10 balloons each stuffed with a $10 bill.

This evening she is having her birthday party.  We are going to Benihana for dinner then coming back to our house for a sleepover.  Brian is out of town, in Germany, so the girls have asked to sleep in the living room tonight.  Hailey was planning to going to Grandma Judy's but after dinner decided she wanted to stay home so Grandma joined us for dinner and then hung out while the girls made their own mini cake.  

These girls were talking and giggling until at least 2:00 in the morning.  It was hard for me to relax knowing they were still up and by the sound of it- not tired at all.  Things eventually quieted down and I feel asleep- not totally sure how late they were up.

The important thing is that they all had fun and got along great.
Happy Birthday Hannah!

New habits

Tonight I got this text from Hannah.  

Since school has started, she was doing her homework and reading.  It was about bedtime and then she sent this message.  It made me crack up that after she was done reading she started watching YouTube and after a long weekend with no Wi-Fi and then school starting back up she was apparently really missing it.

Back in session

School is back in session.

Today Hailey starts 2nd grade and Hannah starts 4th.

Hailey's teacher is Mrs Oldenburg and Hannah has two teachers this year, Mrs Herda and Mrs Carlson.  They have a homeroom teacher that they spend most of their time with (Mrs Herda) but then have Math and Science (Mrs Carlson) with the other teacher.  Their whole class will switch to the other teacher's classroom.  I think its a way to get the kids used to middle school which is coming in a few years (gulp).  As you can see they are excited to get back to it!

Putting her to work

We are lucky enough to have another beautiful weekend.  Swimming, boating, air show, hanging out on the deck, watching grandma wash chairs.......WHAT?!  Why is this 90 something woman scrubbing chairs?  You can bet that we all tired to take over and assure her that she was not expected or even invited to do be doing that but as always, she made it clear to us that she wanted to do it.