Avery's 13th Birthday!

On one hand, it feels weird to have a teenager.  I mean, I'm not old enough to have a daughter who is taller than me and looks the same age as me right?!?  Just kidding!  I've actually felt for the longest time that I already had a teenager.  And I mean that in a good way!  Avery has just always looked older and acted more mature than girls her age, at least to me.  Avery's absolute favorite place to eat is McAlister's, so I took her out of school and we headed over there for a nice birthday lunch.

 Jill Keeler is like a second mom to Avery.  She's always been so sweet to include her in so much that they are doing.  Their family goes traveling around to find roller skating rinks and that's where Avery's love for roller skating came from.  We decided to have a little surprise party for Avery.  Jill took Avery, Jayden and Jessie (her daughters) up to the roller skating rink.  Once they were gone we had Avery's soccer friends meet at our house and we drove them up to Coffeyville, KS where they were roller skating.  Luckily Justin Keeler was still home because it took all three of us (Randy, Justin and I) driving our vehicles to get everyone up there!

The girls went running in and started singing Happy Birthday.  Avery and Jayden were out skating and as soon as they saw the girls, they came racing over for a big group hug.  Avery was so surprised!  She started crying.  I mean, look at the turn out!!  Everyone loves Avery, she's such a good hearted and fun spirited girl!  Most of these girls are in a grade above Avery so there are times when she feels like she just doesn't quite fit in at school.  Even at church, her friends are either a grade above or a grade below.  But I just hope she always knows how much she is loved by so many people!

 And now, on to the skating!  We don't have a roller skate rink in town, so this isn't something we do very often!

 There were a lot of lessons being taught!  Avery is helping Megan Kirchner.

 And some of the girls picked it up pretty quickly!  Here is Emalee Hough, Alex Dickson, and Jayden Klose.

Austin is holding on to his best friend, the wall!  He did a little better this time around!  Randy was out skating fast and even doing the shuffle!  I'm telling you, he's good at everything!

 I was always holding someone's hand, mostly Ashton!  Austin and I skated some couples skates together.

 The littles taking a break: Addie, Jessie and Ashton.

 Luckily there was also a game room so the girls took a couple of breaks to play in there.

But Ashton really wanted to learn how to skate on her own!  The Keelers are really good at skating, they did a great job teaching her!  Here is Jessie, Justin and Jill.

 Kennedy was deathly afraid of putting skates on.  She mainly watched from the side.  Cassie is keeping her company.  We did get Kennedy to put skates on her feet, and she even stood up, but that was as far as she went!  What made me so happy is that even though she knew she was heading to a skating rink, she still came to be there for Avery and her birthday!  That meant a lot to me!

 Avery is such a special girl and I hope she felt the love of her family and friends today!  I'm so grateful for all she does at home to help me.  And even though she is one of the younger kids on her soccer team she is still a captain, and that is because she is a leader and we are so proud of her for that.  She is a great example to everyone around her and we love her so much!!  Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

Happy Birthday, Austin!

 I can't believe Austin is in 5th grade and turning 11 years old!  He's such a good kid and such a good sport.  This is how he got woken up on his birthday.  Balloons all over his bed, light gets flipped on and all of a sudden he's attacked with tickles and a birthday song!

 And yet he's still smiling!  We feel super blessed to have Austin as part of our family.  He's so quiet and reserved and self-sufficient that it's easy to let him just go do his thing but we know he needs that attention from us as well, even if he doesn't know that's what he needs!  hahaha!

 Austin started his morning with his favorite breakfast from Daylight Donuts... chocolate long john and sausage wraps.  Just like his dad!

 This boy cleans up well!  He's so handsome!  This was one of the shirts he got along with some shorts, and elite socks but the weather isn't quite ready to handle shorts just yet!  Austin loves playing sports, he loves being in the backyard on the trampoline and throwing the football around.  He loves shooting hoops out in the front yard and he loves watching sports movies in bed before going to sleep.  He's great at school, especially math and social studies, but hates hates hates homework! 

We grabbed Austin out of school for lunch at Mazzios and he had friends over for a sleepover that night.  I hope he had a great birthday and always remembers how much we love him and are so thankful he is part of our family!  Happy Birthday, buddy!

Spring Break

Since we were at Disney World not that long ago, we decided to stick around town for spring break this year.  Randy was given the suite at the BOK center for a hockey game, so we invited the Keelers to go with us!

 I hadn't been to a hockey game since we moved back to Bartlesville over 14 years ago!  It was so much fun!  Jill and I both agreed that we needed to do this more often!

 Randy is obviously very used to me and my camera... Justin on the other hand, isn't so sure!  hahaha!  

 We've been so fortunate with Randy's job to be able to use the suite at the BOK to watch some incredible events.  This hockey game not only had a crazy fight, but went into overtime and then into a shoot out!  It was really exciting and we were really blessed to have been able to attend it!

 Also during spring break, we had a girls day!  We went and got pedicures... Ashton got the cute little chair!

 Look at the smiles on their faces... these are some lucky girls and they know it!

Afterwards we stopped over at McAlister's for some lunch!

 While we were doing our girl thing, Austin was out with the boys catching some fish!

He had his own special day with Tanner and Grandpa.

 I'd say they did pretty good!  He loves catching fish with Grandpa.  He also loves eating the fish he caught.  Grandpa does a good job of cooking them up for us!

Spring break also always includes some basketball!  We love filling out brackets for a little John family rivalry.  This year all the kids filled out a bracket!

We also hit up the movie theater to catch a movie!  We watched Mr. Peabody and Sherman, it was really good!!

 We also went bowling one day.  

 And then something else we had never taken the kids to do, roller skating!  Avery has been going skating with the Keelers so many times, she even bought her own roller skates!  But this was the first time for all of our other kids.

 Everyone had a blast!  Austin was the most unsure about it all, but as long as he was holding my hand or Randy's hand he did okay!

 And we finished off our week with a little golf!  The weather was nice enough to put on some shorts and hit the driving range!  Sometimes it's almost more fun to stay home for these kinds of weeks!  I think our kids would agree!

Shamrock the Ville 5K

So, after running my first 5K I thought I would be done with that type of running.  I just would rather not run around groups of people.  However when Randy mentioned running in Shamrock the Ville, I decided to go for it.

My family is so in to their Irish roots, especially my grandmother.  And as her birthday is coming up at the end of this month and with this race being all about shamrocks and Irish I knew I would make my grandma proud running in it.  I miss her a lot.

While we were out running, they did the fun run for the kids so I wasn't able to see it.  Luckily my mom was there to help with the girls and so was Sara and Sora.  I heard they did great! :)  Avery and Austin were both gone either at sleepovers or soccer!  Yes, I'm still catching up on my blog!

 Sara was competing in the couch race which was going on after the 5K.  Isn't she so festive?!?

 We made it through!  I was seriously so exhausted when it was over but I was proud of myself and didn't walk... always my goal!

 It was getting pretty cold and I was ready to go but Randy wanted to stick around and listen for the bracket placements.  I was completely shocked when they called out his name in his age group!  He got third place!  This was a much bigger race and I knew I hadn't placed, but I had no idea he might!  So very proud of him!!  

YMCA Basketball

This was Addie's first time to play basketball.  We signed her up thinking that she would be on a girls team but there weren't enough girls so the made co-ed teams.  I was a little nervous at first but I think it really helped her become more competitive.

 Addie was on a really great team of boys (there were only two girls on their team) and the coaches were really good about having the boys pass to the girls.  Addie played best at defense but I definitely saw a big improvement in her throughout the season!

 It was so much fun watching her play, she even made a couple of baskets!

Austin also played on the YMCA boys team with a lot of his Ranch Heights friends.  They also had a good team of boys and he had a lot of fun.  He was pretty quick with the ball himself and I could see flashbacks of his dad playing every once in a while! :)

 Austin is always outside shooting hoops and playing around.  I've seen such a big improvement in him.  We had so much fun watching both Austin and Addie play basketball and hope they continue to love it!

Imagine Dragons Concert

My first concert was when I was a senior in high school I believe and we went to the Tulsa State Fair and listened to Little Texas.  Ok, maybe I was a junior.  But our friends thought it would be a fun Christmas present to get tickets for our girls to go watch Imagine Dragons.  They have some great songs, and their lead singer is Mormon.  It was a great idea, the girls were so excited!

All of a sudden, we were the cool parents!  They didn't even mind that we came along!  I can't believe how grown up they look, though!  It happened so fast!

 We all met up for dinner beforehand at a little pizza restaurant in downtown Tulsa before hitting up the concert at the BOK.

 Avery with her lifelong friends, MaryKate Vaclaw, Izzy Vaclaw, Brigette Bulleigh and Julianna Ahlert.

 We had seats up in the suite but after a while Avery decided to go down and stand on the floor with her friends.  I was grateful to have a seat!  So I've only been to country concerts and I compared Blake Shelton to being at a rock concert which is still true, but I couldn't believe that Imagine Dragons was even louder than the Blake concert!  It was really awesome and I would totally go again!  I'm glad this was Avery's first concert, it will be one she will remember forever!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!  This was how we started off our morning.  Some cinnamon rolls, a few kiwi, and even a little chocolate.  It's Valentine's day, we can get away with it!  These flowers actually aren't for me though!  Jordan was so sweet and called me up to get flowers for both my mom and Sara.  

 This is what I spent doing the whole day before Valentine's Day!  Both Austin and Addie wanted to hand out mustaches.  Ashton did the chocolate hugs and kisses!

 Avery leaves for school so much earlier than the other kids, I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them together!  I had to pick her up for a dental appointment so I grabbed a quick pic of her before I took her back to school.  She's so beautiful!  I love the red jeans today!

I signed up to help with Austin's class for the Valentine party.  Here he is decorating his cookie.  

I snuck down to see Ashton at her party, I love that she's still so excited to see me!

 I finally found Addie already at lunch in the cafeteria!  She took her lunch today and had a special Valentine's treat in her bag.

 When I got home I had flowers from my Valentine who has always been so good to me and who I love with all my heart!  Hope everyone felt loved and special today!