Little One's Birthday

January always brings us to Little One's birthday.  This one being her 8th I wanted to do something special.  First though, we had our usual family get together on her actual birthday.

Cute Justin

Our sweet Lexi and Nathan

Opening Epic Mickey for her DS

Cinderella is her favorite!

Karate legos!

She was getting tired of smiling for me.

Patrice, a rare Terry sighting (so glad he wasn't working that night!), and Ben.

I don't really do friend parties much, but being her 8th birthday we did a little princess party.  She wanted to watch Tangled on the big screen downstairs so we did a Rapunzel theme.  We found some cute ideas online.

Mom did laundry bags for the girls to bring their pillows and blankets in.  They turned out SO cute!

These invites were so fun!  I loved the hair hanging out of the window.

Pascal party blowers

This took forever to make but turned out awesome!

Here is a little video of us braiding this thing.

Frying pan necklaces for the girls to make.

Making pizza for dinner.

Introductions for the two girls that didn't know everybody.

We played "Pin the Flynn" with frying pans, of course.

Cute Maddie

They loved dancing after the movie!

Such adorable girls!  Little One is so blessed to have such amazing friends!

Family Visit

I love Facebook in most ways.  Every once in awhile I find things out on there that I shouldn't have to find out on a social media site, but for the most part it allows me to keep in touch in a way I only dreamed possible when I was a kid.

Such was the case in early January.  I happened to be on and saw that a cousin and her parents were coming to town for a couple of days.  Sweet!  We arranged to have some lunch together.  Unfortunately the girls were with their dad so I didn't get to introduce them to Ira or introduce Little One to them (they'd seen her as a baby.)  I still had a blast anyway though and it was really good to see them.  I don't believe I've seen any of them since Little One was less than a year old.  Love you guys!

Me, Payton (Jolene's little one,) and Jolene

Uncle Joe, Jolene, Payton and Aunt Julie :)

Christmas

Yes, this finally finishes up last year.  As usual, I take a ton of pictures at Christmas so you are spared and I'll only post a few. :)

First up is the annual tradition of going to the Melt-a-Center for the sing-a-long.  There just isn't anything like sitting in an arena and singing your heart out with a couple thousand people.  Last year we didn't go because of the lovely inversion blahs but I made a special effort to go this year (or should I say last year?)  It was a blast and even Ira was singing!  This year's special guest was Collin Raye.

We don't fill up the place, but not a bad showing still.

The rival coaches of local college football teams read The Night Before Christmas.

LOVE the Jazz Bear. :)

As always, a visit from the Big Guy.

Collin Raye

My cute girls

Little One wanted to play photographer too.

Next is the decorating of the gingerbread house.

They each took two sides.

Ira's side

Little One's side

They worked together on the tree.

Next is our Christmas Eve program with our "family."  Love you guys!

Lastly, we have Christmas morning!

All 3 of us got matching bears.  Little One and I got karate outfits and Ira got an adorable ballet outfit.

Ira got Little One some Cinderella dresses for her barbies.

Little One got Ira a make-up bag

A lovely picture of me with a Michael Buble CD. :)

This girl was SO tired!  A beautiful day though with my favorite people.