Lorelei is 5 years old

Lorelei told me she is a big girl now. She turned five a few days ago. Her talented mom made some curtains for puppet shows and she gave us a demonstration. She got a puddle skirt for her dress ups.
Aren't I a doll?
The carousel cake with seven ponies but only five candles.
Now I need to have strategy to blow out all these candles so I need to study the situation before they light them.
There they are. Now to put my plan to work.
I'll huff and puff and blow them out.
I kept huffing and puffing but nothing happened.
One more time. There, they are almost out.
This is the rest of the story. She had help, but don't tell her that. Notice the direction of the flames in the previous picture.
Hey, look at the bottom of the ponies! Mmmm it is delicious frosting. Lets eat them.
Yum, yum.
And yum, yum again.
Better hurry up, mom is going to cut the cake.
Faster! Almost done.
Gigi was excited for her big sister and was waiting for the presents to be opened.
I'm bored. When will this be over.
Wait, I'll give the birthday girl a ride on my stick raindeer.
You are too slow. I'll help get the paper off.
Wow, a giant piggy bank with a roll of quarters to put in it.
One for you and one for me, but they share the same bank.
One of Lorelei's other gifts were some princess gloves and a giant red heart diamond ring.
Gigi modeled the dress that Grandma Barnhart gave her. "It looks just like Lalo's".

Play Date

In the middle of January, Lorelei had a play date with Grandma Larsen at the Mall of America. Well actually, they just went for the amusement park. Lorelei enjoyed the merry go round. She said, "I just love this horse." Striking a pose at the mall.
I liked it so much I went for another ride on a different horse.
And then went on a tour.
I got pretty hungry during all that activity and wanted some nuggets and fries. Mmm mmm good.

A visit to Chuck E. Cheese

On New Years Day, we received a phone call from the Dudes requesting our presence at Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. The boys were really excited to see us, as shows in the photo.
The school bus came by to take them to Chuck E Cheese Academy for a lesson on lunch gobbling.












Then it was time for rides .



























But the best part was driving with Daddy.

Leader of the Year

Since no one else has posted this or mentioned this on any blog, I am taking it upon myself to do it. Several days ago, Brett received an award at his work for the 2008 Outstanding Leader of the Year award. Yeah. Congratulations for being the best employee of the year. Keep up the good work.

Christmas Day at Gramma and Granpa's

Christmas 2008 has come and gone. All our Minnesota kids and grand kids came over for presents and dinner. We missed Kyle, Tiffany , Ellie and Erik, as they are living in California. This is our tree and the before picture. Notice how neat and tidy everything is.Here is part of the clan, waiting to start ripping paper.
Here is another part of the clan, patiently waiting.
Logan got an Optimus Prime transformer and Batmobile shake-and-go cars that he enjoying.
However, Liam wanted to play with some of animal transformer cars.
Some of the controlled chaos
Princess Gigi is showing off the Princess Cinderella doll that she got. We have some lovely princesses in our family.
Lorelei was busy grooming her new addition to the family. Her hair was very smooth and easy to brush.
Joseph brought over two of his marionettes that he got and showed us how to operate them.
Here Tana and the girls are playing with some fairies that belong in the cloth fairy house that Tana made.
Andrew and Brandon watching the commotion.
This is the after picture, well actually only part of the mess.
All in all the dinner was good, everyone enjoyed each other's company and everyone enjoyed opening their presents. Until Next December.

Christmas Eve at the Smenteks

It has tradition for a few years to meet at Kirstin and Jeff's house for Christmas Eve. The Dude's
were as excited as ever to see all the visitors. One of the gifts the boys got was a Fisher Price nativity set, which Liam is playing with. I hound about 12 rolls of film in the house and decided to use some of it up on Christmas. So these pictures are not as vivid and digital because I had to scan them first. Both Logan and Liam wanted to rearrange the nativity. For the most part they cooperated with each other.
Logan got some new Batman PJ's which he showed off.
And you can see the excitement on Liam's face with the arrival of his new PJ's.
Both of the boys had matching three in one cribs (the one Logan is in I made). Well, they have learned to climb out and have been doing that whenever they felt like it. So it was decided to convert them into the youth bed. Logan showed us how he climbs in at night.
The Dudes were excited to have Gramma Larsen read a story about "Aliens Love Underpants". They stayed for the whole book.
Liam wanted to spend much of the gathering time in the laundry basket. He kept piling up the toys in the basket, to the point that he did not have much room.
Just Logan.
Kirstin and Logan. He is in a stage where he wants to wear bibs. Here he has his Santa bib on.
And Kirstin and Liam (you can see that he loves his mom).