Birthday number '9' for Miss Madison

Madison turned 9 on Tuesday! We celebrated her birthday over the span of 3 days. Sunday, there was a family dinner at Jason's grandparents house to celebrate Grandpa Brent's, Rod's and Madison's birthday. Madison received a few presents and was super happy to play with Jake and Kenzie.
Monday night the celebration continued with a visit to Classic fun center. With Jas having class on Tuesday night we bumped Mads birthday activity a day early. At the last second we let her invite a friend. She made a long list of friends and jumped from name to name but in the end she called her friend Marina. The kids did a little bit of everything and filled up on pizza. Jas and I joined in most activities too including using the kids scooters in the rink during the blackout songs.

 She opened a few presents that night and was super thrilled to receive a few gift cards in the mail.

Tuesday was her official birthday! She woke up happy and pleasant. She had a great day at school. I picked her and Korbin up after school to do a little shopping. I had 3 stops in mind to celebrate her b-day before Jas got home. Our first stop was a mystery stop. The kids really enjoyed trying to guess where we were going. The stop was an older lady's home to purchase some homemade American Girl doll outfits she makes. Mads was so happy we probably spent 10 minutes flat buying 2 outfits. As we were leaving Korbin asked if I could do a mystery stop on his birthday too. He was excited with the whole thing and asked me several times what I would do for him. Needless to say I'm sure I'll have to come up with something extra good for his birthday too. The second stop was going to Justice. Granparents E gave Mads a gift card and she really likes that store. After trying on a few different things she ended up with 2 cute shirts and feather earrings. 

The third stop was Claire's. She's been asking me to take her earring shopping for a while now. Colton's and Kyler's gift card couldn't have arrived at a better time. She picked a set of flower earrings. After Claire's we came home with Monte Carlo to watch. Once Jas got home Mads opened the rest of her presents.

 She received a few fun things. Feather earrings and a Lego set from Korbin, Lalaloopsy Doll from Grandma Cheryl and some other gifts which included a butterfly kit she was really excited about. Banana Cream pie is one of Madison's favorite dessert so that's what we had instead of a cake.  

Isn't she just so cute!!!!

 After having dessert we finished watching the movie and Madison played with her new stuff with some of Korbin's help.

She can be sassy, kind and a spaz. Man we sure do love her!

Cross Country Skiing

On Monday we went cross country skiing as a family. The kids and I had the day off from school due to President's Day and Jason took the day off from work also so we could spend a 3 day weekend together.

We first did the usual low key/easy loop the kids have done in the past, then decided to go exploring and found a new trail. 

Madison was a trooper, the trail wasn't really long but Jason mentioned afterwards he was really proud of her because it wasn't easy for her. She and Jason stuck together like glue and he taught her a lot. 

Korbin did a great job and was often leaving us behind so I tried to stick with him as much as I could. From the picture below you can see how close I was to him most of the time.

He's gotten the hang of it and has also found short cuts in moving around faster in his skis. He just did his own thing.

Madisons' favorite part was when Jason and her fell down at the exact same time. She had a huge grin when she told me the story when they caught up to us and talked about it for the rest of the day. Even mom and dads fall down too.

 I think one of the reasons we like to go cross country skiing together is because we do it just for fun, out in the open at our own pace. We fall down a lot and it's just funny. When we fall down we get up and we keep trying and going. I took a lot of pictures of Jason on the ground. I found it amusing and he was a great sport about all the pictures I took of him. 

I guess there is a few benefits of being the picture taker, you won't see pictures of me on the ground on our blog. We skied for about 3 hours.
We took our sleds up and carried them in so that on our way back down to the car the kids could use them to ride down the hill. They had a blast and it was a riot to watch them! We were so tired afterwards we didn't make it to a restaurant for a late lunch like planned but a quiet easy lunch at home.

The Ninjas

The Ninjas played their last game last night. Jason said Korbin got 2 free throws for getting fowled during the game. He didn't make a basket but got really close. He had a great time and was ecstatic for the rest of the night about his last game. I'm glad Tosha and Travis coached Korbin this year. Travis (aka Logan's dad) pushed the boys to never give up and to give it their all until the end of each game.

'V' Day

This year we celebrated 'V' day a day early. Jason has a class on Tuesday nights and he generally gets home late so we decided to celebrate 'V' day for FHE. 

We had a heart shaped Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner and Jason and I exchanged gifts afterwards. The deal this year was a $5 gift.

I call it a draw on who gave the best gift. I gave Jason a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. One of his favorite treats. 

And he gave me a box of large chocolate covered strawberries. One of my favorite treats. If you ask Jason who gave the best gift.

I guess we'll never agree on who gave the best gift.

Korbin gave a great FHE lesson on Love one Another tonight. I hope the kids have a great day tomorrow and eat lots of chocolate. Korbin doesn't seem to be really interested in Valentine's Day except for all the possible candy he might get. The sad part is he already knows most of it he can't have because of his braces.  Maddie wants her hair to be extra cute for a party at school tomorrow. So here's what it will hopefully look like. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Say What!?!

About two months ago while running errands Korbin announced that he wanted to join the student council at his school. He was really excited about it!
 I did a subtle happy dance in the car. Jason was surprised as well by the news. We wanted to play it cool since this wasn't something Korbin would normally do. Yes, join groups/things! We asked him a few questions about it during dinner that night. There was no pressure to join, no election or voting, all he had to do was sign up and he was in. We also asked him if any of his friends were joining and he said he didn't ask anyone but it wouldn't matter because he was doing it anyway. This for some reason made me extra excited and happy to see him be independent. So far he's really enjoyed it! The only bummer is the meetings are early. However it's only once every other week so it's not bad.

About two weeks after joining student council Korbin decided he wanted to join the choir too. Say What!?!
Choir, I wasn't really supportive of. All I saw on the sign up sheet was twice a week practices at 7:35 am. Madison said NO way would she join. In the end we let him join and he's really enjoying it and I haven't heard him complain once so it's definitely been worth the two trips I make to the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays mornings.

It doesn't end there, during the school's PTC he totally surprised me again. He signed up to help out at the book fair for two hours right after school. He didn't even ask if he could do it he just let us know he needed a ride home. This he didn't enjoy much at all. I guess it wasn't easy work chasing kids around and cleaning up after them. I'm still glad he did it and he learned not everything is easy in life.

Needless to say Korbin's changing and we like him being a little bit more open and making his own choices and not being afraid to go for them.

Korbin is really a great kid. A little sassy lately which needs to go away but still he's a great kid and we love him! Something else that's changing is his hair. He's had the same haircut/style since he's had hair (age 2) with only slight variations, we're switching it up a bit and growing it out.  He's had a few compliments so far not from girls thankfully. He still thinks girls are gross.