Game Night at the Matias House!

Our friends Lori and Josh went to Phantom of the Opera, so we got to spend some time with Braden. He brought lots of board games. We love board games so we jumped right in! We started with Hulk Operation - Braden was REALLY good at Operation! His hand is scary-steady! Teryn, on the other hand, wasn't so good at it. She thought it was much more fun to make Hulk yell.

Braden quickly found a suction ball and discovered that if he threw it just right against the hearth it would stick. He was fascinated with it for a few minutes. He wanted me to get a picture of him in the process of throwing the ball.

I think this is my favorite picture. Braden really was a trooper - he even had a tea party with Teryn. She was so excited to have someone other than Mommy or Daddy to have tea with. He played along, even cutting up the "dinner" she made him using the small utensils.

These two played so well together. We got changed into pjs and discovered that Transformers was on. They wanted to watch, but Teryn wanted me to take a picture of her and her friend Braden. She wanted the dogs to get in the mix too.

I think this is a favorite too. They laid down on the floor together and watched Transformers before retiring to bed for the night. We definitely had a good time!

Disney on Ice

We went to Disney on Ice last Saturday. T loves Mickey, so she was most excited to see Mickey and his friends. She was a little disappointed that it wasn't ONLY Mickey, but she was fascinated by most of the other Disney stories.


She was very excited to be at the show. It was Kemper so it was a new location for her. She thought we were lost as we got closer to Kemper. She asked several times if Daddy was sure this was the right way to see Mickey.


The girl loves popcorn. As we were walking to our seats she spotted the popcorn box that had Mickey on it and the Minnie doll. Both were swiftly purchased and we finally made it to our seats.This was the part she liked. Between Disney stories Mickey and his friends would come out. This was taken just before The Lion King story. She wanted to know where Mickey went.

Poor thing...during the Peter Pan story she put her head on my chest and that was it! She was out. Scott looked over and saw that she was asleep and couldn't resist the picture. Only a very tired and very excited 3 year-old could fall asleep in the middle of a light show with loud noise.

She missed the best part! The ending brought not only Mickey and his friends back out, but everyone came out. When we got to the car she woke up and was very disappointed! She wanted to know where everyone went. I tried to wake her up when all of this was happening, but she would barely open her eyes before falling back to my chest! Maybe next year...

Birthday Surprise

My sister arranged a little surprise get-together for my birthday last week. It was very sweet. Scott and I had plans for the day including Disney on Ice (I know...exciting) then he wanted to take me shopping for my birthday. Well, he made the suggestion of taking T to Grandma's so we could shop without her. I thought it was a great idea, but as we got closer he was trying to distract me as we pulled into the neighborhood. I fell for it...that was the funny part!

He gave me a story that made me look the other way so I couldn't see cars in the driveway at Grandma's house.
The family was there in big numbers. My sister, oldest brother and their kids and the whole Matias clan made it! 3 of my Aunts even showed up! It was great to see everyone, and to think it was all for me.

I had a great cake and they actually put the right number of candles on the cake. That's the way to make a person feel old!!

My sister and brother-in-law were the head of the festivities!

The big hit of the party was the puzzles that Keith found for Mom. They are puzzles with only 9 pieces but Scottie and Andy decided there was NO solution, but they refused to give up. We had to eventually take the puzzles away so they could walk away!

I got some great gifts, but the best gift was just being with my family! It's always nice to spend time with your family. Things have been rough for everyone so it's nice to set all that aside and just enjoy laughing together. Thanks for the day, Sis!