Graduations & Confirmations

Summertime is full of parties and celebrations and the day after Olivia's birthday we celebrated her cousins graduation and confirmation together. Ryan has graduated from High School and Michelle was confirmed at Holy Hill a few weeks ago. They had a really nice party and we just had to dodge a few thunderstorms that blew through here and there.
Olivia loves all the socializing and flirting and showing off.

Congratulations Ryan and Shelly!!

Birthday Party

Olivia was so excited to get her first bike for her second birthday. She can't quite reach the pedals yet but that is OK because before long she will be pedaling around so fast I won't be able to keep up with her.
She received so many nice gifts and had so many things to open that we didn't get a good look at it all until the next day. She loves playing with all the toys, games, puzzles, etc. All of her new clothes fit and are so cute.
Thank you to everyone for making her birthday so special!!


We actually had three birthdays to celebrate so we had three different cakes. Grandma Manning's birthday was last Wednesday, Olivia's was Friday and Steve's is this Wednesday. I think Olivia ended up blowing out all the candles though. We had a great time.

I'm 2 Today !!!

Today is my BIRTHDAY and I am TWO years old !!

I'm soooo excited, we are having a party this afternoon and I get to see all my Grandparents, God Parents, Uncles and some of my cousins.

Maybe I'll get some presents and I can't wait for the CHOCOLATE CAKE and ICE CREAM!!

(I'm sure my Mom will post pictures of my party in a day or so)

YIPPEE!!! Happy Birthday To Me!!!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Steve !!

And to all the other father's out there. We had a busy but nice Father's Day weekend. We shopped for Steve's present (a new tiller that should cover his birthday too, and then some...) and went out to eat, worked around the house and did some relaxing also.

Rainy Weekend

What some crazy weather we have been getting this spring. Wet weather outside means we have to entertain ourselves inside. Jenny and Olivia decided to build forts in Olivia's room yesterday. Those two get along so well and have a lot of fun together.

We were able to take advantage of the spring/summer-like weather we had for Saturday morning. We headed over to a "Pirate Festival" which turned out sounding better than it actually was. But, it was a nice morning to be outside and it was a good excuse to go to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for lunch. The food is always great and the girls liked to sit on the big swings that they have by the bar before we left. We got back home just as the bad storms were hitting.

Sunday morning was more of the same wicked weather but in between showers the dark skies made for some nice lighting for pictures outside. Once the storms came back we were back in the house. We, like many people, rented movies and watched the lawn and garden fill up with water.

Olivia will be 2 years old in two weeks. She counts to ten, spells her name, knows her colors and is learning more everyday. When we want her to use the potty chair though, we ask her if she wants to be a "big girl" and use the potty chair. Without hesitation she immediately says "NO" every time so for now it probably won't do much good to push her, she'll let me know when she is ready.

6th Grade Graduation 2008

John Hustis elementary had a graduation ceremony for the 6th grade class last night. The 7th and 8th grades attend at the high school so that is the reason for the graduation. It was a nice little ceremony and Grandma and Grandpa Manning stopped at the house afterwards for cake and ice cream. Grandma Pitz even made the trip up from Milwaukee to attend Jenny's graduation but wasn't able to come out to the house. We had a good time though. I bought Jenny a couple of balloons but Olivia had the most fun with them. It took until about 10:00 pm to come down off of her cake and ice cream high and stop running in circles with the balloons.
She was screaming with delight just watching the balloons float up into the air. We all had a good time and now summer vacation has officially started.

Congratulations Jenny!!

Busy Week and Weekend

Last Wednesday Jenny, Olivia and I attended Michelle's confirmation service. It was really nice, a little long, but very nice. It was held at Holy Hill which made it neat since I had never been in that church before. Olivia was very good, she decided to be "Grandma's Girl" that night. Gave Grandma a workout with going "up-um" and down but overall behaved very well, especially with the service lasting two hours and not getting out of the church until well past her bedtime. Besides Grandma and Grandpa she got to see a lot of her aunts, uncles and cousins again which always maked her happy.











On Saturday we were in Richfield all day for Jenny's soccer tournament. Her first game was at 11:00 am and unfortunately they lost that one but we got a nice picture with the team, coach and Assistant Coach Steve. Olivia wasn't real happy about getting plunked down in the middle of these sweaty girls all wearing the same outfit. She of course posed for the camera but was a little overwhelmed by all the girls.
The team played again at 1:00 pm and this time won the game, the big event though happened more than halfway through the game. Jenny was running full blast after the ball, took a bad tumble and dislocated and broke her left pinky finger. While screaming on the field, a sports EMT was on the scene immediately to help. The funny and amazing thing was that there also....just happened.....to be a hand surgeon in the crowd who came right out to the field to see if he could help. He saw that the finger was dislocated, grabbed it a put it right back into place before she had any time to think about it. Whoever you were........thank you! I think it saved her a lot of pain later by getting it back into place so quickly. So from there, Steve and I, Jenny and Olivia gathered everything up, threw it in the truck and headed to the emergency room. As we pulled up, Pastor Bauer just happened to pull up next to us for another emergency so Jenny could not have had more help and support that day. Someone sure seemed to be watching out for her!!!
After some x-rays and Tylenol, it was determined that her finger was broken so they put a splint on it, wrapped it up and we went back to the soccer field to cheer on the team for the 5:00 pm championship round. They all played really hard and came away with second place medals and trophy. Overall, quite an exciting day for all of us.