Celebrating Denise

And sending JOY, Love, and Happiness to her as we get ready to party it up at her 40th birthday BASH on the shore of Lake Ida. We love Denise's spirit, her humor, her generosity, her courage, her love of adventure, her sensitivity, her honesty, her laughter, her moral character, her "can do" attitude, her toughness, her insight... we love HER completely!  We are so proud to count you, Denise, as our life long friend and Abby's Godmom.  May you continue to make wonderful memories this birthday and for many, many more to come.  Life just keeps getting better and better!

Hope you have tears of JOY as you take a little walk down memory lane with this video, Denise.

My dad

is celebrating his 67 birthday today! And although my parents are currently on their Southern trek across the lower portion of the United States, Dad is always in our hearts.

There is something so unique, special and complete about a hug from your dad. It can never be duplicated.  I wish I could give you a giant hug in person today on your birthday, Dad!

Thank you for always being so generous with your completely, all consuming, healing, loving hugs with all of us!!

HAVE A FABULOUS BIRTHDAY, DAD!

Celebrating my mom

And lucky for us, we got to start the party EARLY for my mom's 68th birthday celebration which is officially today, but we started on Friday, December 7th.  I met mom & dad in Fargo in the morning for some pre-Christmas shopping.  Dad headed to Fergus Falls to meet Steve for some 2x4 business while Mom & I made some serious progress on our lists. It was so nice to be able to bounce ideas off one another, plus the stores weren't crazy busy either like they are on the weekends.  We had a fabulous lunch which included sharing Pumpkin Bread Pudding - YUM!

We made it back to Fergus Falls safely by 4:30 PM despite some snow and ice on the roads the last 15 miles.  We had enough time to catch up with the girls on how their days went at school.

Next we all headed out to Mable Murphy's for a wonderful supper.  Maple's helped us celebrate mom with a delicious ice cream topped brownie, complete with a candle.  Mom, as generous as always, shared with the whole table.

 Our next stop on the "Celebrating Mom" agenda was to watch the synchronized Christmas light show put on by the Computer Hero.  It is a must see!!

The final destination was the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Concert at M-State.  It was fabulous!  We loved the entire performance, and especially appreciated the history given before each selection was played. I think it was one of the first Christmas concerts my dad has been to that didn't have a grandchild performing in it and he STILL liked it. As we were leaving the concert, huge fluffy snowflakes were falling.  It was so beautiful! Three generations together - PRICELESS!

 

Back at home, we had tiramisu cupcakes waiting and after a round of singing "Happy Birthday", we dug in.  The day was a perfect way to celebrate my mom.

 

Mom, we are so grateful for your laughter, generosity, selflessness and unconditional love.  You are beautiful inside and out!

Another party PLUS the annual apple harvest

 We headed to the farm Saturday morning and Kippy got to celebrate her 12th birthday one more time!  This time with family and extended family from out of town (Aunt Joan, Aunt Judy, cousins Julie & Maria).

 By special request, Grandma Rose made a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, plus a few extra chocolate mustaches to go with.

 

 It wasn't all about the party at the farm.  There was some work to be done. While Uncle Randy, cousin Brett, & cousin Kaleb were busy bringing in the corn harvest, the rest of the clan worked to get the apple harvest completed.  Although, much of the low hanging fruit had already been feasted on, there was still work to be done.

 The apple trees were loaded with apples, but many of them had become food for the birds who also realized how juicy and delicious those honey crisp apples were. 

 Steve got his traditional job of loading up in dad's Cherry Picker and harvesting all the apples too high to reach by step ladder.

 Dad was in position to catch the apples that Steve threw down and Kippy sorted the apples into the appropriate bucket.  The sorting isn't an exact science, but there is a method to the madness.

If there was nothing salvageable with the apple, it would go into the crap-apple bucket.  These apples got fed to the chickens.  Bluck!  This is all bird damage.  Dirty birds!!

Completely perfect, unblemished apples were put in the "teacher" apple bucket.  These apples were shined up by Kippy and personally handed out to each of the teachers at Our Lady of Victory.

The rest of the apples were sorted out for apple sauce, apple pie or just plain old eating.

 Of course, there was always a kitten or two around to get a little extra attention from Kippy.

 Abby practiced some of her newly acquired driving skills by taking a load of crap-apples to the chickens.

We also didn't miss an opportunity to get some photos of Kippy next to her now 12 year old Red Canadian Cherry tree.  And Meg didn't miss a chance to get some extra love from Kippy too.

The Mustache Bash

I must say that I had a blast putting together Kippy's 12th birthday party.  When I originally suggested a "mustache" themed party, Kippy was rather skeptical.  Then I told her my ideas to create an invitation "I mustache you a question, will you comb over to my birthday party?", give every one a "my stache" jar filled with goodies, and play a few games, Kippy came on board.

A huge shout-out to my sister-chic, Lori, who went above and beyond with creating adorable vinyl mustaches with her Silhouette cutting gadget. The only supplies we bought were some stache jars at the Dollar store, along with some green, black, and white streamers, plain white cups, white balloons, mustache duct tape and stick-on mustaches.

We stuck the vinyl mustaches on nearly EVERYthing.  From family pictures....

To balloons....

To bulletin boards...

We even hung them with filament from the chandelier... and with a hole punch, made mustache straws.  The City Bakery created some adorable mustache cupcakes for us, even tho they couldn't figure out WHY I wanted mustaches for a girls 12th birthday party!

The mustache crew had a great time selecting their mustache style, creating milk mustaches while dunking their oreos and just laughing and giggling.

 The girls played some games... Who am I? with labels stuck on their foreheads.

got blind folded and tried to stick the mustache on correctly...

 

ate treats, made faces, giggled some more and watched a movie.

I have to say, I love hosting this party for these tweens.  They were a very fun "crew".

Our unique girl

Today is Angelique Grace's 12th birthday!! Our Kippy Grace is a very unique combination of tough and tender-hearted.

She is so caring, loving, sentimental and sensitive, but has a strong, stubborn side to her as well.  She wants to be a marine biologist and a lawyer.

 It is this mix of seemingly contrasting characteristics make her so special:
  

• socially shy, yet adventurous, bold and willing to try new things (sushi, snowboarding, scary rides)

•  high-energy (think "Red-Bull with legs"), yet can sit and read for hours and hours

•  a true tom-boy, yet likes to have LONG hair and dress up

• extremely creative, yet messy beyond belief (may actually be a hoarder)

•  cries during sad movies, yet never sheds a tear when she is hurt (badly burned her arm this summer and was tough as nails about it)

We love her to the MOON and BACK and wouldn't change one single thing about her!

One of Kippy's birthday requests was to get her own e-mail account. Big steps!!

We wish her the very best, joy-filled birthday today!

Celebrating 40 Lori-STYLE with RAK!

 

My sister-chic, Lori, is going to be celebrating the big Four-Oh on June 28th.  Miss Lori shared her ultimate birthday wish with Heather & me several months back.  She wanted to have her birthday honored with Random Acts of Kindness.  I aim to please, so I am following her instructions and starting the celebrating EARLY to spread the love "Lori-STYLE".

Heather hooked me up with these super cute cards from Pinterest, so I engaged some help from my oldest daughter, who whipped up a batch of yummy banana bread.  Now I will get these delivered and begin plotting additional random acts of kindness to spread the love all the way to Lori's birthday.

Lori, I hope you feel the love surrounding you every minute of every day!  I'll keep you posted on other RAK done in your name.  I love you to the moon and back!!

If anyone else wants to join in on the celebration - please do!  The more Lori-STYLE love we can spread, the better this world will be.  I promise!

A very important announcement...

it is Kathy's birthday!  She is one of my closest, dearest friends and I wish her a very wonderful day today in honor of her birthday.  Our families got to spend Memorial weekend together with the Landmark family at Lake Hendricks two weeks ago.  This is a photo/video montage of that time and I made it just so Kathy could smile and remember it!  Happy birthday, Kathy!

A 15th birthday recap

and what does this 15 year old girl like to do more than anything else in the world?  You guessed it... she is a shopper!  Since her b'day fell on Mother's day this year, Abby celebrated a day early and took one of her best gal pals to Fargo with her for a day of shoppin' fun.  These two are a riot to listen to and I could just squeeze them up!

Abby and I went to the RTC to do a little birthday photoshoot.  I feel so happy inside just looking at these pics.  My girl has a contagious smile for sure.

On Abby's actual birthday (May 13th), we went to Oakes so I could be with my momma on Mother's day.  Abby loved the Hello Kitty cake made by Aunt Claire and enjoyed opening her birthday gifts which included a ukulele, a Betsey Johnson bag, sketch pad & gift cards.  What a lucky girl!  Love you so much, my Abby girl!

The girl who first called me momma

was born 15 years ago today.  Little Miss Abbigail Rose Lindgren arrived 4 weeks early after 17 hours of labor weighing in at 6 lbs 1 oz.  Abby literally made me a mom so it is very appropriate that I get to celebrate Mother's Day and Abby's birthday together.

Our beautiful, sometimes sarcastic, tender hearted, funny, music lovin', opinionated, blue-eyed daughter.

 May you continue to defend what you believe in...

 nurture your creative and artistic abilities...

 laugh and bring joy to those around you!

  We wish you a fabulous 15th birthday!

Celebrating Steve

on his 29th 43rd birthday!  Steve got to indulge his sweet tooth with some homemade double chocolate brownies, Butterfingers (his favorite candy bar) & a delicious dessert at Bello's. A painted paperweight rock, compliments of Kippy, with his motorcycle gang inscribed on it and an iphone made his ibirthday complete. We all had fun spoiling our favorite "man guy" on his special day!

Suprise - Lance is 40!

Denise planned an amazing weekend of fun and surprises for Lance's 40th birthday.  We were so happy to be a part of the festivities and making it memorable.  Although - I think I should have left the dueling piano bar MUCH sooner than I did!

From the friends, setting, food and entertainment ~ everything was perfect.  Steve & I even took in our first Vikings football game and even though I have rarely even watched a professional football game, there was so much excitement just being there in person.

The Vikings pulled off a win that afternoon, and although I was sleep deprived and a tad-bit dehydrated, it was exciting!  I think Lance would say his 40th birthday went down in the record books as a WIN too!