Happy Birthday Baby!

Well, today my baby turns eight. Eight?!?! I can't even believe it!! I can't imagine life without this little blessing. McKenzie has made us proud in so many different ways and we are so very glad that the Lord blessed us with this precious little girl. Theses are just a few of the things that we love about our baby girl:

*She has an awesome personality and she is kind and thoughtful to everyone she meets!
*She is an amazingly hard worker and she really puts her heart into anything that she does, whether it be her school work or her dancing.
*She has some really awesome friends who are very special to her (and those friends have some pretty great parents that we have been lucky enough to get to know too! BONUS!!!).
*She loves her special friend J.J., who also happens to share the same birthday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JJ!!! We love you too!!
*She is an awesome shopper and has a great eye for picking out really cute outfits...oh, we have SO many fun girl days to look forward too!
*She is an awesome model and almost never gets tired of posing for me when I am in the mood to take pictures...gotta love that!
*She has beautiful brown eyes and when she looks at you with those eyes its almost impossible to say "no" to her!!
*She wants to buy a new camera for her birthday...I have no idea where she got that idea?!?! :0)
*She loves to laugh!!!!!!!!
*She loves her teachers and she is respectful of adults!
*She loves to go to church and sing, especially during VBS!
*She loves to swim and she can't get enough bathing suits and beach towels!
*She loves to listen to music, especially Taylor Swift, and sing and dance along!
*She is in LOVE with looking at herself in the mirror and has spent several hours doing so in her new full length mirror that her grandparents bought her!
*She writes awesome love letters and poems to her family!!!
*SHE ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait to see what age eight brings!!

We love you SO much Kenzie!! Enjoy your special day!! :0) :0) :0)

Kenzie and Grace

Kenzie's friend Grace was over yesterday and they wanted to get some pictures taken. As you can imagine, they really had to twist my arm. I got lots of cute ones that I shared on facebook, but I wanted to share these that I had fun playing around with. I thought they were pretty fun!

This is a test...

Just playing around...thanks Amy for the tip. Once I found the right website I had a blast playing around.

Brock's First Dance

Brock's friend Jeremy invited him to a DARE dance last night at the Catholic Church. It ended up being Brock, Cade and Jeremy who went and as Brock was getting ready, I realized that this was his first official "dance." Although it really wasn't a big deal to him, I thought that it was worth capturing a few shots to remember the occasion. Well, of course, poor Cade had to have a few shots too...he is one of my other sons, so it is only right that he go through the torture of the "pre-activity" photo shoot that my kids always have to endure (ha!). Notice Brock's "faux hawk." If you know me at all, then you also know that I can be a tad controlling at times (cough, cough), but when Brock wanted to grow his hair out, I was so proud of myself for letting him do it. It is SO not me, but this is one decision that I can leave to him. The question has quickly become: what do we do with it while it's growing? The "faux hawk" has been one of our fun experiments, and I actually think he looks stinkin' cute with it! Anyway, all went well and a fun time was had by all. Enjoy!

Taylor Swift and Keith Urban Concert

We went to the concert last night for Kenzie's birthday present. We had such a really great time! You know how sometimes you plan something in your mind and you think it is going to be so awesome and then when you do it, it isn't really as great as you hoped it would be? Usually that is how things go for me, but this time it went just as great as I hoped it would! Several times last night Kenzie threw her arms around me and told me how much she loved me and how this was the "best night of her life." The girls were so well behaved and we all just really enjoyed ourselves. The grandmas even rocked out to the music! I would definitely go to see either of them again. I have to say that I thought the pictures really turned out well for just using my point and shoot. We were really, really far back and I was just excited that you could tell who was in the pictures! We also had a really nice time at Logans before the show. The best part was when we were walking out of the concert and a group of women pulled up and asked the girls if they had come to see Taylor and when the girls nodded they passed out some hand made sashes that they had made with Taylor's picture and the date of the concert. So cute and it thrilled the girls beyond belief!! I was was just so thankful for such a great night!

Birthday Surprise!

Kenzie has loved Taylor Swift for quite some time now and her BFF, Alaina loves her too. In fact, they can both sing her songs by heart. So, when we heard that Taylor was coming to Ft. Wayne with Keith Urban, we just knew that Kenzie's birthday present would be tickets for herself and Alaina. Fortunately we were able to get the tickets before Chuck was laid off! Anyway, last week we got together for supper with the Arney's and my parents to give the girls the big surprise. Through a series of "clue gifts," including cowboy hats from Rich and Heidi, we told the girls that they were going to the concert! They were shocked and thrilled. So, we are off to the concert tonight along with my mom and my mother-in-law! We are so excited and I'm sure it will be a great night of girl bonding. Before the show the guys are joining us, along with the Harts and my aunt and uncle for dinner at Logan's Roadhouse. Should be a fun night for us! I'll post soon about our fun evening! (It's an early birthday gift, since Kenzie's birthday isn't until the 27th of June, but I think she'll remember it when her birthday gets here!) :0)