Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Anika!  My girl turned 11 today.  Its crazy how short a time that seems, but in reality, she is only under a roof with me for 7 more years.  Crazy.  She is an amazing girl.  She can play with the little ones and admire the big kids.  She likes to watch for awhile before she jumps into anything.  She wants to be an artist some day.  She 'gets' people. She watches what goes on around her and notices things about others.  She has huge empathy - genuinely hurts when those close to her hurt.  Happy Birthday sweet girl, we love you!

Her day was spent at basketball this morning, running around over noon, and at an ice sculpture contest this afternoon!  There was a work day at our house today and some things got accomplished.  I can't say we are any closer to moving in than we were this morning, but there are some things coming along.  There is a water heater and a washer and dryer now, which is always a good thing!  This week will be major cleaning for me.  A few more errands to figure out some things, but mostly cleaning! One room at a time! =)

Brandon had his first sleepover in MI last night.  It seemed to go well but from what I gather he was too nervous to truly sleep well.  Needless to say, he is asleep now!  

We had donuts for breakfast, creamed chicken on a bun for lunch (with cool ranch doritos), and creamed chicken over mashed potatoes for supper with Candy Cane Pie for dessert.  Can I tell you how much I love that none of my kids like cake?  We have pie, ice cream, brownies, apple crisp, whatever they choose - but never cake!  Anika chose the menu for the day and away we went. 

We drove to Holland this afternoon to watch the Collegiate ice carving competition.  We got to see a few people at work and all of the finished products before they started melting.  It was pretty cool.  I can't remember which ones are behind the kids.  I think the very back one is the giraffe, but we saw Wall E, a runner, several fish and several birds, a snake, a picasso sort of figure, and many other things. We watched the guys carving the runner the longest. After this photo, he attached a hand, and put a heart in the other hand.  He tried to attach a pony tail, but never succeeded. Quite cool what they can do with ice! =)