Happy Birthday!

I am a horrible wife for not giving my wonderful husband a timely birthday shout-out on the blog. John celebrated his birthday (I'll let you guess how old he is) on the 24th and thankfully we were all healthy to celebrate his special day. Given his birthday was on a Tuesday, we celebrated with his family on Sunday. We headed over in the afternoon and feasted on Deb's spaghetti and rum cake before John opened his birthday goodies.

While he wasn't all that excited for his birthday, we were all excited to celebrate and recognize what a great husband, father, son, etc. John is. One of the best parts of my day is when he walks through the door after he gets home from work - not to mention seeing first-hand the love he has for Kate. We simply couldn't ask for a better husband and father! We love you so much!

Kate helping Daddy open his gifts

Alright, a Grill Daddy!

And the most comfortable Packer pants known to man (yes, I've already tried them out).

You can't go wrong with Lambeau Field barware.

And rum cake!

Rotavirus Running Rampant

We've had quite the difficult week since waking up Saturday. Poor Kate had gotten sick in her bed and then it continued all morning. Since then she's gone from getting better to worse to better to worse. We just can't seem to get ahead of these symptoms and while she's a little fighter, it still breaks our heart to see. So much so, that Shelly and I both had little stomach bugs that lasted all day Saturday. However, I woke up Sunday fine whereas Shelly was far worse and wasn't able to go to work until today.

This is our first time experiencing Rotavirus (funny, I thought Kate had a shot to prevent it.....how does that happen?) and its been awful. It seems as though both Shel and Kate are on the turnaround so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Lastly, we went to my parents house last week for the Badgers Rose Bowl game....which turned out poorly, but we had a good time anyway. Here's some pics:

Woah....that's a big Santa!

Kate, in utter shock at the final score!

Winter Days

Well, we finally got some snow just in time for Christmas. New Years weekend Kate finally got to enjoy it. Here's some of our favorite pics.

Really Mom & Dad, the Coat with the Don King Hair?

Alright, I'm Ready....Let's Go!

Faster Dad, Faster!

Last but not least, enjoy this hidden gem of a video. Kate and Brooke battle it out for queen tongue-sticker-outer.

Happy Everything!

There is certainly a lot to celebrate lately! First, I would like to wish our dear nephew, Benjamin, a happy belated birthday! He turned the big 3 on the 30th! He wasn't the only one that celebrated a birthday on that day though. His uncle, Godfather and my baby brother also turned another year older. I won't share his age since his response to my birthday text stated, "Thanks for the reminder".

We also had a very Merry Christmas and hope all of you reading did as well. We spent Christmas Eve at the Weiland's and then headed to West Bend on Christmas morning to celebrate with the Burch bunch until Tuesday. We certainly missed the Virginia Burch's, but were so thankful to see the rest of the family.

With all of the traveling and getting off of our schedule (Jen, I know you can relate), we decided to ring in the New Year at home - just the three of us. Being the party animals we are, we were all asleep before midnight. However, I could tell when the clock struck midnight as I awoke to fireworks going off all around our house. Much to my surprise, John took no part in it.

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May 2012 bring you much love, happiness and laughter!

I was able to snap this picture of Kate and Grandma & Grandpa before she ran for the hills.

Kate and Grandma having a good time.

Opening up a gift from Uncle Greg, Auntie Laura, Brookie and Choo Choo

What Christmas wouldn't be complete without a little Jersey Shore trivia game?

We're normal.

Like mother...

...like cat.