(Great) Grandma Elaine's 100th Birthday Party

One of the absolute highlights of our most recent visit to Washington, was celebrating my Grandma's 100th birthday! Between our family being there from Wyoming, and my brother and his family there from Hawaii - we successfully pulled off a perfect surprise! I think there were several of us who failed to remain dry eyed at her surprise and excitement to see us all (sniff sniff!).

Anyway - here are a TON of pictures, and a couple of videos from the day!

First up - successful surprise! Can you see how happy she is?

Some of the decorations:

Deanna presenting the photo book she made as a gift for her:

The birthday girl!

The cake:

Friends from Seattle who were charter members of the church that she and my Grandpa started many years ago:

With my mom:

The Hawaii family:

The Wyoming family:

Rick and Sylvia:

A few with her son, my dad:

Just love this for some reason!

Like mother like son...actually, no - I don't see the resemblance here! (heehee...)

The birthday girl again - and beautiful flowers:

My nephew and sis-in-law - ah, the age of not wanting your picture taken with your mom! 

Amy and her great-grandma:

...and Katie with her great-grandma:

Joe and Grandma:

One of the BEST parts of the day - Grandma and my big brother playing hymns together. I can't describe how beautiful it was. Every person in that room lit up and sang along, and I was reminded again of the incredible heritage of faith that exists in our family. And how beautiful the hands that have seen a hundred years, and still playing their praise to the Lord. 

Hands young and old - making music to the Lord:

One of the many favorite songs I taped - Power in the Blood. LOVE her smile in the middle! I will try to get more uploaded soon:

And my oldest nephew - who has been learning to play from his Dad, playing with his great-grandma...a beautiful moment:

Happy Birthday Grandma!!!

Music Recital

For the Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles, Cousins, and friends who were not close enough to attend - here a couple of pictures and videos of the girls first Music Recital - they each had a piano solo too!

First up is the guitar portion:

I took these pictures afterwards of them at the piano, because I was recording them playing and didn't get pictures then! 

Amy's video is a little blurry - the focus was messed up when I started recording, and to fix it I would have had to stop recording. Grrr...but you can still here her playing!

And Katie's posed pictures from afterwards:

And her song - she hadn't practiced singing until she was performing, and just decided on the fly to sing along! Harder than you might think!

And last up - they performed a song with the bells - beautiful!

Amy's teeth are a bit more sore today with her braces - but she is still doing great..she still says they are fun, except for when her teeth hurt!

New Braces

Well - today was the big day! Amy got her braces on! I have to admit, I will be a little sad to see her adorable crooked toothed grin - but I know the results will be wonderful for her and her poor mouth! She was SUCH a trooper - never complained once! And hasn't complained about them hurting either. Here is her beautiful new smile:

The string in all the pictures is one of the balloons they gave her.

Could she be any more adorable? I know I'm biased...but I could just squeeze her forever!

In other news - we have been enjoying a beautiful (and compared to last year!) WARM January! Temps have hit in the high 30's nearly everyday, and barely gone below zero. Last year it was a good day if you got UP to zero, let alone over it. I ran to town today and realized that I didn't have to wear snow boots - I could get away with just my tennis shoes. Weird to say the least. I guess you know you live in Wyoming when you think it is SOOOO warm when you get over 30 degrees, huh?

It is so tempting to think that it will just stay this way - but I'm am trying to guard myself from expecting that and being disappointed when February rolls around! Just watch...my next post will be pics of tons of snow and super cold weather, right? Hope not...

Christmastime...is here!!!

Did that make you start singing the Charlie Brown song? Yep...we had that playing today as the snow was falling outside, and we decorated our Christmas tree and put up Christmas lights. Kind of perfect! Then we went (ironically with how cold it has been this past week!) to see Frozen - such a cute movie! Kind of fitting, since we were pretty excited to hit 15 degrees today - the warmest it has been in several days! We have been in the neighborhood of 20 below zero, with a high of 1 or 2 for the past several days. 

And, finally got a couple of better pictures of Cooper - the puppy!

Today was a breakthrough (for me anyway!) - he learned to sit and stay. YAY! We now put this blanket where we want him to stay, and he will stay put! He needs a few reminders - but it is so nice for my own sanity to have him stay in one place, and not have to follow him around to make sure he isn't doing a naughty potty in the house.

And the girls wanted a picture with him too - so we took them by the Christmas tree (naturally!)

Hard to believe that Christmas is getting so close! I was starting to fear we wouldn't get a tree up at all this year! This one is just one from a nearby gas station - but I know we never would have made it to go look for one this year. So...the girls are calling this our Charlie Brown tree, but I kinda like it! 

I also have just about reached the conclusion that this is going to be the year I give up on making Christmas cards. I really hate to do it - but I'm just starting to see the light at the end of the busy/crazy tunnel, and don't want to make it longer! So, we'll see what happens - they might still happen, just a little late, but I'm not promising anything! 

Newest Member of the Hoffman Household!

Hello! Well...it is official - our family has grown by an additional 4 feet...puppy feet that is! Michael and I met "Mojo" (not sure yet if this will change...) - a four month old Feist puppy yesterday, and surprised the girls by taking them to meet him today, and (surprise, surprise) they approved! So he is staying in his old home for the next couple of weeks while we travel home for Thanksgiving, then we will pick him up when we get back home! Here are some pics from the girls meeting him today:

Exciting, huh? I know the girls are over the moon! And while I know a new puppy comes with challenges, we feel like this one is a good fit for our family! Looking forward to this new chapter in our adventures together as a family!

Beautiful girls with new glasses!

A little bit earlier this afternoon, Michael and I ran to the dump...when we came back, the girls surprised us - they had done their hair and made themselves beautiful! Of course, that deserved an impromptu photo shoot! Here is the result:

Then Amy put her new glasses on too - and was trying to look at the dust on the lenses - hence the crossed eyes! 

WOW...she is getting so grown up!

Then we have the other silly girl of course!

Also growing up so very fast...

Ah - I love these girls!

See you again soon (hopefully...)!!!