Another night with the girlz......

It's not all fun and games at Grandma's. Last week Hailie, Brandie, Grace, and Emily got as dressed up as they could for the cold weather and helped to shovel Aunt Jamie's driveway. They didn't like it at first but then they found out it wasn't so bad. Especially since they got to play on a huge snow mountain across the street. (And fall off of, and get covered in snow from.) Of course that called for some Swiss Miss cocoa at home and some sizzlin' karaoke to keep things warmed up. HMMM, from this picture it looks like Em is doing all the work! Really, there was so much hardened snow and ice chunks, we had to take a hoe to it. The girls did not know what a real hoe was, I am not kidding! And Fritz had to go and shovel some more the next day because not even the energy of four young girls harnessed to shovels could remove all the snow.

She's HOW old?

Here is Hailie at her 14th birthday party. Sure seems unbelievable to me that she is already 14! I remember when she didn't even know how to open a present, and now she is taking gift cards to the mall and doing her own shopping! As you can see, she is a lovely young lady who does very well in school and who has a fun, affectionate, and sweet personality. Well, most of the time anyway, you can't expect a teen to keep an even keel all the time! Also in the pictures, her cousin Ashley Veen, who is a real cousin to Hailie, from the Veen side, granddaughter of Rita and the late John Veen. The cute redhead is Molly, who has more energy than that roadrunner on that one cartoon where the wolf always tries to catch him...you know the one....don't make me dig in my memory...anyway, it was a nice party with both sides of Hailie's family there to wish her well and celebrate another year!

Chantze's 12th Present Receiving Day

Notice the birthday cake is a pie (cheesecake, to be exact!) and there are 12 candles on it! The preferred activity for this party was to watch Chantze play his new video game, and to try to pry his white-knuckled death grip hands from the controller. In the picture, you can see Hailie, Emily, Grace, Fisher, and Hunter's hair, but only Chantze's shoulder. Elia was somewhere scrambling around on the bed, too. It was another snowy night, but another fine party, and this is one more chance to wish Chantze a very good year, and many more from his bizarro Grandma Vee.