January Recap

January has been wonderful for us, full of lots of relaxing days and evenings. There was very little on our calendar, which gave us lots of time to plan Cashel's 1st birthday at the end of the month. It was certainly a frigid month, but we did have a little bit of warming, and we still hardly got any snow. We have also been able to finally start getting full nights of sleep (thank you, Cashel!), which has been a Godsend!

Even with a fairly uneventful month, there were a few fun highlights:

Lori's Baby Shower (January 12)

I made the trek to Blaine, MN (north of Minneapolis) to celebrate with Mark's cousin's wife, Lori, at her baby shower!

Click here for a full recap with pictures!

Dinner and Bowling with Friends (January 19)

We had a fun time with the Studes and Grabers in Worthington. We had dinner together at Pizza Ranch and then headed over to Oxford Bowl for a couple games. We all have such busy schedules anymore that it's fun when we can finally all get together and catch up.

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Cashel's 1st Birthday (January 26)

Our baby boy, Cashel, turned ONE on January 26. We celebrated with a big party at the BARC Center Library in Windom with a barnyard theme. We had a great time!

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Welcome to the Family, Ruthie Marie! (January 30)

My younger brother, Josh and his wife welcomed a new baby girl at the end of the month. We are looking forward to seeing her this coming weekend! Congratulations, Josh and Tiffany!!

What's Coming Up!

Our February is looking a lot like our January: fairly uneventful. We'll be traveling down to Humboldt to visit our new little niece Ruthie this coming Saturday, then we have pretty much no plans the rest of the month! I'm sure we'll do something together for Valentine's Day, but otherwise, I think we're all looking forward to another uneventful month to catch up on rest and keep the house in order.

Cashel's 1st Birthday (January 26)

Our "baby" turned ONE on Saturday, January 26. To celebrate the big day, we gathered with 20 of our family and friends at the BARC Center in Windom. It was a beautiful day for the party, and we had such a great time!

The Invites

I found these adorable little clip art farm animals online and crafted these super cute invites for the occasion :)

The Location

We held the party at the historic BARC Center in town in the Library. It was nice to have a fun place to gather and not have everyone sit on each others' laps.

The Birthday Boy

The Decor

The party was a barnyard theme, so we decorated with some fun colors, including some cow print plastic

Party Guests

We had quite the group at Cashel's birthday party! There were a total of 21 guests (23 people total), including Mark's family, my family and some of our close friends.

The Food

I was a tad busy rushing to get everything done in an hour before the party started, so I failed to get any pictures of the food before it was devoured, but you get the idea :)

I attempted to do a barnyard theme and I even made these cute little label cards, but they got lost in translation. We had pulled "piggy" sandwiches, "Old McDonald's" mac & cheese, "Cowboy" beans, a veggie patch, and

Cake Smash

Opening Gifts

While I was left pretty worn down by the end of the party, everyone had a great time :) We had a great day celebrating with our little birthday boy. We love you, Cashel :)

Pizza and Bowling with Friends (January 21)

Sometimes we go entirely way too long in between when we see some of our friends. Between Christmas, New Years and all the busy-ness that goes along with day-to-day life, it had been a while since we actually sat down with the Studes and Grabers, but we finally were all NOT busy and IN town, so we had a fun pizza and bowling night in Worthington. We started out at Pizza Ranch, where we had fun catching up and watching these two interact.

After supper, we made our way over to Oxford Bowl in Worthington to bowl a couple games (in which I kicked major butt and almost got a turkey TWICE!)

We had a great time! Looking forward to the coming year, and hopefully seeing all these guys a little more than the past year.

Lori's Baby Shower (January 12)

The second Saturday in January I made a fun day trip to Minneapolis to help shower Mark's cousin's wife, Lori, and their baby-to-be at cousin Skyler's home in Blaine, Minnesota.

I left a little early to make sure I didn't get lost, as it was the first time driving to Jared and Skyler's home in Blaine, and, of course, that meant arriving a tad (er...30 minutes) early. Skyler was just finishing up with the food and the other little last-minute touches, so we visited a bit and I did some minimal help.

The Food and Decor

Skyler had a beautiful spread for the shower, including the cutest little onesie banner and a huge platter of fruit, muffins, bagels and a yummy egg bake. Lori's sister and niece made the beautiful cupcakes. It was all so delicious!

Games

We played three games at the shower, including a word search (which I won by a few seconds), the "guess how big Mama's belly is" one with yarn, and a fun mad libs-style one that got fairly creative :)

Opening Gifts

Baby Johnson (and Mama) got lots of fun, cool, useful gifts for the shower, including a baby tub, clothes, a few essentials from knowledgeable mamas, and some cool books.

I had such a wonderful afternoon at the shower (and I think everyone else did as well). Thanks so much for opening up your home, Skyler, and for the yummy food as well. And thanks to the Mama-to-be, Lori, for having a little one to celebrate!! Best of wishes in the days, weeks and months to come! We can't wait to hear the big news!!

December Recap

After a completely insane October and November, December was surprisingly mellow in comparison, even with Christmas tagged on at the end. We certainly kept ourselves busy, but most of our evenings were spent snuggled up at home, playing with our little guy, and amazingly keeping to our schedule very well.

Kala Fischer's Baby Shower (December 1)

I attended a baby shower for Kala Fischer (a family friend of Mark's) the first of December in Worthington. She and her husband are expecting twins in February!

Click here for a full recap with pictures!

Ben and Catherine's Seussical Birthday (December 9)

We were glad we were able to make it to Ben and Catherine's party in Des Moines, which was a Dr. Seuss themed party. Ben turned 4 while Catherine turned 1! Happy Birthday, you two :)

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7 Year "Engageaversary" Dinner (December 16)

It sounds cheesy, but every year we get all dressed up and return to the spot where we got engaged (Kinbrae Steakhouse) for a nice dinner. Unfortunately, they ended up closing their doors in 2012, so we settled on Bergen Bar & Grill this year. It was a delicious meal, but it wasn't quite the same :(

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Toro Christmas Party at River City Eatery (December 17)

We had our Toro Christmas Party at River City Eatery once again this year. It was a nice, informal occasion with great food (thanks, Mari!) and was so fun to catch up with co-workers in a non-work environment.

Christmas in Plymouth (December 23)

We gathered again at Mark and Meghan's home in Plymouth for Christmas. It was a nice time to catch up with family, even if we did spend much of the day chasing our kiddo around and keeping him out of trouble ;) Thanks again to Meghan and Mark for hosting!

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Christmas in Mankato (December 24)

We stayed in Mankato for a couple nights and celebrated Christmas at Dan and Kathi's home on Christmas Eve. We had a great time with everyone and thoroughly enjoyed the hillarious grab bag gifts!

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Christmas at Home (December 25-29)

After a busy few days out of town, we spent a few days celebrating at our home in Windom with our little family :)

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Christmas in Humboldt (December 29-30)

We traveled down to Humboldt the weekend after Christmas to celebrate for two days with the Ropte family at the farm.

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NYE at the Larsen's (December 31)

Our friends Josh and AiWen Larson invited us to their home for New Years. AiWen had quite the spread going on, with a big full meal (pork loin, corn casserole, green bean casserole and all sorts of snacks and goodies, punch and a yummy cake courtesy of Kristina who was home with a sick kiddo)

It was just a small group of us (Josh, AiWen, Curt, Mark, myself, Cashel and later on Nancy), but we had a nice time catching up with everyone!

Thanks to Josh and AiWen for hosting! We're so excited for you and your new little girl on the way!