Karen turned 7

Karen is so excited to be 7, and can you guess why? It's closer to 8 and getting baptized. Lately that is all she can talk about. She is so excited to get baptized and can hardly wait. Every time she takes a bath, she practices putting her face under the water to practice for getting baptized. It's so cute. It also reminds me that I need to make sure she gets taught the things she needs to so that she can make such a grown up decision.

But right now we just enjoyed celebrating her birthday. The Friday before her birthday we invited several of her friends to come to a party.

We had face painting done by me...then we taught the kids to play red rover...
we also decorated butterflies....

played pin the tail on the monkey....and smashed our homemade butterfly pinata (created by me too).

Presents and rice crispie cupcakes (rice crispie treats in the shape of cupcakes because Karen doesn't like cake) ended the party with great success. We had a lot of fun and Karen was thrilled with the way everything turned out.

On her actual birthday we took her to dinner at the new McDonalds by our house. The play area was the best part of dinner for her and Michael.Afterward we had an actual birthday cake, though Karen only had ice cream and the last of her presents. Her grandma and grandpa came along with a few cousins. It was fun. Happy birthday my darling girl.
A few facts about Karen at age 7: favorite color - pink (currently), favorite animal - cat, favorite food - pizza, very good at math, loves reading, has lots and lots of friends.

Easter

What a fun Easter weekend we had! We had our traditional McFarlane family Easter egg get together complete with lunch, egg hunt and our first annual egg bash. Cindy was wonderful to host this year. I think our new favorite tradition is the egg bash. Everyone had so much fun with it. We each brought a dozen eggs per family, then we each took turns rolling them at each other and whichever one didn't crack, won. Then the winners would go against each other, etc, etc, til there was only one. It was a blast and we are looking forward to doing it again next year.
The kids had a great time hunting eggs. There were so many places to hide them in Cindy's yard. What fun it was. We missed having Pam and her family there, but they'll be there next time, I'm sure.Sunday was a fun egg hunt too. Then of course we had to have pictures in our new Easter outfits, well the kids new outfits anyway.
Karen is a natural model, she posed for this without any help or direction from me.We hope you all had a wonderful Easter and celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ too.

Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! I love birthdays, it's so great to have an excuse to do something fun, have cake and get presents. We weren't able to do too much since Neils is still limping about, but we did do a few things. Cheesecake factory is my favorite and since we just got our tax return we took the kids and went there. LOVE IT! Here is a picture of the red velvet cake cheesecake I chose this time. Yum!Then we had my sister and her family over for games and cake. This is the cake I made for myself. Turned out pretty cute, though a little messy.
We had a lot of fun playing games, my favorite way to spend an evening.

Neils got me the movie "Tan.gled" which made me so happy :) I loved that movie and if you haven't seen it yet, you need to. So cute!

Neils Updated

Five days after the surgery, Neils went back to have everything checked out. They unwrapped his leg and took the cast splint off and then took out the stitches. Here is a picture before they took out stitches. Then next is after they cleaned it up and took out the stitches.
Now he is in a brace that allows him to bend his knee a little at a time. It was first set so he could only bend his knee 30 degrees. Since that time he has been able to work up to 73 degrees. Here he is in the same place with his brace on. The big bulge on his knee is an ice pack under all that bandaging.This recovery is going to take a while yet, but we are happy with what has been accomplished so far and are looking forward to him gaining full mobility. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes.

March

March is my favorite month. Any guesses as to why? That's right it's my birthday month!!!! :) Even though I have to wait til the end of the month, I still love the whole month. My kids are excited because my birthday starts off the birthdays in our family. (Mine in March, Karen in May, Neils and Michael in June. We get very busy in June.) Plus we also get to plan something fun to do as a family that we normally don't do like go to a movie in the theater or out to some fun activity. This year we will be doing a movie since Neils had knee surgery on Friday and might not be up to bowling or mini golf.

Speaking of which, I get to tell the story of Neils and his knee. When he was 15 he dislocated his knee when playing basketball. He had surgery and never did anything else about it. About 3 years ago he fell out of bed when turning over in his sleep and dislocated it again. We had to call an ambulance and go to the emergency room for them to put it back in. Despite my concerns, he never went to the doctor after the trip to the ER. About a month or two ago, Neils had a prompting that he should get his knee checked out. He finally went to the doctor and had a cat scan of his knee. They found out that his knee cap was floating freely in his knee with nothing to connect it to anything else. The doctor said he needed surgery. Well, Friday was the day. They had to take a ligament from a donor and place it in his knee and then screw this ligament to the knee cap and the bones of his legs. Quite a surgery. We were both nervous, but trusted in the Lord to bless him and direct the doctor. Everything went well with the surgery and was home that afternoon. Thankfully we had wonderful people to watch the kids during all this.

They put a cast type splint on his leg from his ankle to the top of his leg and wrapped it from top to bottom as you can see in the picture. He's been on the couch most of the weekend with short trips to the bathroom or around the room to exercise it a little. He's actually feeling much better now and excited to get to the doctor on Tuesday to get into a hinged brace rather than this full leg cast. Then he will start physical therapy to speed the healing. He'll be off work for a week and then hopefully back to as normal as he can be. Neils says he feels like a pirate as he limps around like a peg leg, just needs the eye patch.