First Days of 2024

Our New Years weekend plans took a turn when Nola slipped on the ice on Sunday afternoon. She was feeding birds and took a nasty fall on her hip. Ken and Dan brought her to the emergency room and xrays revealed that it was broken. Dang it! What a way to start the new year! 

We had a very low key New Years Eve night at home - Dan, Leo and I were in bed before midnight and the big kids still managed to get glitter in the carpet. Hah!

We made soup on New Years Day - Love this chicken and Farro recipe. 

We had Chester with us for a few days while Nola was in the hospital. I took the doggies to the dog park and stopped by the Dollar Tree on the way home. Look at what I found on my way out of the store - It looks like these dogs are in a getaway car. Haha!

Remember when I said that those Paw Patrol face tattoos were a bugger to remove? Here are the boys ... a few days following Leo's birthday party, still scrubbing!

Lucy's beauty routine was going strong with the new year. 

Leo loves his pup!

We popped by Tropic Waters to get some mealworms for Prince, this is always one of the boys' happy spots to visit.  

We took down the Christmas decor at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Here at the kids in the space where the Christmas tree used to be.

Grandma Nola had a successful hip surgery and was back at home recovering just a few days after her incident. She named her walker Luke Landwalker. Love the humor!

We had friends over and played video games.

I went on a quick work trip to Crandon and Dan sent me good morning pictures from my boys. Love these guys! I saw so many eagles on my drive up North - good luck signs as we start the new year.

We got just a little bit of snow, the doggies loved playing in the white stuff at the dog park.

The kiddos had an early release one day so we zipped home to play and drink hot chocolate.

I forgot to use these during our advent season and it seemed like a good day to bust out the 'fancy' marshmallows. 

The kiddos worked to keep Grandma company and entertained her with some dress up antics. 

Happy 2024!

Birthday Time!

The holiday week means birthday time for the Storm crew!

Our little Leo turned the big 5 this year - a whole hand! Sweet boy - seems like just yesterday we were expecting a Christmas baby.

This year we celebrated with our big guy at the Family Life Center gym at Grandpa Glen and Grandma Sharon's church. 

Pizza - Check, Minute to Win it Games - Check, A pack of cousins - Check! We were ready to party. 

When you have a December birthday - the Christmas Tree ring toss is a must! 

Even Grandpa Glen got to play ball with the kids.

We did lots of games with balloons.

The kids used straws to move goldfish around - thank goodness the internet is full of Minute to Win It ideas!

We did a boys versus girls mummy wrap with streamers. 

It was a fun-filled morning!

We love you to pieces Leon Henry! You are the perfect exclamation point to the Hoekman/Storm cousins!

We hope all of your wishes come true.

We may have regretted getting cupcakes with blue frosting! ;)

No better way to leave the big event than on your cousin's shoulders. Love these 2 bookend boys!

We went back to Mom and Dad's and pivoted to the next celebration - Mallory's 40th! You better believe that I had to recycle this old Bachelorette party / barf bag that I was holding onto for ~16 years! Haha!

Can't bet an Uncle Jesse shirt! Have Mercy! 

Guess what - this little peanut came upstairs to announce that he lost his first tooth! On his 5th birthday - how special! He was so proud. :)

The ladies convinced Grandpa, Kevin and Dan to watch the kids so we could go out and celebrate. It was so fun to go out on the town!

Good news - we stumbled across a Bingo night at the Remedy Brewery. 

We had a very entertaining Bingo caller. He would say things like, 'B-9, good news your medical test was benign!' and 'I-30, I am definitely not in my 30's any more!' Perfect for Mallory! LOL! Mom is a Bingo caller at the Assisted Living so she was definitely exposed to some new material on this night. Ha!

Happy Birthday dear Mallory!

These are the types of photos we got from the guys back at the ranch - how many kiddos can you fit on an air mattress? Heehee

This one is my personal favorite - Grandpa's warning to Abby. Not exactly sure what happened but Abby got the boot from this device. 

The next day we headed back to Wisconsin and our 5 year old managed to loose his second tooth! Both of those bottom teeth are gone - so cute!

Lucy snapped this picture of the backseat - Ai yi yi! I guess we were tired after all of our partying!

We got home and Roman checked on Prince right away. Grandma Nola took good care of him while we visited South Dakota. 

After we unpacked, our little family headed over to Ken and Nola's to celebrate Dan's birthday. Roman managed to loose a tooth before we left the house. Holy smokes! Here are the Missing teeth boys this holiday season!

We love our cousins and are so happy that Teddy was feeling healthy again.

Dan had a lively pack of kids to celebrate with this year.

Happy 44th Birthday to our favorite guy!

The partying just doesn't stop with us because the next day we woke up and got ready to celebrate Leo one more time.

We rented the party room at Sammy's Pizza.

And we had a repeat of Minute to Win It contests!

We now have two 5 year olds in the pack!

It was so much fun to celebrate with all of the cousins.

Please note - Leo found a 50th Birthday pin at his Grandma's house and begged to wear it. 

Love this previous family of mine so much! 

We ended the event with some Paw Patrol tattoos ... this was a decision that we later regretted because they were so dang hard to remove! I am pretty sure both of these boys spent the early days of the new year with little flecks of these tattoos still on their faces. Whomp whomp! 

We left Sammy's and went to the library to see their model train exhibit.

The set up was so cute, full of Christmas treasures - I loved to see this Paul Bunyan and Babe in mix.

There was a fun scavenger hunt for the kids - there were pictures for the little kiddos.

And word descriptions for the older children.

The boys had the best time - very grateful there were so many stools for them to hop on for better viewing.

It was a great afternoon. 

Thank you to everyone for making these holiday birthdays so special!