Allie Rose is 9!!

I can't believe it, our Allie celebrated her 9th birthday last Saturday! We kicked it off with a weekend of celebration with a party for all of the girls in her class after school on Friday. Since the kids get out of school at noon and we are a 3 minute walk away it was super easy! The girls made their own pizzas, did some painting and had cupcakes. I was really nervous about hosting a party for 10 girls (9 of which don't speak English!!) when my German is still so subpar, but these girls were all SO sweet and Allie was amazing at helping me understand them.

I really had nothing to worry about though, I just needed to set everything up and get out of the way...9 year old girls have it figured out! ha!

It rained all day on Saturday, so after some chocolate chip pancakes and present opening we checked out a local indoor pool and it did not disappoint! We had a blast!

The birthday girl requested steak for dinner and after a HUGE dinner fail on my part (seriously it was awful, I felt so bad!!) we had our friends over for cake and ice cream.

 Sunday morning the sun came back and she was able to get outside and play with her new roller blades from my parents!

 We totally lucked out and a movie theatre was showing Beauty and the Beast Sunday night in English so we wrapped up our fun weekend checking that out in 3D...

We loved celebrating our girl all weekend...we're so proud of her. It hasn't been the easiest year for her and there have been a lot of growing pains, but we are so proud of her and so proud to be her parents.

Family ski tip

Oops, totally didn't mean to wait so long before posting this!! We took our first family ski trip the last week February, and it was a m a z i n g. I am still in shock that our kids first time skiing was in Austria... Really never saw that one coming!!

We stayed at "kinder" hotel at the recommendation of some wonderful friends of ours who had stayed there in November and it could not have been better place for our family. There were two playrooms for the kids to explore that offered {free} child care from 9:00am-9:00pm. They had organized crafts and activities every day and the kids LOVED playing after dinner while Chris & I got to enjoy our dinner in peace! You can check out where we stayed HERE!

Packed up and ready to rock!!

Turns out we weren't the only one with the idea to go skiing over February break (shocking, right?!?) so we hit quite a bit of traffic on the way, but where we stayed was only about 4 hours away.

We made it!!

Kids in ski gear *might* be my new favorite, they looked so cute!!

The kids started lessons on a little hill behind the hotel and after the first day they said Allie was ready to head up the mountain...she was pumped!!! Michael followed a few days later and Mary stayed on the little hill happy as can be!!

Lunch break between sessions in our room

Post ski snack! Hot chocolate is a must! 

Baby bathrobes!! I died!

Injured Allie...she fell on her second day and had a slight tear in her MCL. It was SUCH a bummer but she can't wait to go skiing again and we are so thankful. it wasn't more serious!!

Face painting!!

We could not (and would not) have been there if it wasn't for this guy...he works SO hard for our family so we can give our kids experiences like this and we are so grateful!

We seriously had the BEST week and cannot wait to go back!! The uninterrupted family was was such a gift and something we treasure SO MUCH. To not have any other distractions and to just have fun together as a family, it was just priceless...Hopefully we can get Emily up on skis next time and we can be injury-free!!!