Spring is here!!!

My girls :)

Hailey is 4 weeks old today....

and growing strong!

We have a wild mallard who has moved in with the chickens. It has been here a long time now. Will be curious to see if it stays all summer. It hangs out with the chickens and sleeps in the chicken coop!

Thus far, we have 3 lambs. Not sure how many ewes left to go... possibly 27.

They are just the cutest little things.

Spring has sprung.... flowers are blooming!

Wishing everyone a wonderful spring!

Grandparents are the flowers in the Garden of Life

These pictures are on the short wall as you go into our bedroom so this picture had to
be taken at an angle.  To the right of our picture are my parents about the time of their
wedding.  Below them are my paternal grandparents and below them my maternal
grandparents.  On the left are your father's parents and below that Grandma Lydia
Kuoppala with her mother, taken in Sweden.  No other pictures available.

Four generations

A sign of getting older.

Heidi turns 2 and has a birthday party

Heidi was so excited for her birthday party. 2 days prior, she was singing "Happy To You, 2 days". The day of her party resulted in a very short nap, but lots of hugs and kisses for Mommy out of sheer delight. When we sent out the party invites, the first person she said she wanted to invite was "sister". She took an invite and gave it to Hailey in the swing. When she heard her "sister" go her a present, she gave her a hug, kiss, and said "thank you sister". PRICELESS!

The day of her party, she practiced blowing so she could blow out the candle on her cake

I don't think she left Aunty Liz's side from when she arrived until she left :)

Velma made it to the party...

"Pappa" and Roger

Mindy Adkins with Hailey

Sylvia

Grandma and Cindy

A very poor picture of "Pappa Walter"

Uncle Randy

Loy Adkins with Hailey.

I couldn't get a good picture of the Adkins boys Rowdy and Gunnar as they never really sat still while I had the camera out; Heidi's pictures are mostly blurry too as she never really stopped moving :)

Uncle Dave and his girlfried Lisa and her son Joe were here as well, but I didn't get a picture of them. A houseful of people to help the little princess celebrate turning 2!!

(Shawn has to build an addition on the house just to hold the toys and gifts she got.... Sylvia is always trying to give Heidi more dolls. We keep saying she has enough, but they got her a doll for her birthday anyway. I counted up her dolls and we are up to 16 of them for a 2 year old!!!!) That doesn't count the stuffed animals... What are we to do with 2 girls in the house now :)

Brainerd snow

Another try this morning.  Maybe it prefers  morniings.

10 inches of snow in Brainerd this past week.

 Wish I could have taken a picture of the right side of window only but had to take both.

Snow bank in our side parking lot was just beautiful.  Picture doesn't really show it.

Delinquency and all aside ...

we are still here in Palmer where the wind is blowing this morning. Feels like a little more than a breeze today.

I don't have pictures, but we're doing house projects over here at the moment. Well, not at the moment. At the moment I'm on the computer, Tia is eating cereal before she heads off to school and the rest of the house is sound asleep. When we're awake (more like Jari) we're trying to get some final projects done around here. Almost there! Hoping to have things ready for a good cleaning next week to get rid of sheetrock dust and paint smell.

Blayde left for Phoenix Monday evening ... moving back to a warmer climate. We're wishing him well!

Alyx is switching apartments this weekend.
The rest of us ... we're working, educating, facebooking, playing games, doing laundry, eating ... that sort of thing!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Some pictures of your relatives at Glady's funeral in Two Harbors

 Bill's girlfriend, Diane.  I worked with her aunt Sue at the 1st Nat'l. bank many moons
ago.   Your cousin Bill with his Aunt Diane!

Heather and Hailey with Bill's daughter Stephanie.  She works for NBC in Chicago.

 Jim and Jen with me at the Cloquet cemetery.  Jim has cancer on his face, his right side.
He also had same on the left side and it is all cleared up.  He is treating it with some type if salve.  He had Hodgkin's Lymphoma many years ago.

Brothers Jim and Bill.  Bill is 4 years older.  We were going to Perkins with Jen and she
invited Jim to join us.  Am so glad she did.  We covered numerous subjects.  I got 2
plants in one basket, one blooming and the other green.  Told them they can have their
pick.  In the sympathy card I wrote some memories starting when I was about 7 or 8
visiting Bill and Glady in Virginia when "Billy" was a baby, other memories through the
years and ending with our last 3 visits to see Glady at the Barross Cottage in Two Harbors.  On the first of those, without me asking she started naming our children.
When she said, "Ivan", she asked, "Am I through?"  Told her one more and she named
Jennifer.  The next time she again started naming our children but got stuck on Frans and when I supplied that she continued to the end.  Perhaps on our last visit she didn't
even recognize us.  I told that to the person working and she asked if I was Gladys'
niece and said no, her sister-in-law.  So ends another chapter of my life.

SAVE THE DATE

I'll soon be here to meet you!
I've got lots of fun to share,
And now here's a baby shower
Aunt Jody is helping to prepare.
So come and join the party,
With friends and family,
To anticipate the arrival
Of Ivan and Missi's baby--Hey, that's me!


Signed "Baby Kuoppala"


Missi and Ivan's first born
June 4, 2011
2:00 pm
Missi and Ivan's home
given by: Jenny, (Missi's sister), Cassandra (Missi's best friend), Jody (sis-in-law)

They have registered at Target
I do have ideas for gift giving but I can not post on blog since they both read this.
I lost everyone's email since my last computer crashed so if you would drop me a
quick note to: jodykuo@charter.net I will send out a note.

I was teasing Ivan that his property taxes are going to go up real soon because his house is about to grow by 2 feet.

P.S. CONGRATS SHAWN AND HEATHER

Lindula Addition

We are very happy to announce the birth of our new baby girl!

Why Hailey Noel? We like the name Hailey and Noel is for

ReiNO and ELvin

Miss Heidi is very excited to have a little sister. Rather than call her Hailey, she calls her "baby sister"

This beautiful new little love is a miracle in many ways. She was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck 5 times..... Heidi, along with her parents, are thankful for our Miracle!

Daddy and his girls :)

Miss Hailey is a little gem!!!!

Hello to all!

Just wanted to post a few new pictures of what is happening at the house!

A few weekends ago Ivan layed carpet in one of the back bedrooms.

Nice soft padding!

And nice soft carpeting!

This past Saturday, Ivan finished the last coat of paint in the master bedroom, went to Home Depot to get carpet, then layed it!  I was so excited to see this room finished!  The accent wall is a dark grey, with all the other walls light grey.  It turned out just like I hoped.

To add a little bit of color, Ivan suggested a dark red curtain.  I think it looks great!

This obviously is not anything with the house, but I had to tell Diane about this cake.  We celebrated my parents birthday this weekend and I was planning making a cake with two layers and frosting inbetween.  Ivan suggested putting some of Diane's jam inbetween instead of the frosting.  It was delicious!  Thank you for the jam!!

So the house is almost done.  There is one bedroom and the loft/stairs left to be carpeted, and a whole lot of trim, then we will be done with what we planned on doing when we bought the house.  I say "when we bought the house" because there is a lot that has been added to the list, but that stuff can wait!

That is about it!

~MISSI~

Merry gets married!

Given away by her two oldest grandsons...

Calvin and Danyelle

 Mykl and Joyce

 Some of her granddaughters sang a song.

Heidi couldn't contain her enthusiasm about the couple getting married :)

Late Notice!

This coming Saturday, Merry Warwas is getting married. If anyone is interested in going in on a gift, let me know right away and send a check in the mail :) They don't want gifts unless they are practical, so I'm thinking gift card to SuperOne or something. I plan to be at the wedding on Saturday. If anyone else would like to come, feel free to do so. It is at the Loon Lake Community Center at 1PM.

thoughts and opinions please

here is a logo disign that we came up with.  what do you think?

Celebrating E's 40th at Houlihan's

Opening her 1st of 40 gifts from Mom and Isä is a picture taken at the Eveleth City  Council meeting we attended.  Oh, the 1st gift was that red bag made by Gladys
Ruonavaara for holding plastic grocery bags which she used to put the wrapping paper
from all the gifts.

Pa made the "Liz" sign with 40 pennies starting with the year she turned one.  We could
not find all the pennies as you can see by the blank spots but when she finds them they
could be added.  The 6 books are all murder mysteries by Margaret Daniels, President
Truman's daughter and take place in Washington D.C. so Liz will be familiar with all
the places that are the settings for the murders.

Houlihan's was a nice restaurant and we all enjoyed what we had ordered.  Waitress
asked if he (Pa) was always so smiley!  We got S'mores for dessert free!!

p.s.  We got "Ultra Foam" on Favorites

Happy Birthday to No. 5

Elizabeth, Happy 40th Birthday.   Time has flown.  Lots of memories.  You have done
such a variety of things you should write a book.    Love, Mom and Isä

been busy

I have been to busy to remember to post anything on here in a long time and we are hoping that it is going to stay that way for a year or so down here. figured I would put a link on here to show one of the things that has been keeping us busy. Give feed back to what you think I should post on here. I have my idea's but would love to hear yours.   link to my new blog is     http://ultrafoamllc.blogspot.com/