Madison's birthday party: part 1 of 2...

Cousin Madison turned three in January. Her birthday party was at a cool rec center near Karl and Jackie's house, and we all had access to the gymnastics area for the first part of the party.

Who doesn't like the foam fit, right? Well, actually, I don't really like it, which I discovered during Gage's recent gymnastics class at our local rec center. It's harder than it looks to get around in there (and to get out!), and you start to feel you're swimming in a germ cess pool when you're just rollin' around in all of the weird foam blocks that may have been around for longer than you'd like to imagine. Wow, I sound like my dad when he congratulated me for not kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland. He totally ragged on Zach for having purposefully put himself in contact with all of those germs just to say he'd done it. So funny! Can you just hear my dad? I wonder if he would have avoided it in his late teens and twenties (really crazy for me to ponder how long ago Zach and I were in Ireland together...in college!), or if he saw germs the same way then too?

Here's our littlest man standing on top of the tallest balance beam. He grew to really like that part of his gymnastics class, and now he's getting better when he walks on it in his soccer class.

Here's Baby Sarah, Madison's little sister and our sweet niece. She just turned one.