OK, so it has been a long time...

Well, it has been a long time since you have heard from us. But, we needed the break - I mean really, who can come up with this stuff all of the time. Of course, I usually depended on Tom to do just that, but that is neither here nor there.

So, what has been happening in The Schutte House? We have had several items of note. The biggest is that Helena has had another birthday. She had a great and extended birthday celebration. We had some immediate family over to the house on her actual birthday. Helena picked a marble cake with chocolate icing. She wanted a striped cake and told the person in the bakery to make sure that it "has at lease 3 yellow stripes - my sister Megan loves yellow." So thoughtfull that older daughter of ours. Of course, she wanted all sorts of stripes which includes at least those 3 yellow ones, but the baker took it as "she wants 3 yellow stripes on the cake". It was still tastey!

Then, a week later, Helena had a birthday party with her friends. She invited several friends from her old daycare as well as one who used to live across the street. She had the party in a great place called "Power of Play". This place is set up like a huge in-door playhouse. There are several play stations set up to look like a campsite, doctors office, grocery store, restaurant, bank, vets, library, fire station, space station, etc. (thanks to Mike Schutte, the lighting in the place looks great). There is also an indoor playground and a large room for pizza and cake. She had a blast along with her friends.And yes, that was Megan in the middle picture.

There are more things to talk about, but this is a good "getting her feet wet" start.

Later!