Nothing better than a child's giggle

Happy Birthday to Amy

I spent the day at BINGO with my sister Jennie and my Mom and then came home to go to Amigo's with some family and friends. It was a great day!

Family and Friends

Amy's BIG drink

Birthday treat from Amigo's

Christmas Pics

Rhea at Grandma Moothart's

Daddy waking Rhea up to see what Santa brought

Santa was good to Rhea

Rhea really likes her new talking Pooh ornament

Check out all the stuff Rhea got from Santa, Mom & Dad

Dad, Mom & Rhea Christmas morning

Carlie, Adam, Amy & Carl at Toads Christmas Night
(Picture stolen from Paul's blog)

I hope everyone ejoyed the holiday and got everything they wanted from Santa!!!

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday. Hopefully you have been good this year so Santa can bring you everything you have wished for. If not at this point its probably better to start fresh for next year.

We have many celebrations to attend over the next couple days so I should have pictures to post soon.

Happy Holidays from The Buchanan's

Not much going these days

Life has been very busy with Rhea's birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Jennie's Wedding. Not that it has slowed down any because with all of the things listed above I did not get prepared much for the holidays that will come this week. I have spent the last two weeks baking, shopping and getting holiday cards ready. I just sent my last handful of cards today (Sunday) in the mail. Sorry to anyone who gets them late. I will try to be more on top of things next year. I have only got one last present to get. Then I can check that off my list of "To Do" items.

I did get to go out to dinner last night for an early birthday dinner. My sister, Chris, Stacy, Ryan, Carl and myself all went to a restaurant in Waterloo named Tokyo. Due to the blowing snow two of our good friends Bill and Nicole were unable to make it, but we will catch up with them another time. For most of us it was our first time to Tokyo. It was a lot of fun and I really liked the food. It was pricey but you do get a good show when they cook the meal in front of you. I did not leave hungry. I would go back again but it would not be a weekly place to eat just because of the cost.

We have a busy week with Christmas eve and Christmas day being spent running from one families house to another and then Sunday is my Birthday. Plus the next week is the new year, but we really do not have big plans.

Pics of Jennie's Big Day

It was a very busy fun day on Saturday. I started the day at 7:30am going to Waverly to get my hair done and ended the night at 10:45 putting Rhea's PJ's on in the car so that she could fall a sleep on the way home from the reception.

The wedding was at Bethlehem Lutheran Church on Hudson Rd in Cedar Falls and the reception was at the 4H building in Waverly. I think everyone involved had a blast! Here are some pics to show part of the evening.


Family Picture
Amy,Rhea and Carl


Amy as Matron of Honor


Jennie & Chris


Papa & Phoenix


Phoenix in the smallest tux I have ever seen


Mommy's best friend Nicole and Rhea's best friend Anna


Jennie doing the limbo


Amy doing the limbo

Big Weekend

We are getting ready for a very big weekend. My sister Jennifer is getting mairried this weekend and both Rhea and I are in the wedding. I am the matron of honor and Rhea will be in a wedding for the very first time as a flower girl. I will take lots of pics over the next few days and get them posted as soon as possible.

We are staring the weekend off today with decorating, pedicures, rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner at Cedar Falls Diamond Dave's. I thought that going to a restaurant with diamond in the name seems very appropriate. I am very excited for the weekend because all the kids are involved and I am really happy for my sister and Chris. More to come...

Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family!

Our day will be full of parades, getting ready to see family, cooking some great side dishes, watching some James Bond, Going to Great Grandpa Orvin's for lunch and ending the night at Grandma Moothart's for dinner.

We are thankful for each other, good health, great family and super friends!

Have a safe and happy holiday.

Fun On the Farm

Every year we have a family get together with my moms side of the family. It is usually the first Sunday in November. We have a pot luck style lunch at a farm in Allison, Iowa. For most anyone who knows me knows that this is the only time of year I usually find myself in "the country" I love getting to see people I only see once or twice a year and Rhea had a lot of fun this year seeing the cows. I took some pictures of Rhea and Phoenix as they played outside just being kids.


Whats over here?


Rhea & Phoenix stop to smile

Halloween

Halloween was a blast with Rhea this year. She was not sure what was going on the first couple houses we went to but she quickly caught on that if she looked cute and said "Thank you" that people would put candy into her bucket. She was filling up fast and did not want mommy to take any of the candy to help lighten the load. We actually went the night before Halloween to Waverly to trick or treat with her cousins Kallista, Phoenix and Nevaeh. I think they all had fun. Then Halloween I took off work early and Carl met up with us right after he got off work to go trick or treating on Main Street in Cedar Falls. That was fine for the first block before it got crazy busy and the lines were not even moving so we went and made the rounds to Grandparents and Great Grandparents. We ended the night with handing out candy at Grandma Moothart's new house and a last minute late stop at uncle BoBo. It was a fun packed night. Plus Rhea looked soooooo cute.


What a cute Kitty


Waiting for Daddy

On a more recent note Rhea was sick was the flu on Sat all day and we did not make it out of the house much. Then on Sunday Rhea and I attended a bridal shower for my sister Jennie while Daddy, Papa, Grandma B and uncle Adam attended a race. This was fun for both Rhea and I to spend the day together. She seems to be feeling a bit better but is still showing some symptoms of not being quite herself the last couple days.

Kangaroos, and Rabbits, and Ponies..oh my!!!

Last Tuesday was a special event at a farm in Hudson put on by the folks at Veridian Credit Union. We went for a hayride and saw the cows and horses. Rhea thinks that the cows are pretty cool, she even speaks a little cow from time to time. Rhea was also really excited to see Kirby the Kangaroo there although, here excitement was inversely proportional to the distance between her and Kirby. As long as we were t least ten feet away from Kirby, then Rhea was very happy to see him and wanted to get as close as possible. However, as we began to get closer to Kirby, Rhea wanted less and less to do with him until we were less than one foot away and she was petrified of him. She is amazing when it comes to meeting new.....um......characters.


Checking out the rabbits

Not quite sure of Kirby the Kangaroo

Definitely likes the ponies though and no we are not buying one of those for the house

One of the many faces of Rhea...

...and another

On Sunday we made a trip to Bettendorf so that Carl could participate in a cyclocross race. There was a large area with playground equipment that Rhea found to be much more exciting than the bicycle races that were all around her. She ended up hanging out with Carl for a while, and then myself, and finally her Uncle Adam took her so that she could spend an insane amount of time playing on the slides and swings. We'll probably have to get something like that for the backyard of the house next summer.


Amy and Rhea hanging out in Bettendorf

"Come on Dad, let's go slide!!!"

Play time

Birthday Party Fun

We celebrated Rhea's 2nd birthday on Saturday. We had a get together for cake, ice cream, sidewalk chalk, coloring and presents at our house. What more could a 2 year old ask for? The weather was perfect. Here are a few pictures that we took that day...


Rhea with her daddy and her cake


Opening presents


Rhea's Cool "Cars" Outfit

Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with her to make her 2nd birthday party a very memorable one.

Just a touch...

...of the fun we had on Tuesday with Rhea. We took her to Chuck E. Cheese to play some games and ride the rides. Needless to say, she had a pretty good time and getting her to smile was not hard. Niether of us had brought a camera with us so here are a couple of pictures I took with my cellphone.


Rhea was more in tune with watching herself in the mirror than smiling for the camera.

She didn't really want to leave when the ride was over either

And so it begins

Many Many Many of our friends have blogs along with my husband, so I thought I would join the fun. I plan to use this site to keep everyone up to date on what is going on with the Buchanan family. Stay tuned with more to come...

Happy Birthday Rhea!!!!!! (pictures to come soon)