It's Great to be 8! Birthday Party

 Breakfast in Bed!! Lydia loves breakfast in bed! She got pumpkin bread, nutella and strawberries, yogurt, and tropical punch.
I had to kind of throw it at her while I was busy getting ready for her party. Decorations, food, last minute pinata paint. Thank goodness I had Mimi and Hilarie here to help!

 All the kids got into the theme!

 Notice the coconut bra!

 Preparing the tropical drinks.

 Mimi made a gorgeous treat table!

Zoe was in charge of all the games. We did hula hooping, limbo, a tacky tourist relay, and lots of food! For details, of course you can look at my craft blog.

A Toast to US

We love toast. Especially on homemade bread. We have invented different favorite combinations.
Special Mommy Toast: toast, peanut butter, applesauce, cinnamon-sugar.
Special Daddy Toast: toast, butter, cinnamon-sugar (also known as cinnamon toast)
Monkey Toast: toast, peanut butter, bananas
Deluxe Monkey Toast: toast, nutella, bananas
Lydia Toast: toast, peanut butter, chocolate chips
Liam Toast: toast, peanut butter, chocolate chips, applesauce, cheerios, cinnamon-sugar (although, he says he will loose the cheerios next time)
Zoe Toast: toast, chocolate chips

Stew in Your Own Juice

 Easter afternoon Zoe and Liam decided to make delicious lemonade for us all to enjoy in the sunshine.

Classic Felix pose.
We also had our neighbors (who are about to move) over for Easter dinner. It was fun for all!

The luck of the Irish

March Samuelson Family Dinner

I didn't get a picture of our lovely themed dinner. We had Irish food (ham, potatoes, and cabbage) and then a lot of green food (salad, pears, cucumbers, guacamole, green chips, green cookies). Super fun.

Then we had to make leprechaun traps. It took some working out, but we came up with a good design (no picture).

While we didn't catch the leprechaun, the kids were happy with the chocolate gold coins and "green" (cash) he left them.

October birthdays

 We have quite a few family birthdays here in town during the fall. We decided to have a October birthday celebration (Liam convinced us to include him, since we didn't have a September celebration). Zoe, and my brother Richard, actually share a birthday! And Shawna's is toward the end of the month. So I made this Chocolate Mousse Crunch Cake (delicious!) and we played at the park.

Shawna and Logan

 There was some basketball, soccer, Frisbee, and lots of visiting going on. Also, I loved how Felix and cousin Gabe played together for a long time! It makes me happy to see him interacting socially.

Silly Utensil Dinner

 I saw this idea in Family Fun and thought it would be super fun! I put a bunch of unlikely utensils in a bag and made the kids pull one out and use it. There were an ice cream scoop, ladle, tongs, skewer, giant forks, etc.

 I made Travis use one, too.

 Tongs worked best!

When the utensils didn't work, they resorted to just sticking their faces in an eating like a dog.

St. Patricks Day-Part 2 Themed Feast

Irish Meat Hand Pies, green salad, broccoli, green jello, and pears for dinner. And a delicious apple crisp for dessert.
Evidently I didn't take very many pictures. But, rest assured that everyone was wearing green (notice Shawnas shamrock shirt above)!

One of the few pictures I got. Gabe in green.

Family theme party

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to get together more often with our family that lives here in town. So we decided to do a monthly dinner. Preferably a themed dinner party. So this one fell on Presidents Day. Although the pizzas made by Richard and Laura weren't shaped like a head of a dead president, we didn't feel bad. The food was delicious and we were together, that is the whole point.