Felix's Candyland party

Felix's passion right now is games. He loves board games. It is all he wants to do. For his birthday we decided to do a Candyland party. True, it seems a bit girly, but he loved it. It is candy, right? What kid wouldn't love it?

We are off to deliver the invitations to all the little friends in the neighborhood.

The cake was SO fun to make and really quite simple. Other than the candy road it was just a matter of sticking a bumch of candy into the cake-bam-crowd pleaser!

 Candy pinata. The cellophane held the pinata together until everyone got a few good smacks at it.

 

Zoe made a rainbow road and the kids took turns drawing color cards (from the game) moving from square to square until we got to the different activities.

My lovely family with the birthday boy.

There were quite a few older kids there, so we assigned each older kid to a younger kid so that they would have to help the little kids get candy before they could get any. It worked out great!

Felix had so much fun! He was actually under the weather and not feeling too well. But he really enjoyed himself and didn't get over stimulated, which I thought was inevetable. In fact, one of his friends came a little later and he took her around and introduced her to everyone!!!I was so impressed!
More about our darling boy in his birthday post.

Church Dance

 Last year we had a ward Valentines Dance. It was so much fun. It is for the whole family and we have so much fun dancing together as a family. This year the girls were a little resistant. It may of had something to do with Travis's outfit. They seemed to think it was "embarassing".

 You can see that Zoe's body language is effectively communicating that she doesn't want to be seen with us. Is that a Tween thing? I thought it wasn't until they are older. Maybe we are extra embarrassing.
Oh, Liam was at a birthday party and a little girl who really wanted her picture taken jumped in with us. SHE didn't think we were embarrassing!

Oh well. Travis and I had a lot of fun dancing.

Monarch of all she surveys: Zoe's birthday

 Because Zoe's birthday was on a Wednesday and they leave way too early in the morning to open presents BEFORE school, I wanted to do something to make it special first thing. I taped up this plastic table cloth and filled it with balloons (something I had seen on Pinterest). When she opened her door in the morning she got showered with balloons.

 She was excited about it and had a great attitude about waiting to open gifts until Travis got home from work.
Mimi and Pa were still here so that made it extra special.
She wanted bow tie noodles and Alfredo sauce (from the can) for her dinner.

 Yes, we had the T.V. on while she opened presents. We wanted Felix with us, but sometimes it is impossible for us to enjoy it unless he is distracted.

 I found some duct tape that had mustaches on it. Liam made (with help) Zoe a wallet out of it.

 She is getting to be such a big girl! This year for her birthday she wanted an ipod touch. I told her last year that if she wanted one she would have to save up half. She saved the entire year and had enough when the time came. She even opted to NOT have a birthday party this year so she could have more gifts (clothes). We are really proud of her being able to work so hard to save that much money.

 Right here she is probably saying, "Daaaaaaad!!!" They love to tease each other.
She has always been sassy and observant, but it sometimes surprises me how quick and clever she is (especially in social situations).
Not only did she work hard to save money, but she has thrown herself into a really difficult 5th grade class with so much determination. She spends hours working on homework and doing a really great job. School has never been of much interest to Zoe, academically, but that has changed this year.

Zoe really is delightful. She knows how to push my buttons better that anyone I have ever known (and I have 3 younger brothers!), but I am constantly amazed by how great she is about wanting to understand and be understood. When she is understood and feels loved she is so sweet. I am excited to see what this next year brings for our little girl/young woman.

Kick up your heels

 Well, Liam has been counting down days for awhile now. The day finally came. His 9th birthday. We had a really fun time celebrating his special day.
I got to take the kids to Diary of a Wimpy Kid:Dog Days the night before his birthday. Travis stayed home with Felix, because we are still having to split up like that. The kids were so excited to see that movie. It was a fun night out together.

 Liam was lucky this year to have his birthday land on a Saturday. So we took our time in the morning. He opened presents, after which we were going have chocolate chip pancakes per his request. We all had breakfast while he was upstairs working on one of his gifts. Guess which one.

He probably spent 3 hours in there building. I went and helped for over an hour (which I love to do with him). I guess I should post a "after" shot. It is pretty cool.

After he finished building we headed to the corn maze....next post

Hang Loose

 We waited all summer for a visit from our friends, The Cleveland's. They are so great to make the sacrifice of a long drive for a short weekend with us. But, as always, we had a lot of fun.
We went to Bounce (a warehouse full of bounce houses/obstacle courses) one morning. We all enjoyed ourselves tremendously. I beat Travis at the obstacle course. Felix rode down the slide a million times with Lydia. The boys got stinky. Travis and John were playing American Gladiators and Travis stepped wrong and rolled and popped his ankle. Poor fella. While it hurt really bad, his only comfort was that he and John had already played tennis that morning.

 We did make overs.

 Played dress-up. (Liam picked his nose).
Not pictured: 2 fabulously ridiculous movies. It always ends up being what the kids want to do. So we finished the Granny Picklebottom Trilogy (2 earlier installments). The kids direct and star in these movies and they always end up pretty funny.
Also, on the lazy Sunday afternoon, they got all the adults involved and we made another movie. If you know us well enough, you know it was silly and embarrassing.

 We were happy to have Misty come with John and the kids this time. Misty is John's fiance and we already know her from our Fresno ward. It was great to renew our friendship with her and watch this engaged couple be so happy together.

 Our goodbyes.

 These jokers.

Lydia and John get a kick out of each other. She was pretending to be grouchy but smiled at the last minute.
We are so grateful for our friendship with the Cleveland's!

Trip post 7: Reunion, day two

 We went bowling Friday morning. I did get this one picture at least, before Felix started melting down. I don't know if it was the bowling alley, non-stop fun, or he was just hungry, but he was NOT happy to be there.
I am very glad that the other kids had fun!

 Pinata prep.
One thing I really liked about the reunion was that there wasn't a lot planned (after traveling for over a week we needed some downtime), but there was a lot available to do.

 Like hot tub. I think there were at least 6 kids under the age of 6 in there with Uncle Will.

 In the evening, our traditional pinata party. Isn't that beehive the cutest? Each person got to draw a bee on it, to contribute. Great job, Steve and Shawna!

 Another tradition is the money jar. You totally can't see what is going on in this picture, but Lydia has just reached into a huge jar filled with change. They then count it up, put the change back and get cash instead. All of the kids got cash. My grandfather use to do this with us as kids.

 In the basement there was a little cubby for the kids to play in.

There was billiards, ping pong, and a theatre room. All these fun things and very comfortable too! Then there was the hot tub that was utilized by the adults every night after kids were down.
This night after the little kids went to bed, the adults and the older kids stayed up for a Family Trivia game that my brother, Ian, had put together. It was really fun! He had gotten all sorts of random facts about every family member. So neat to deepen our knowledge of each other!

Trip post 6: Reunion, Day one

 Thursday morning after a visit from my girls, Amy and Molly, we started packing up Jill's house to move over to the Reunion house in Heber. It was soooo perfect. Each family had their own room, which was so great for naps, nighttime, and time outs :)
Everyone was so good about helping wherever they were needed. Above: Grandma Sam making ice cream. She made peppermint, brown sugar vanilla (my all time favorite), and peach-strawberry! Yum!

 People arrived at different times. It was so amazing to see everyone!

 Two of my brothers, Ian and Todd.

 The baby girls meeting for the first time.

 Dinnertime!

 Big kids.

 These three little guys were all born within a month and a half of each other. I felt like they played pretty well together. At first I thought we would call them the 3 amigos, but someone mentioned they were Neapolitan. One vanilla, one chocolate, one strawberry. So cute!

I never would've thought about taking a picture of the house, but Liam stole my camera at one point and got some great pictures (more in a different post). Well documented, Liam!

Man among Men

Travis decided that he wanted a party this year. He had asked for a ping pong table for his birthday gift and thought a party was the perfect way to break it in.
He decided on a "Man Party" theme. He wrote what he wanted the invites to say. He included a invitation to join him in sporting a mustache.
The above picture is Travis spooning canned alligator meat (and gravy) into Dixie cups for gator shots to get the manliness started. I have to mention that Travis not only gagged on the meat but made the most un-manly gagging noises while trying to get it down. Sorry, babe.

Here is a picture of the pinata. We filled it with goodies: beef jerky, deodorant, athletes foot cream, anti-diarrhea medicine and some candy. The day I made it, it was sitting on the counter drying. The kids kept saying, "Mom, can you put a shirt on that pinata?" They were uncomfortable with so much manhood on display.

We did end up putting one of Felix's beaters on it (and added some armpit hair, you'll notice). The hanger is a gift from Steve and Shawna. A tiger head hanger! So fabulous! I liked the look of the tiger having that manly body.
Other than the alligator shots, Travis had lined up a bunch of manly games. They did archery and bowling on the wii. Then pinata, then weightlifting, darts, and finally ping pong.

There was a rumor going around that the slim jims helped you put up more reps. Oh, I forgot to mention, yes, Travis was in costume all night. And, no, that mustache is not fake. It is 100% Travis.

For a cake we decided a donut stack was appropriate. Maple bars and Bismarks (custard filled), plus a Homer donut on top.
Birthday sombrero.

 When the fellas were trying to break the pinata, they broke: a bat and a broom before they used a metal bat.

I love this picture because you can see the kids peeking out of the upstairs window trying to see all the action.

So grateful to our friends who came to help celebrate. It was a really fun time. I am glad they weren't too weirded out by our strange sense of humor. Everyone seemed to have a fun time. Especially Travis, who we were celebrating.