A Day Filled with Parties!

Last week was filled with PARTIES!  Sissy had her class party at school.  They had fun centers where they built gingerbread man traps, found area and diameter with candies, and created cute ornaments.  

The class had a Christmas sock exchange.  This was such a cute idea!

She ended up with the cutest socks!  

They also decorated cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.  The cupcakes were chocolate to represent sin.  White icing to represent our sins being forgiven.  Green sprinkles to represent eternal life and red sprinkles to represent Jesus blood.  Such a great idea and a lot of thought put into each part of the cupcake.

 One of Sissy's friends had a birthday party at Painting with a Twist.

She had a great time and really enjoyed creating her work of art!

 These are such sweet girls and I'm so thankful she has wonderful friends!

PS - Not to be outdone with fun parties and outings, Ra had a surprise Christmas party at school the Friday before semester exams started and his best buddy took him to see the Premier of Star Wars on Thursday night before it opened.  He had a blast and came home and spoiled the movie for me...Oh well.  I'll still probably go see it!  ;)

Party Season

I've lost track of the number of birthday parties my kids have been invited to this fall!  I'm thankful they have so many sweet friends.  There are parties almost every weekend and sometimes all weekend!  Both kids had parties to go to this past weekend.

Here is Sis at a party with her gym buddies.  They went to Rebounderz to jump on the trampolines then headed to Peterbrooke to make candy.

Sis has another party this Friday night and Ra has 2 good buddies who also have fall birthdays so the fun will continue for awhile!

Gymnast Life

This is what happens at a birthday party with gymnasts...

A handstand contest becomes one of the party games!  Silly girls - they live, eat, sleep and breathe gymnastics.  I'm so thankful that Sis has found such great friends who are just like her!

Celebrate Good Times!

Sissy asked for a pool party for her birthday this year.  What an easy party that was for us!  Burgers, dogs, sunscreen, ping pong, music, etc!

She had a blast playing ping pong with her friends!

Group shot!

Cowabunga!

Opening her gifts.

These were the cupcakes she asked me to make for her party!  She helped me decorate them.

Since it was a pool party, one of the things we put in their goodie bags was homemade organic sunscreen and organic vanilla mint lip balm.  Both were a hit!

Afterwards we took our family out for dinner at Poe's at Sissy's request.

This was the note I found after her party.  She had a fantastic time and was so grateful for our efforts to make it fun.

Social Butterfly

It's no surprise that my baby girl is a little social butterfly.  She had two good friends celebrate their birthdays this past weekend.  Both sweet friends turned 8!  

This was from the party on Saturday night.  She was invited to sleepover night with one other girl.  Sis was super excited and very nervous because she hasn't been to a sleepover with other girls, just the friend who's house she's staying at.

Ra was the ONLY boy at the party and he was a good sport.  He let the birthday girl dress him up and was a real trooper.

He later picked up her toy guitar and started playing it to the rock music that the adults were rocking out to in the kitchen.  He's such a good boy to tolerate all the girlie overload in a girl only house!

Sis had a little bit of a sleepover hangover but not too bad.  She had another party to go to Sunday afternoon.  Tay's party was so much fun but sadly Sis had to sit out of a few activities because of her cast.  She couldn't do the tug, war or the water balloons or the still rings in the tree.  She did enjoy the slack line, the arts and crafts as well as the sidewalk chalk drawings!  Tay planned her party herself and did a great job and Sis was so excited to help her celebrate her birthday!  We've been friends with her family since Ra was 3.  He and Tay's brother have been friends for over 7 years!

Needless to say, she was worn out Sunday night.  I put her to bed early but Monday morning was rough.  She turned off her alarm and went back to sleep!  I actually let her have part of a soda to give her a little caffeine boost to get her ready for school in time!

She is so blessed with such sweet friends.  She was upset to leave her friends in Utah, but God has provided some incredible girls to help her navigate through life.

Happy Belated Birthday Ra Ra!

Because of us moving last month, Little Man was fine with us bumping his birthday party back to May so we could really enjoy the time with him and his buddies.  Andy took Ra, and his 3 best buddies to Dave & Busters for dinner and video games.  They had SOOOO much fun.  Ra has some incredible friends - when they were looking at what to spend their points on when his BFF says, why don't we put all our points together and get that car that Ra really likes.  Ra didn't want them to do that until the boys insisted.  Andy said it was completely driven by his friends and he let them work it all out on their own.  They all decided that was what they wanted to do, so they talked to the clerk, worked it out and they got the Lamborghini car model for Ra.  It almost brought tears to my eyes to think that his friends love him that much that they'd be so selfless to give up their own points and the chance to get something for themselves, that they'd give them all to Ra for his birthday.  I have told all the parents how much these 3 friends mean to him and how we want to cultivate their friendship so that they know that the other "has their back" and that they have someone they can talk to when they need someone.  All 3 kids come from great families and we want to encourage their relationships to grow and become solid for years to come.


Ra wanted to have whoopee pies for his party instead of cake.  I made GF pumpkin and converted my Nanny's lemon flavored into GF.  They were a hit with the boys!

Happy Birthday Ra!

The boys enjoyed a late night swim.  It was the first time we've used the pool at night.  Our pool was money well spent - the kids had so much fun and we have no regrets putting in a pool...One of our best decisions!

Ra had an incredible evening.  One of the boys was able to sleep over so the party continued into the wee hours.  I am so thankful for the friends God has brought into our Little Man's life.  I pray that these boys continue to be friends for life.

8 Years Just Flew By!

Can you believe my little man is EIGHT already?  Neither can I!  I still remember everything from his birth as clear as day...The anxiety, stress, worry, and yet the calm and joy that washed over us.  I started thinking back over these last 8 years and realized just how much my little man has been through!  The poor boy has had numerous surgeries, seen so many different specialists in all parts of the country, lived at 4 different addresses in three states and has been in three different schools (and no we aren't a military family which is the standard response I get after sharing our story)!

This year Riley is all about LEGO Star Wars.  Big surprise, right?  We had a great party for him at the house this year.  He invited about 15 friends and had a blast playing LEGO Star Wars bingo, a LEGO building contest, taking down Darth Vader with Nerf guns, destroying the Death Star pinata, cake, ice cream, etc!  I had more LEGO games planned but as the teacher in me always does, I over planned so we would have lots to do!  The kids had just as much fun running around the house shooting each other with empty squirt guns!

Of course I didn't get many pictures because I ran the batteries of BOTH of my cameras and didn't think to recharge them!  UGH!  I did snap a few though!

The empty basket was filled with squirt guns before our home got invaded by 2nd graders (plus one 4th grader!)

We took down Vader!  Only one kid got him in the head, which was the goal!

Riley decorated this table with a scene using his LEGO Star Wars stuff

Taking down the Death Star!

Riley's Speeder Cake!

My friend Meri made this for me!  She copied Luke's speeder and made the top look like LEGOS.  

Riley was SOOOO surprised!

Happy with his cake!

 Discussing birthday wish options with Tristam!

Our boy is blessed with some incredible friends from school, scouts, karate, and friends we met through MOMS Club.  He got lots of LEGOS for his birthday and a new mountain bike from us and his Nanny and Pappy Hershock!  He loves his new bike and has been riding it almost daily!  We are so lucky to have such an awesome little man for a son.  Riley is intelligent, analytical, logical, caring, tenderhearted, sensitive, and loving and he's brought us so much joy over the years.  

Happy Birthday Bubba!

Gingerbread Houses

Kendall and I invited a few of her little girlfriends over to decorate gingerbread houses.  I had made the houses in advance so that way the girls could just decorate them without waiting for them to be built.  We made them out of graham crackers which was a great shortcut!  The girls had so much fun and I think the moms did too!

Brynn with her beautiful house

All four of the girls gingerbread houses

Nat Nat's house

Paigey's house

The front of Kendall's house

The back of Kendall's house

Kendall showing us how proud she was of her creation!

Kendall and I are so thankful for such wonderful girlfriends here in Utah.  The best part is when your kids' friends' parents are also your friends.  We try to get these girls together every few weeks and do something special.  Next week the girls are going to a dance recital to see if they want to all do ballet together...I think for Natalie and Kendall it's a no brainer because they use to do ballet together, but we're hoping Paige will join them!  They are such sweet little friends!