Christmas 2013 Festivities

Yeah...I am WAY behind with the blog.  This post has been written for several months now but I was looking for a particular photo and have given up.  I must be dreaming that it ever existed...

As always, we had a very busy Christmas season this year.

We started by letting the kids help with the decorating the tree which is always fun for everyone!  Brayden understands how to put the ornaments on the tree (i.e. not all in one spot), but of course, Lilly has no idea.  Brayden was really good about helping Lilly get her ornaments on the tree without making her mad.

The following weekend was Matt's office party.  We always go to his office party because we don't ever have a chance otherwise to dress up and go out.  In the past, the parties have been at fancy places in downtown or fancy country clubs but this year it was at the office.  I have to say, the ladies who did the decorating did an AMAZING job!  We had a great time and look forward to next year's party!

One of Brayden's friends, Zach, his little sister Meredith, and mom came over and decorated gingerbread houses with us.  Meredith is a few months younger than Lilly so I made small gingerbread houses out of graham crackers for the girls.  The boys made full size houses out of the kids.  Everyone had a great time and ate way too much candy!!  Unfortunately, I was too busy helping the kids to take many pictures during the decorating, but the finished products turned out quite good!

Brayden was very detail oriented

Lilly was very focus on the task at hand.  She did eat about as much candy as she put on the gingerbread house!

Lilly's Gingerbread house

Another view of Lilly's

Then we had our traditional small group cookie decorating party for the kids on the 15th and then that night we all go sitters for the kids and the adults got together for a fun night. 

The weekend before Christmas, one of the other moms from daycare and I threw a party for 8 or 9 of the boys in their class.  This group of boys has been together for 4 years now and have gotten to be pretty good friends.  The theme of the party was "The Polar Express".  We planned on letting the boys watch the Polar Express movie, do a craft, have hot chocolate, do a "Who am I?" game, and do a gift exchange.  Of course, it was 70+ degrees on December 22, so all the boys wanted to do was play outside!!   We were able to get them inside long enough for an ornament craft, hot chocolate, and the gift exchange.  For the gift exchange, we did a Frosty the Snowman Pass the Gift Left/Right story.  Amazingly, our 5ish year old boys, get very confused with this and we ended up cutting the story very short!  Otherwise, the boys were running around outside having a blast!

 The same friend that took our family photos back in September came over one night and took pictures of the kids in the Christmas PJs in front of the tree.  Despite very uncooperative kids, I think the pictures came out really well!

When they were still cooperating :)

Note sure what Lilly was doing, but it looks like she is trying to dance!

I love this one of Brayden :)

Halloween 2013

As always, we spent Halloween with our small group from church.  The Westfalls have the perfect street for our kids age and we all had a blast hanging out together.    We tried to get some group photos, but I don't think any of us got a single photo with all of the kids looking!

Brayden chose to be Captain America this year (after saying consistently for several months he wanted to be Spiderman).  Lilly was a zebra (she is wearing the 12mo outfit my mom bought for her to wear LAST year when she was 1)!  It fit perfectly this year!

Happy Halloween!

The weekend before Halloween, we took a Saturday morning trip to the farmers market and got 2 pumpkins and enjoyed the fall weather.   We also got some local honey and the kids snacked on some apples :)

That night, in the comfort of our garage, we carved the pumpkins.  Brayden was in charge of what the pumpkins were going to look like this year.  While we cooked dinner, he very seriously drew out exactly what he wanted his pumpkins to look like and then after some "consulting" with Lilly, he drew what her pumpkin was to look like.   Brayden chose a "mean" face for his pumpkin and a "cat" face for Lilly's pumpkin.  Looking back, I think the carvers (ie Matt and I) could have probably done a bit better job to make the features a bit more exaggerated (especially the "mean" face that I did), but the kids were happy with the outcome of both pumpkins.   Didn't Brayden do a great job designing the pumpkins this year!  I was especially impressed with the cat face he drew!

Lilly's cat pumpkin

Brayden's "mean" pumpkin

We spent Halloween with our friends from church again this year, which is always fun.  We have some quick food (pizza this year) and then head out.  The Westfalls live in a great neighborhood with just the right number of houses for our kids, especially the little girls.

After much debate in the store, Brayden chose to be Captain America!  He had been saying for a while that he wanted to be Batman, then once we were in the store, it was Superman, then Spiderman, the Captain America, then Batman...and on and on it went.  I finally said "You Have to Make a DECISION!!"  and he settled on Captain America. 

Brayden and John.... both as Captain America!  We were definitly safe trick or treating with these 2 boys!

Brayden, Brian, and John

Lilly was a Zebra this year.  Mainly, because my mom bought the outfit for her last year, but it was WAY too big last year (even though it was a 12 month outfit!)  This year, it fit perfectly :)  I doubt I can get away with dressing her as a cute, cuddly animal next year so I figured we had better take advantage of the time and go with the outfit this year!

Brayden, John, and Brian took off running this year.  Thankfully, Aunt Amy, Uncle Joe, and Daddy went with the boys so that the rest of us could take the little girls at a slightly slower pace.  Lilly was much more interested in looking at everything and everyone than at actually trick or treating, although she did start figuring it out by the end.  She was very polite and only took 1 piece of candy and always said "Thank you".

The kids left to right : Maddie (scarecrow), Grace (Minnie Mouse), Lilly, Brian (fireman), Jocelyn (Cinderella), John (Captain America), and Brayden

Lilly's 2nd birthday party -updated

My baby girl is almost 2 year old!  How did that happen?!?!?

Today we had her birthday party!  I did a tea party for Lilly and a few of her little friends.  It was so much fun to plan, organize, and prepare everything for the party!  In the end, everything turned out perfect and the girls had so much fun playing together!

The invitation - A Tea Pot of course!  Thanks to my good friend Jennifer who has a magic paper cutter, these were not all that hard to put together!

The cupcakes - Ice cream cone tea cup cupcakes!  These took me a while to figure out logistically.  I was trying to follow the instructions I found online for making ice cream cone cupcakes where you just bake the cupcake in the ice cream cone.  The problem with this is that the cones kept tipping over/leaning.  I finally just made the cupcakes as usual, bought jumbo ice cream cones, trimmed out the inside ring of ice cream cone, trimmed the bottom portion of the ice cream cone off and stuck the cupcake in the top.  It worked perfectly!  The bottom is a plain old sugar cookie "glued" on with royal icing.  The handle is also made from royal icing that I allowed to harden for several days.  I also glued the handle on with royal icing.

Yummy food table -Chicken salad with croissants for the moms, flower shaped PB & J for the kids, veggie straws, carrots, goldfish, yogurt covered strawberries and bananas, cupcakes, and "tea" (juice for the girls) in the tea pot. 

Because I couldn't find a tea set that was age appropriate and big enough to actually use, my mom had the great idea to take clear plastic plates and cups with flowers imprinted on them and color the flowers with sharpies.  It took a bit of time, but was a great idea!  They were pefect for this and safe for 2-yr olds!!

The girls eating lunch at their kid table.  I borrowed the table and chairs from another good friend, used a light pink table cloth over the table, and then slipped white pillow cases over the chairs.  The pillow cases were big enough to cover the entire chair to the floor.  Then I tied some tulle around the back of the chair, tied a big bow, and glued a flower on.  They were really cute!    Before anyone else arrived, Lilly kept walking up to the table and patting it saying "my party", "my pretty party".  She was so excited about her party and really seemed to enjoy it.

I bought a few stems of flowers really cheap to make the hats with and had a bunch left over so I started doing all sorts of other things (napkin "rings", chair decorations, and wreath) with the leftover flowers.  It worked great and everything tied together so nicely!  Great uses for $3 worth of flowers!  I also used leftover tulle from Lilly's 1yr birthday to make the wreath and napkin rings!

 Four sweet girls - Mallory, Jocelyn, Lilly, and Maddie

 Lilly was not sure what to think of the candle or singing!

 But she thoroughly enjoyed the cupcake once the candle was removed!

Seeing how happy Lilly was during her party (and before as I set up), it made all of the work totally worth it!  I was sort of worried that she wouldn't get anything out of it being only 2, but it was obvious that all of the girls enjoyed the party!  This may have to be the party theme again in a few years when she is a few years older!