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 :)

Brayden's 5th Birthday Party

I am trying to get caught up with the blog, but make no promises.  Life is just busy and I don't want to sit at the computer at night after sitting in front of it all day at work. 

Brayden said since just after he turned 4 that he wanted his 5th birthday party at Young's Gym in Wake Forest.  Young's Gym is a gymnastics place but they also have several bounce castles, etc that the kids love to play on.  Many of his friends have had their parties there in the past and the kids always have a blast.  Brayden also told me he wanted a Super Hero themed party, so the planning started.  The good thing about having a party at a place like Young's Gym, is that you don't have much decorating to do!!

They have this really cool swing that the kids get strapped into and then using a pulley system, they can swing the kids super high!  Brayden has always been to scared to try it, but with the encouragement of his friends, it finally did it at his party!  It was so cute seeing all his friend cheering him on :)

I took boxes from work, spray painted them, taped them together, and added windows to make them look like a city at night since most of the Super Heros work in the city.  I thought it turned out pretty cute myself. 

I also made Batman and Superman cupcakes, but for some reason, my royal icing didn't work this time and the little logos fell apart which made me a bit frustrated.  Brayden didn't care though! 

Lilly got right into the mix with the big kids too!  She was not scared to sit with them at the table and enjoyed running around after them in the gym area!  So cute!

All of the kids had a blast at the party which is the most important thing.  Also, instead of getting gifts, we asked all of Brayden's friends to bring an unwrapped toy for Toys for Tots.  This is the 3rd year we have done that and it is so nice to teach Brayden (and eventually Lilly) about giving to others instead of always getting, getting, getting. 

Lest you think that Brayden got no gifts, several of his friends did bring him gifts and of course the family had gifts for him as well!

On Brayden's actual birthday, we had the family over for a cookout, cake, and presents.   The favorite gifts this year...Legos (which he rapidly put together with little to no help from the adults!), a real t-ball bat (we previously only had soft ones), a Panthers helmet, and an art easel.

The end of T-ball 2013

T-ball ended this past weekend.  Brayden had a blast, learned a lot thanks to his wonderful coaches (Coach Amanda and Coach Eric), and he had determined that he wants to play again!  Matt and I have also enjoyed hanging out with some of the parents from daycare a bit more...between soccer, t-ball, and birthdays, we have all gotten to know each other a bit better this past year, which has been very nice!

By the end of the season, "tackle" t-ball was no longer and they were starting to get the hang of the game.  Brayden and his buddy Zachary especially were hitting the ball HARD (like onto the other field hard).  Hopefully we can keep the same team (or most of the same team) next year so that they can only get better together!

Go Twins!!

A few pictures from the last game (official pictures to come in the mail soon I hope!) 

He looks so grown up in this picture.  I think the eye-black is doing it!

Pre-game pep talk

Team huddle

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!