Happy 7th Birthday

On December 2nd, my sweet daughters turned 7.  Yes, SEVEN!  Seven sounds like a whole new age group.  Little kid is behind us and we are well on our way to tweens! 

Anyway, they are the two most wonderful 7 year olds that I know, and we celebrated them with a fun little birthday party.  They each invited just a few friends and had an art party.  The girls all game over, ready to paint and have some fun.  They painted really cute pictures on canvases, and then painted little wooden birds, flowers, and butterflies that we glued on.  We also had a canvas for Haley and one for Abby that each of the girls painted a little something on.  The wonderful and fabulous "auntie Laura" was in charge the canvases that they each added a little something to.

The kids had a lot of fun painting, then did some running around before present opening time.  I told the kids that last year when Haley and Abby were opening their birthday presents, I almost cried.  It was so crazy and out of control!  This year, they took turns really nicely and I wasn't even close to crying!  Instead of making cakes this year, I just got ice cream and whipped cream, which was a big hit. Sidenote: the day before their birthday, I had run out to Target and grabbed a few things.  When I got home, I threw the Target bag on my bed, and we ran out the door to take dinner to some dear friends and then off to the lighted boat parade in our local harbor.  Almost 5 hours later, as I was putting the kids to bed, I suddenly remembered that I got ice cream at Target.  Yep, it was in the bag I threw on my bed!  It was totally melted, but hadn't come out of the containers, so I just put them in the freezer and served them at the party anyway!

The party was so fun.  Smaller and shorter than we've had in the past, which ended up being great.  Both Haley and Abby had a really good time, as did all of their friends.

My wonderful, talented friend, Nicole, came over and painted Haley and Abby's faces before the party so they could really stand out as the special birthday girls!

Cutie painters!

Abby is always a focused artist!

Abby and her sweet friend, Ilee

Auntie Laura, touching up the group art pieces!

A New Adventure

I have so many blog posts floating around in my head, but am struggling to make the time to actually type them out.  This one, though, is big news.  Starting on Monday I am homeschooling Haley.  The plan is that it will only be through the rest of this school year.

Carey and I started praying about the possibility a couple months ago, and made a decision at the beginning of November.  This year she has really been struggling emotionally.  She is so smart and sweet and wonderful, and we are so hopeful that we are making a good choice.  Well, I'm sure it's a good choice, since we both felt like God led us this direction. 

She's not super sure about it.  Abby is really nervous about going to school without Haley.  I am wondering how it's all really going to work out.  But, we're moving forward with it.  I'll try and give an update after a week or so!

Halloween 2012

Oh boy, another Halloween survived!  Our Halloween was actually really fun, but it's always nice when it's over!  This was the first year that we carved pumpkins with the kids, which was super fun.  We hadn't done it before because I remember being a kid and being super frustrated that my pumpkin didn't look the way I wanted it to!  All three of my kids were less into the "pulling out the guts part" than I thought they would, and both the girls really liked carving their pumpkins.  Abby had daddy help her a little, and Haley did hers completely by herself!

Auntie Laura and Seth made a really cute one

Seth got to go trick-or-treating at preschool on Tuesday, but he didn't want to wear his costume (a farmer).  He wore a pirate hat and his pirate vest from last Halloween!  He had a lot of fun, though, and liked seeing his friends' costumes.

Unlike their brother, Haley and Abby were thrilled to wear their costumes to school on Halloween.  They both had really fun costumes to make this year and they looked so adorable:)  Seth really didn't want to go to school and see the Halloween parade (I think he was nervous), so Grammie Lori came to the rescue and picked him up. 

The ice princess and bumblebee ready for school!

Haley in the parade at school1

Abby loved being in the parade!

When it came time for trick-or-treating, my mom and dad came over to pass out candy at our house, and a bunch of neighborhood friends came over so we could all go out together.  Seth decided he didn't want to trick or treat (the child NEVER put his farmer costume on), so he stayed with Poppa Phil and Grammie Lori to pass out candy.  With Seth at home, the girls and their friends went RACING off from house to house.  They seriously ran so fast.  They had a lot of fun, though, and Carey and Laura and I had fun following them and chatting!

cutest bumblebees around:)

racing down the street!

Our neighbor made the kids line up in a single file line to get their candy!

Abby sure was a cute ice princess.

Haley was so excited to get 15 Reeses!

Seth has some candy from trick-or-treating at preschool!

Banjo was a clown:)

 

Walking To School

Because Haley and Abby's school is only about a mile away, we try and walk to school more often than not.  It means having to get out the door a bit earlier than if we drive, but the time walking is so precious to me.  It takes us about 20 minutes and we just walk and chat and enjoy small details of God's creation that we would miss if we were driving by.  Seth has always ridden in the stroller, but he has started walking lately, which is fun.  And, when I say that they walk, I mean they run, balance, skip, hop, you name it, they do it! 

As we have been walking to school, we have developed all these little rituals.  One of the 4th grade teachers also walks to school most days, and we kind of judge how we are doing, time wise, by where we are when he passes us.  There is a beautiful church with a courtyard that we cut through.  We always stop there and smell roses and compare which colors smell better and if the buds smell better than the open roses.  There is a chain blocking off the church parking lot that the kids always run and jump over.  On the way home from dropping the girls off, Seth and I always stop and say hi to a the llama and goat that live at a house near the school.

Last year we frequently found money when we were walking to school, so this year we decided to collect it all in a jar, and see how much we have by the last day of school.  So far we have 87 cents!  Also, we are tallying how many days we walk and how many we drive, so we can look back over the year and hopefully see that we walked WAY more than we drove.  So far, so good.  We'll see what happens as it starts to get colder:)

Seth Is 4!

Oh my goodness, I can't believe how long it's been since I posted anything.  This last month was so busy, busy, busy.  Too busy.  I'll post more about that later.  Today I am writing about Seth's 4th birthday.  On Saturday my sweet boy turned 4, which is just so crazy to me.  My kids are 4 and almost 7!  How on earth did that happen? 

Anyway, for Seth's birthday he wanted a pirate party.  He was very specific and adamant about who he wanted to invite to his birthday party.  I love planning birthday parties and this one turned out especially cute and fun.  I wasted a ton of time making up a little rhyme and finding a "pirate-y" font to go on his invitations, especially considering that people were just going to recycle them!  But, they turned out super cute.  We had his party in the afternoon so we had lots of time to get ready/set-up.  My sweet Haley helped me ALL DAY, always coming back to me saying "now what can I do" (don't you wish kids would always do that?)!  Oh, and as we were planning UPS delivered a package, which I think is the first time any of them have gotten one!  Turned out it was a cowboy hat from Grammie Lori (she had ordered it off the internet), and it was a hit!

Once the backyard was all set-up with a treasure chest full of goodies, 5 buckets of buried treasure, some really fun water ball things in the water play table, a pirate hat decorating table and a plank walking over a pool (complete with alligators), Seth's buddies started to arrive.  The kids all had a great time and Seth loved having his friends over (until about 15 minutes before the party was over, when he told me he wanted everyone to leave!).  The foam swords were definitely a hit, as were the water ball things in the water play table.  Carey came out with his guitar and played a cute little pirate song that our kids learned at preschool so I could drag out the "dig for treasure" buckets.  The kids LOVED digging through the sand and finding the treasures hidden in it.  A few of them really kept at it!  Oh, and Uncle Noah and Aunt Kellie totally surprised us and showed up dressed in pirate gear, which was AWESOME!

After all the kids went home, Seth opened his gifts.  Then he had chicken nuggets for dinner (his request)!  It was a fun special day and I know he loved it!

Cowboy hat from Grammie Lori

Seth practicing "walking the plank"!

Grammie Lori, Seth, Colin and Miles

Thank you Dollar Tree for the awesome foam swords!

The kids loved it when Carey played his guitar.

Digging for treasure.

Aunt Kellie and Uncle Noah were so fun (so was Poppa Phil).

How cute did the cake turn out (this picture was taken before I realized I had only put 3 candles on it)!  Abby made the sail!

Seth and his buddies enjoying the cake:)

First electric guitar AND first amp!  He LOVES them!

Glam Camping!

This weekend we had a super fun time camping with my family.  A few months ago my dad won a weekend at Camp Loma, which is a camp up in the Corralitos mountains.  We got the fun of sleeping in the tent and having campfires, with the luxury of a huge kitchen, a dining hall, a pool and a field.  Plus, it was only our little group...so we didn't have to worry about the people in the campsites around us!  It was such a blast.  We played board games, went on lots of creek walks, took looooong showers (it was super cold at night and in the morning), played in the pool, slip-and-slided, and ate lots and lots of smores!  We loved it and told my dad we would put money in next year if he tries to win it again!

We found lots of banana slugs:)

This log was Seth's "party boat", which he named Sherlette the first couple days and then changed the name to RootBeer.  It usually drove to Florida!

Morning hot chocolate:)

The coldness of the creek water did not deter Seth!

 

Grammie Lori played in the freezing pool with the kiddos!

I was pretty much only in the pool long enough to be in this picture!  It was super cold!

Seth and Poppa Phil and daddy played some music for us:)

Auntie Melissa has been in Washington, so we were so happy to get so spend some time with her (and we really missed Uncle Nate and Uncle Judah, who are still up in Washington)

Tired marshmallow roaster!

Auntie Melissa brought a light up hula hoop!

The awesome kitchen (which was always warm, thanks to all the pilot lights on the huge stove)