"I'm STILL six"

After singing Happy Birthday to himself everyday for a week and anticipating this special day. Alex is SIX! This weekend we had Alex's 6th Birthday Party (which I'll get to shortly) and according to him, he turned six on the day of his party because "why else would we put a big 6 on the wall??" After debating and explaining, I finally decided to just leave it alone and let him be 6 a little early because even though I know he gets it, I refused to argue with this FIVE year old. Fast forward to this morning. Daddy and I wake him up singing Happy Birthday, we finish singing and I sit down on the bed in the dark and give him a big hug and ask him "how old are you?" I'm thinking how exciting it is to finally be able to say you're a whole year older right? That's how it always is, they get so excited to hear themselves say it, what better way to start the day. This headstrong little booger replies "I'm STILL six".

On Saturday we did a Halloween costume party complete with pumpkins, games, ghoulish treats and witches brew. It was a big success and probably one of the most laid back, fun parties we've had to date. I guess I'm finally learning how to ENJOY the party as opposed to running around like a mad woman trying to make everything perfect.

As soon as most everyone had arrived, we all got to work on our witches brew. The kids had a BLAST helping with our concoction. They especially enjoyed adding the hand (a frozen rubber glove makeshift mold) and dry ice.


After snacking on witches brew, fingers, spiders, and apple bites Mark told the story of Hal O Ween.After each gooey part of the story, the kiddos would go reach inside the box and feel the gooey parts of what was left of Hal. Ashley did an awesome job of preparing each body part and making sure no one looked inside the box. This turned out to be one of the most exciting activities of the day. The kids got a really big kick out of touching the gooey body parts and trying to guess what each really was.






After that we moved on to pumpkin decorating. Everyone decorated a baby pumpkin to take home with them with stickers, glitter glue and whatever else we had in our craft box. The kids all did a super job and managed to keep their costumes mostly clean. Hmmm....no wonder the costumes were so clean...lets take a closer look at Mr. Matthew. Hey buddy, you're off juuust a tad.



And then there was the haystack scavenger hunt, and cake cutting. Most of the kids stuck around for quite a while playing in the backyard since it was an absolutely gorgeous day.

It's ALIIIVE

So yeah, according to my bff, Mollie, I've been a ve-wwy, ve-wwy bad girl. I'm not the best at keeping up with everyone, and seemed to have left town, quit blogging and disappeared off the face of the playgroup/internet/Instant Messenger earth just long enough to get the one, maybe two people that have noticed a little out of sorts. I sorry. I'm alive. Trips to Nana and Big Daddy's tend to make the whole world just sort of disappear.

Mark's birthday was last week so we decided to celebrate by taking a week to relax and lounge by the lake with family. Cara and Keller, along with Cara's sister Erin, and 4 year old nephew Ethan came to spend the week as well. The week was just about as lazy and relaxing as we hoped it would be. Monday morning (as well as Wednesday and Thursday) I joined Dad for water areobics. This was my first experience with water areobics, and more importantly, my first time excercising with dad. I REALLY enjoyed myself! Everyone in the class is retired, and I'm pretty sure that aside from me, dad is the youngest one in the class. There's one lady that's 94 years old and gets around like you wouldn't believe. I'm just so amazed that dad gets up everyday and goes to this class....this is the same dad that, a year ago would have laughed at the thought of doing any sort of excercise. We are all so, so proud of him and even more so, we're thankful that he's doing this for his health and having fun at the same time.

Nana fed us like Nana tends to do. We're all about 5 pounds heavier and loving every minute of it! She made a Mississippi Mud Cake per Mark's request, that knocked our socks off, a triple chocolate cake...which I dubbed the "Dr. Suess cake" because it was so crooked that I seriously thought it was made that way intentionally. Personally, I think Dr. Suess cakes are MUCH tastier than plain ol' chocolate cake. Teehee. I could go on and on about all the incredible food we ate this week, but I'll probably gain 5 more pounds just rehashing it all, so I'll skip the details and just say that we ate way too often and way too much.

On Thursday we went to ZDT's and spent 5 hours running a muck with the kiddos. This place was incredible. I could have spent hours just looking at the painting on the walls. There is not an empty wall in the building, each one covered with detailed paintings that go with the jungle/amusement park theme. I took some pictures that I'll have to post later.

So we're home, and already going 90 MPH getting things back in order. Mark has been in the garage all day fixing up his work bench area and organizing shelves (yes, we have shelves!!!), while I'm trying to get caught up on yard work and laundry. Holy crap, laundry! I just can't believe that we actually wear this many clothes!!!!

Keller's 1st Birthday Party

My newphew, Keller, had is first birthday party this weekend! Here are just a few of the 382 pictures I took on Saturday. The rocket cake in the picture was made by yours truly. I was pretty happy with the end result. I have to tell ya though, picking a handful of pictures from all of the adorable shots of sweet baby Keller was difficult, he's just so precious I could eat him up!
Anywho, here's a summary of Mr. Keller's very first birthday celebration.

Keller's 1st Birthday

Valentines Cake

Dads Retirement Party

I have been so anxious to post about the party, but held off in fear that dad might actually read my blog. Ruthie did such a good job of keeping it a secret that dad never even suspected it. Everyone arrived around 1:00, and at about 2:00 Ruthie gathered everyone around to say a few words of about all that we are thankful for, and announce the "real" reason for the party. Dad was definitely surprised. I think it took a while for it to acutally sink in. Poor dad. He told Ruthie long ago that there would be NO PARTY. Ruthie announced that "she" was not having a retirement party, but that "he" was. Dad responded with "no we're not, it's a Christmas Party" Haha! Of course, dad is dad, and his response was to be expected. It was a wonderful party full of people that my dad has probably spent most of his life with. I wasn't surprised to see that he was well liked by his coworkers, some of which probably know him better than I do. I'm so thankful that we were able to show him that his dedication and hard work has really made a difference in so many lives. His work ethic has been a major influence in my life, and it will pass on to my children and become a defining part of our family values indefinitely. It was a beautiful day for us all.

Here are some pictures of the cake I made for dad:

Adventures in cake decorating

You know you're getting old when... you and your friends sign up for a Wilton Cake Decorating Class, and you seriously can't WAIT to go. And you REALLY know you're getting old when you walk out after the class with over $50 worth of cake decorating supplies, some of which come in a "tackle box"...(and that's with a 40% off coupon). Lastnight Mollie, Rachel, Tonya, Laurie and I went to our first class. We're officially old. Cake decorating at Michaels on a Thursday night, what's next, knitting? Weaving? LOL

We really did have a good time, even though the first class was more of a tease than anything. After not eating dinner it was pure torture passing one bowl of frosting after another around the room for everyone to "see the consistancy" (yeah the consistancy of my ability to restrain myself!). It took every ounce of restraint for me not to dip my finger in the gooey chcolate and taste a hunk. And then I sat there quietly drooling as she filled and frosted the chocolate cake. Evil I tell ya, EVIL!
I'm anxious to go back next week and learn more. The class is four, 2 hour sessions. So every week for the next 3 weeks I will be taking a cake to class to decorate...which in essence, means that I will be gaining an extra 5 pounds in the midst of gaining my OTHER required 5+ pounds from the Holidays. But that's ok, because I will be a mighty fine cake eating...oops, I mean mighty fine cake DECORATING momma.

Alex is 4!!!

We had Alex's 4th Birthday party at Chuckee Cheese this year. We didn't want to fool with cleaning and cooking, so this was too hard to pass up. All of our close neighbor friends were there, Uncle Frank, Aunt Nicola, Alexis and the Kendalls and Grams and Pops. He had such a great time! Here's Alex Pre-Birthday Party licking his birthday cake batter out of the bowl. He doesn't miss a drop:

And here's the cake, (my very first, so no laughing allowed!)



And here are some pictures of the party at Chuck E Cheese: