Thanksgiving 2012

We had a nice Thanksgiving at my folks' house. Someone had a great idea to make little snack kits for people down on their luck that you come across out and about. Everyone contributed snacks and it was a fast, child friendly service project for everyone to enjoy together. We all had like 10 kits when it was all done...in the kits are granola bars, bottled water, fruit snacks, cookies, crackers, etc.

 My mom had this cute thankful wreath ready and we all wrote things we were thankful for on leaves and pinned them to the wreath. Someone wrote my name on a leaf. Thanks honey. Chris also wrote that he was grateful that Braden found someone to marry him. Har har.

I am thankful for my family! We stayed for the first time in our tent trailer in my parents' driveway and it was cozy and great to have space for us all to sleep.

American Girl Cousin Birthday Party...

Instead of doing a big deal birthday party this year, we just did a little joint party for Ruby, Alice and Emma at Oma and Opa's (Heather and Robb and fam are living there temporarily while they search for the right house to buy/build). Heather did the food and I did the activities. It was so much fun because the older girl cousins thoroughly enjoy one another. I loved it because it was so much more chill than other parties we've had in the previous years! I loved doing it with Heather instead of on my own. She is fancier than I am and did a great job with all her prep work!

Love the fancy drinks Heather concocted! So did the kids!

Candy...notice we had a theme...American Girl dolls, and this girl I knew in my K-12 career offered her leftover AG decorations which were actually really substantial and really made it look fancier and more tied together. She even delivered them to my mom's house!

See...place settings for dolls and their human friends! So cute! Flower shaped grilled cheese sammies...always a kid crowd pleaser!

Alice and her birthday doll, Julie. 

 Sarah doesn't have a doll, so she had Alice's doll from Christmas last year. Emma with her doll...don't know her name...I think it is a look like me doll.

Ruby with Rosie and Hailey with crazy face and her doll, I belive is Marie Grace. 

 Dessert was a tasty ice cream mud pie dessert that was in a planter and looked just like dirt...only the dirt was crumbled oreo. They loved it!

 I bought the paper "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE REALLY CALLED" game things and the kids decorated them and then had a lot of fun playing with them together, as each one had a different theme, different questions, etc. I love my mom in this shot...in her winter coat. It's how she rolls.

  

I also got some little openable suitcases for the kids to paint and decorate.  Heather got the girls matching jammies...Alice and Emma matched and the older girls matched. So cute!

  

My girls...

I got out to take some pics of my kiddos in the leaves this fall. I like to do this if the weather allows. Often the fall leaves are all wet and nasty from rain, but occasionally we have a dry enough spell to get some good, fluffy leaf pics. I didn't intend on using this shoot for Christmas cards, but I never got around to doing another shoot...so I had no choice. They are pretty cute though! We did this in like fifteen minutes at Pierce College by our house.

My girls are so thoughtful and talented and clever and beautiful and fun and silly and sharp and witty and compassionate and goofy and a million other things. I just love them!

2012 Halloween...

We went to a fun birthday party at the Stafford's the weekend before Halloween. We borrowed these flamenco dresses from our friends who are from Spain, the Del Solar Sanz family. Aren't the cute!? (The color is AWFUL in these pics, but I don't care...I just need to catch up!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

We carved pumpkins one night at home. It was fun. Alice worked at cleaning her pumpkin, and was my partner for the carving part. She was the brains. I was the labor. Chris did Betsey's pumpkin and Ruby did her own carving this year.

 

 

 

 

Emily joined us for the fun!

 

This is what Chris created!

This one is Alice's...

 Emily made a pretty flower...

Ruby's scary pumpkin... 

 

I am super lame for holidays...I mean my kids wanted to be other things, and I would have gotten to making their Halloween dreams come true, but I borrowed these dresses and once they had them on they were sold. It is all about makeup for us. My lameness also means that I don't decorate much for holidays either. Nope. Just whatever pics the kids draw and tape around the house. :) So I came home from Florida and the man of the house, aka. super dad had gone to town decorating the entry of the house with the kids. They loved it. This is just a portion...there were fake tombstones in the front yard, etc.

 

Booing...

We haven't ever been booed before. Booing takes place around Halloween and is such fun because you take some goody over to someone's house and leave them with a sign to declare their already been booed status on their front door. I didn't get pics of our boo treats, but the treats pictured were given to us by our mysterious booers. My kids love nothing more than knocking and running, and hiding out to hear the responses. Some people are pretty hesitant to take the treats in their house. I think this might be a bigger trend among church friends, so we did it to neighbors and they actually didn't really know what to do with us. One of them left the treats (they were suspicious in a brown bag) on their front steps and we had to return and re-knock. Hahahaha. Emily is in these pics. She had a less traditional upbringing and really loves joining us on our traditions...carving pumpkins, Christmas morning, booing...etc. She'd never knocked and run before! We love her! I'm unsure if I have blogged about her before. She moved in with us in May of 2012 and she is Chris' sister's husband's sister's daughter. :) So she is cousin to my kids' cousins, Mattie, Pierce and Zoe. Does that help? She lives local and needed a break and a place to call home this year and we were happy to have her. She is grateful, calming, willing to help out and generally just a part of the family by now. We are so glad to have her in our home! She is getting married the end of June, and we are looking forward to that big event!!

 

 

 

 

Happy 7th Birthday to Alice!

For Alice's birthday, we went up to Oma's house and got Hailey and Emma to go to the American Girl store in Lynnwood. Alice got money for her birthday from us and her extended family and she knew she wanted to buy Julie, an American Girl doll. She was pretty thrilled!!

Here is a non-birthday pic of my girl. Notice the quilt I made for her! I love it! Anyway, conked out well after everyone else is awake...sleeping with her head at the wrong side of the bed...she's just a sound sleeper!

Back to the store...the girls loved going!

I love Alice because she is unique and endearing and surprising and hard to encapsulate in words. She is just worth knowing, but not very overtly known. She is kind and catches me and others off guard with her quirky humor and expressions and enthusiasm. She is very intrinsically motivated and works hard at everything she does. She is more concerned with her effort and experience than she is with results. I love that about her. Her joy is not from external affirmations. Happy birthday, pretty girl!!