Holiday Fun

We have been having a lot of fun this holiday season.  Back in November we celebrated Thanksgiving with good friends and great food.  The dinner came complete with live entertainment by a guest Pilgrim, Indian, and Handmade Paper Turkey reenacting the first Thanksgiving.

 The Thanksgiving dinnertime sideshow (and sideshow during every dinner) was Nathan, who is always very entertaining.  He enjoyed the delicious meal as much as everyone else and was happy to lick his platter clean.

After Thanksgiving it was on to Christmas.  On the first day of Christmas we pulled out the Advent Calendar.  Actually, Sue Ann made this awesome 4 foot Advent Calendar.  The kids love fighting over whos turn it is to pull out the surprise in each stocking as Christmas day approaches.

We even had a personal visit by Santa Clause!

Okay, so my Santa gig quickly fizzled out but the kids didn't want anymore second rate imitations.  To make sure the real Santa would come Sue Ann and the kids custom built a small chimney fireplace for Santa's ingress and egress.  Don't worry the fire isn't real. 

David has been practicing lots for his Christmas Concert at school with all of his Kindergarten classmates.  He did such a good job!  Can you find him?

Here is a close up if you weren't able to.

Halloween 2012

Our friends hosted a "Super Hero" themed Halloween party for adults Nathan is testing out part of Scott's costume.

 I made a cake and cupcakes to go with the theme.

After some gold, silver, and red duct tape, cardboard, gold spray paint and a few clothing items from the thrift store we came up with She-Ra and He-man costumes.  I try to spend as little as possible on our costumes so it was a splurge to buy the $4.99 boots from GoodWill.  It turned out to be a great investment because when Lydia tried on my boots for fun, she found a $50 bill in the toe!!  It was getting in her way so she took it out and threw it on the kitchen floor.  I found it awhile later luckily before a little toddler got a hold of it.  As an added bonus, we won the costume contest at the party! 

 Lydia wanted to be Rapunzel again which made it easy for me.  David, 'loves Ben 10 more than anyone in the whole world' so his was easy too.  

 Our little knight found a sword more of his size.

   Enjoying the loot from Halloween

"this face"

Hopefully I will have time to post about Halloween soon but I had to share a funny conversation I walked in on this morning...

David to Lydia:  "This face?! Don't laugh at my face, my mother gave me this face!"

What we've been up to

So much has happened since I've posted so here is a quick (okay, it's kind of long) overview of what members of our family have been doing.  

First day of Kindergarten!

Enjoying Fall at Grandma's house

"Riding" a cool bike

Lovin' the trampoline and playing with cousins

Visiting the Edmonton Temple

Picnicking in the mountains

Celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving

Loosing a first baby tooth

Quality time at the park

Being stressed (Hang in there hun, we love you!)

Going to outer space...

and back in time.

  (this one doesn't need an explanation:)

Going on a hike with Father and brothers

Baking and decorating a wedding cake (more pics on my cake blog)

Having some Halloween fun!!

Lydia's B-Day

Lydia turned 4 this week!  She wanted a Zoo party theme until we were in the store buying the paper products and she spotted all the princess decorations.  She practically threw the animal decor out of the cart and went straight for the princess stuff.  I took this as a good sign since she usually  plays with the toys that David likes.

I made two cakes, a Cinderella Carriage cake and a castle.  We displayed the carriage one at the party but saved it for her actual birthday a couple days later.  We served the Castle cake to the guest at the party. 

 We have a very small yard so we had to find something that would entertain 17 kids.  I found a great idea here http://www.gokidyourself.com/2012/03/giant-squishy-sensory-bag.html    It was a hit and lasted until the end of the party.  It probably would have lasted longer but it took more than the usual amount of abuse.  We also ran out of duct tape or we would have been able to patch the holes. I was too busy cleaning up that I didn't get a chance to play on it myself:)

 The Knights table

 The Princess Table

 After party movie 

Hope you had a great birthday Lydia, we love you!!