Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Center of Attention

Birthdays are the day when you can be the center of attention and everyone is happy about it.  Here is a look at some of them.

January 7, 2011
Laura turns 18

...Happy Birthday dear Laura....

Wow!  That's a lot of candles!
She received a pair of running shoes


Next comes Westley
January 10th

Yup!  8 years old!

that was easy to blow out

Harry Potter...Yes!

a lava lamp-just what I asked for
(really, he did)


Happy Birthday dear ...

Charnae, Happy Birthday to you!

Her last Birthday "at home"

Help me Audrey

Yummy ice cream cake from Dayle

Delicious!

Next up....
what cute cupcakes!  who are they for?

Lots of guests -
 who are they here for?

Oh, it's Audrey's Birthday!
Happy 2nd Birthday Audrey!

Oh, there's toys hidden in the boxes!

one pretty dancing dress for me

and one for my baby!



We were in Las Vegas for Christian's Birthday
Charnae and Dayle were married that day
Before everyone woke up, Dad took Christian to McDonald's for breakfast
Here is a Birthday hat they found on the way

The next night we celebrated by the pool
What could be better than Krispy Kreme Donuts
and pizza?

Happy Birthday Christian!

Hooray for being 6!


Noellee turned 1 on September 29th
One cake for Noellee

one cake for everyone else!

yum yum!

pretty little Noellee


Harve turned 5 on September 30th
We had pirate cupcakes for his

Laura got him this shirt - we all think it's hillarious!

a fun drawing book

Harve's first Lego's
He LOVES them! 
We expect this collection will grow


We can't forget Jake
He turned 4 this year

His Mom brought Lion King cupcakes
and we had these fun spider cupcake holders


Brok turned 13 on November 22nd

Big breath!

mmm-mmm-good
Brok got a suit for his Birthday

Well, that wraps up the 2011 Birthdays

2012 Birthay's coming up soon!

Friday, January 6, 2012

Pre-School Family Days

Once a month Harve's pre-school has a family day.  It's a field trip that families are invited to - in fact family members have to come in order for the pre-schooler to go.  Can you blame them?  Would you want to take 30 pre-schoolers anywhere new and exciting by yourself?

Well, so far this year Harve has done some pretty fun stuff.  Come and see.....

In September we went to The Colorado Monument

They had a puppet show about how every living creature is important to the circle of life.
Here is Harve in orange and Jake right behind him watching the puppet show.

Audrey wasn't so interested in it and stayed by me.

Then we went on a little hike.  There were numbered markers along the way that were fun to look for and we looked for living things too.  We found a lizard, birds, and some bugs.

Say cheese!

Here we are at the very end. 
We made it!


"It would be fun to eat lunch here and maybe even live here" - Have

Let's "rest" just a little longer here where the dirt is so soft and fun to play in

Getting back was much faster and we had a snack at the visitors center before going home.  The birds were very friendly and would come very close as they gobbled up the crumbs from our crackers.

October was great fun!
We went to a pumpkin patch.

They had this bubble bouncy trampline - not sure what it's real name is.
It has hot air blowing up from underneath and they played on it for a loooong time.


There goes Harve in the blue sweatshirt.
He was scared at first - but he got more and more brave.
He found friends to play with and pretty soon he was bouncing and rolling around all over the place.

Audrey had trouble getting her balance for a while

but she was finally able to crawl to the top and stand up

Jake took to it like a duck to water

Yea!  Audrey is playing too!

They had this enormous slide that you had to climb a bunch of hay bails to get to the top of.  All 3 of the kids had a blast going down it.  I was going to take pictures, but I got stuck on the back side helping tons of kids get up to the slide over and over and over again.  Oh well, they had a great time!


There goes Harve!
Then we went over to the maze.  It was as much fun climbing over the bails as it was walking through them. 

Here comes Audrey
and there's Harve in the background hiding and popping up

They even had a little swing set.
Weeeeee!

Each child was able to pick any pumpkin from the patch that they could carry by themselves.
All three chose one - Jake took his home and we decorated with ours and then cooked them up for Thanksgiving.  Pictures of that in a minute.

Then, before going home they jumped on the big orange trampoline one more time.


November's Family Day was THE BEST as far as Harve is concerned
We went to Nick and Willie's Pizza and made our very own pizzas.
They walked through the kitchen and saw all the mixers, and the humongous fridge and then they washed their hands and were able to put their own sauce, toppings, and cheese on their pizzas.
I was going to take a picture - but was helping instead. Oh well, here are some I was able to take.


While we waited for our pizza to cook, the kids were able to play with some pizza dough like it was play-dough.  And drink soda,and color a turkey picture.


Darn, I didn't get a picture of the finished product. 
Oh well, it was very crowded and so fun!
They ate most of it there at the restaurant and brought the rest home to eat.
We can't go by Nick and Willie's now without a trip down memory lane.

Here are those pumpkins getting ready for Thanksgiving!
Harve said "This is funner than cleaning the family room"

Christian helped too!


December's Famiy Day was a Christmas program - so I'll save that for another blog.
The kids are up and it's time to get ready for school - So, TTFN  (ta ta for now)