Last Day of the 1st Grade

Most of our ward funnels onto our street to get to school (there's just 1 block that doesn't) so I threw together a last day of school breakfast in our yard. The kids hurried and ate and headed to schools and the mom's hung around and talked.

Both Bentley and Lincoln hung out inside the house for most of the party, saying they were nervous. So strange. They were both in grumpy moods. Especially my 1st grader.

I made him this shirt to wear on the last day and have kids sign. He didn't want to wear it and was such a stinker about the whole thing. I thought about backing off, but didn't. I really thought he would like it once the year book signing started. (Since Sept. he has insisted he didn't want a year book, until Thursday night when he was so excited for his year book. Bad timing dude.)

So when he walked in the door after school with the front and back covered in signatures and said, "Mom, will you make me a Last Day of 2nd Grade shirt?!" I knew had won!

He's so excited that he passed 1st grade and is pretty excited to be a 2nd grader. Since he's doing Portuguese dual-immersion next year he gets to go to 2 weeks of summer school. One of the weeks is all about Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest and I think he's going to love it. And he is super stoked about his English teacher next year. Apparently she's who he has always wanted.

Get Air

A couple weeks ago The Crafting Chicks hosted a little party at an indoor trampoline place in Kaysville for some bloggers and their families.

I had never been to an indoor trampoline place before and didn't know what to expect, but thought the boys would probably like it. Chod didn't know what to think of going to a blogger party, but I don't think it was as bad as he anticipated :).

The boys loved Get Air! I chose not to jump as I doubted my pregnant bladder would appreciate it very much, and brought a camera without a memory stick so all I've got to share are some blurry iPhone photos.

Bentley would run over to the window of the party room and flash me 2 thumbs up during the night. But he was so fast I had a hard time catching him.

I made him stand still for this one and he turned into a cheeser.  It didn't take too long before they were red faced. Some kids took breaks and came in for drinks and treats, but not our boys. Chod would usher them in for drinks and they would sneak back out with drinks in hand.

You can see my 3 blurs in the middle going down the slide. There were also foam pits to jump into, trampoline dodge ball and basketball and all sorts of bouncy fun.

When it was time to leave Lincoln started crying, "But I thought we got to stay here a long time?"

"We did."

"That wasn't a long time -- I want to stay more!!"

And the only complaint from Chod was that he thinks it ruined our backyard tramp for the boys.

We give it two thumbs up all around!

Zucchini Boat Races and S'mores

What do you do when you plant a garden and then buy a house with an existing garden and you end up with 4 zucchini plants? A little time lapse between pickings results in HUGE zucchinis, and some weeks we harvest over 20 between the two gardens! If your friends won't take the zucchini, invite them to have zucchini boat races with you!

So last night we took them to the park and carved them into boats. Bentley was talking trash from the very beginning.

Here's Bentley's finished boat--he sprinkled sand inside and then tried to trick us into thinking it was really cinnamon.

And we roasted s'mores. It was our first experience with campfire marshmallows. And they make for a huge s'more. Grocery stores have replaced the Hershey s'more bars with Halloween candy so we tried out Reeses and Dove chocolate with caramel. There were no complaints about the chocolate choices.

Kinda messy!

It was getting dark by the time the race began, and most of the zucchinis flipped over and it was hard to spot the dark zucchinis in the black water. Bentley is pretty sure his won, and Lincoln tells the story with his boat coming in first place. So it was the perfect race for some competitive kids.

And we still have plenty of zucchini left!

Winter Wonderland

Sometimes, when the high temperature for weeks doesn't break the teens and we are in an inversion, it is easy to forget that we live in a winter wonderland. After all, when it is too cold to snow all you think about is your nose hairs.  When the thermometer read 20º F on Thursday, that was exciting. By Thursday night we were getting snow. Friday morning we put on snowgear and headed sledding with friends.

Well, the plan was to go sledding, but having a playground to themselves kept the boys busy for a while.

 Then there was sledding.

 Bentley was mainly a pill that preferred to occupy the sled (so no one else could use it) and eat snow.

 

That night there was a surprise birthday party for Katelin at the outdoor ice rink.

Lumberjack Brian (he left his ax at home), Whitney, and Baylee. See, like I said, a winter wonderland. An outdoor ice skating rink with the temple in the background! Perfect.

 Lincoln got to ride around in the sled. He may not look amused, but he liked it.

Bentley asked Katelin to teach him "how to fly on ice". Never one to crush dreams, she tried her hardest.

He isn't the most steady thing on skates, so they may need another lesson before he gets the flying down.

The perfect ending to a perfect snowy day!

Okay, that wasn't the end. Bentley was insistent he watch Katelin blow out her birthday candles (he likes cake). So the party continued with the college kids and equal part family after the skating.

Cookie & Milk Tasting Party

Monday night we had a cookie and milk tasting party to pick the best to leave out for Santa Christmas Eve. The competition was tough and the judges took the job seriously.

The 5 cookies we chose from with the trophy plate in the middle. We also tasted egg nog, chocolate milk, and regular milk. Cookie number 4 was our winner with number 3 being the runner up. And in case you are curious, chocolate milk won for the beverage.

Ty had the winning recipe, but it was probably because he insisted on baking them right before judging -- and the melted chocolate was hard to compete with.

Little Lincoln smashed his finger, and Bentley was our photographer for the night.

None of them won first place, but they are mocking Lincoln's smashed finger.

Like I said, with judges like this there was no messing around with tasting.

But I think I found my recipe for next year--Ty you're going down

MTWI, My take

I debated whether or not to post this, because there are a lot of words for this blog in one post--but here it is.

Every Sunday when my sisters are over (it really has become a tradition) we watch some of Minute To Win It and comment on how it would be such a fun party idea. Luckily, on their site they have the rules and directions to most, if not all of their games. The object of the game is to complete a task in 1 minute and then move on to the next earning money in the Millionaire fashion.

Tuesday morning I spent more time than I should have reading and watching their games and taking notes in case I decide to use it for the Stephens reunion this summer. All of the games require household objects, many that I had laying around.

Around noon I instant messaged Chris: do you think we could pull off a surprise minute to win it party for deid friday.

His reply: I don't know but that would be awesome.

So I set to work on an invite and finished it as Deidra was sitting on my couch. Chris emailed it out. And we started gathering supplies for Friday night.

The hardest part was talking to Chris, because Deidra always seemed to be with one of us. "She's here." and "She's gone" made up most of our conversations.

She even asked me after the invites were out if I would help her throw a MTWI party on Saturday. I flat out told her no, because we had Stake Conference Saturday night (which was true) and she let it die.

Things were going really well Friday as we were making final preparations. I had most of the supplies loaded in the Jeep, and scorecards and name of game cards printed off when Chris called and said, "I think she's headed to your house." Which put a dead stop to the remaining prep until she left late in the afternoon.

Bentley had been very curious all morning to why I was gathering so many random objects. I told him we were having a surprise party for Deidra. A Minute to Win It surprise party. He couldn't stop talking about the party. When Chris called I warned him that Bentley may blow our cover. And he may have if Deidra had been more suspecting. He would ask her about her party and she would correct him and say, "You mean my birthday. Should I have a party?"

She arrived at the church completely surprised and even okay that we'd done it without her.

We sat it up in a the church gym and used the basketball scoreboard, complete with the buzzer, as our timer. The games were sat up around the perimeter and on one end we had a computer and projector sat up to show the rules of the games on.

It turned out great and we will be doing it again. MTWI would be great fun at a ward party, family reunion, friend party, or a mutual activity in case you are wondering.
















I posted the printables on Crafting Chicks, if you are interested.

Welcome 2010

They humored me and wore these awesome 2010 glasses. Actually, Lincoln loves them. We celebrated at 7 and were all sound asleep well before midnight.

Happy New Year!

Mis Hermanas

The sisters gathered for our annual sister's weekend. We had fun getting dolled up the a tea party Friday night. Karisa showed us her mad yard sale-ing skills Saturday morning and then it was off to pedicures and lunch. And then more shopping. By the end of the weekend we were all spent.

Next time our weekend needs to last longer or our schedule needs to be more lax. It was over way too soon.

This is what it's like?

I love to throw parties, but can't remember the last time we were invited to one.

Wednesday night, Deidra called in a moment of desperation. She had a Christmas Recital Party starting in 1 hour and people were calling and canceling. So she begged us to come, and we could even bring our kids. That's how desperate she was. I checked my voice mail 35 minutes before the party was to start.

The invitation for the recital said to come prepared to share a Christmas piece. Whether it be music, a story or a poem. We weren't prepared. Chod has musical talent so I knew he would be able to pull something off, and I grabbed a Christmas book on my way out the door just in case.

A cello, electric guitar, piano solos, and a piano guitar duet proved her friends had put time into preparing. Chod and Chris sang a duet and Chod, Bentley and I led the group in "Once There Was a Snowman". We sang a lot of carols and enjoyed yummy food.

The party was great. And I finally got to see what it feels like to be invited to a party.

Red and Blue Birthday

To celebrate Chod's birthday and election day, we had a

birthday party. We ate Senate Bean Soup and red and blue treats.

My first attempt with Bakerella Pops.

Tameka and Katelin brought these cute cupcakes. Love the elephant bums.

Jolyn brought these politically correct homemade Oreos. We also had blue Tootsie Rolls and chips and yummy salsa.

Vana and the map. We colored states in as the results were announced.

These 3 voted.

The boys with Aunt Deid and their matching shirts.

The 4 of us.

It was a fun, laid back night with the people we love. The results may not have been what we were hoping for, but at least there were helium balloons to keep us entertained!

Happy Birthday Chod, and better luck in 4 years USA.

Fall Party

Last night we had a neighborhood fall party. Complete with bobbing for apples, three-legged races, eating donuts from strings, pumpkin seed spitting contest, and a ring toss.

The doughtnuts on the string was the most popular attraction.

Two year olds didn't have to play by the rules.

The pumpkin seed spitting contest was pretty popular with the male/dad demographic. Chod didn't win.

It was a fun night to spend outside getting to know our neighbors a little better.