New Years Eve 2010

Friends from our Bible Fellowship Class at church invited everyone to their home for New Years Eve (kids included). My parents timed a trip to our house so that they could bring us the rest of our Christmas loot as well as keep Zane & Zander while the rest of us went to the NYE party. (cause I'm guessing that the Z's wouldn't have been the life of the party at midnight!)

I made some snacky foods to take, but I also had Eli and EK make a kiddy snack.
They started with pretzel squares on a pan... then they put Hershey's Kisses on top of those...

and baked for a few minutes. Right after taking them out of the oven, they then smashed an M&M on top of each Kiss...

(looks like somebody may have taste tested one!)

The kids had a great place to hang out at the party. They watched movie after movie in the theater room.

The adults ate and talked and ate some more and played games upstairs.

Around 10:00, I could tell that Emma Kate was getting tired. She came upstairs and crawled in my lap. Although she stayed awake, she pretty much stayed in my lap for the next 2 hours.

She perked up around midnight when we turned the TV on to watch the ball drop.

Here she is with her friend Ryanne at midnight...

(and yes, they are in their pj's)

Ryanne's baby brother Mason, was quite the little trooper. He slept for a little bit, but around 11:00 he woke back up and rang in the New Year as well. His Daddy gave him the appropriate accessories....

(and yes, that is sparkling cider)


Not many adults were still there at midnight....

But being the late night party animals that Philip and I are (insert sarcasm here), we stayed til the end!

Daddy's Pumpkin Carving

Philip told me to title this post "Daddy's Pumpkin Carving." He said that even though it was supposed to be for Eli & Emma Kate, that he basically did all of it!

To give Emma Kate some credit, she did participate in quite a bit of it. She started reading the "Pumpkin Prayer Poem" while Daddy cut the top off of hers.
Next, she started scooping out the insides.
If you look closely at the picture above (or just click on it to make it bigger), you'll see (in the background) what Eli was doing...reading a book. That's norm for him. Always has his nose in a book!

Philip started cutting the top off of Eli's, but Eli was still reading his book.

EK is still scooping hers out....

She decides that its just disgusting....

Philip finally told Eli to "put his book down and get over here."

So Eli did, but he didn't like the cleaning out process at all.

Next they drew faces on their pumpkins....

which was followed by Philip carving the drawn faces...

The little boys got up from nap just in time to take a picture with the completed jack-o-lanterns....

Easter 2010

We went to Texarkana for Easter this year. It was a quick weekend trip, but it was a good one!

The weather was beautiful, so the kids enjoyed walking down to Memaw's house....
Zander and Zane in Mimi's swing....

Mimi and Papa's church had a great Easter Egg Hunt Saturday morning. It was in the backyard of a beautifully landscaped home...

Zane

Zander

Zane loved his "egg babbit" (egg basket). He carried it everywhere for days after Easter. During the egg hunt, he wouldn't let anybody touch it to help him.

We attempted to get a picture of all 4 kids together, but it didn't go too well. Eli and Emma Kate did great though!

After lunch and naps, we went to a nearby park....

The next morning when we woke up, Mimi & Papa's yard was filled with eggs...

Zane LOVED gathering as many eggs as he could fit in his egg babbit...

After finding all the eggs, we got dressed for church....

After church we attempted another picture of all 4 in front of Memaw's house. This is the best we got for Easter 2010....

Valentine's Party

I very much dislike making Valentine boxes. Last year at the class parties, I saw a good idea using the Build-a-Bear houses that you get when you go to BABW. So I saved the only 2 we had and wouldn't you know...we didn't even use them. Emma Kate's class was supposed to decorate kleenex boxes during the party. Eli was supposed to decorate his at home, but he wasn't interested in doing anything with a Build-a-Bear box. :0 So....I came up with the idea of doing a football field....only problem was that I lacked the artistic-ness to pull it off.

DADDY to the rescue!!!!
Finished product....

accepting Valentine's the next day at the 3rd grade class party....

Eli handing out his Valentine's....

Party Food! You can see the 2 heart-shaped fruit pizzas I made. I signed up to make them as long as another mom would cut up the fruit...ha! Thanks Becky!

Some of the great moms in Eli's class came up with several really neat games for the kids to play. One of those games was to unwrap a Hershey's Kiss while wearing gloves...as demonstrated below by Eli

Next I walked over to Emma Kate's class. They had just finished decorating sugar cookies. Looks like she went heavy on the M&M's....

Next, they decorated their Kleenex boxes....

She likes to make silly faces when she knows I'm wanting a picture of her....

Finished product....

Handing out her Valentine's...

(will someone PLEASE remind me next year not to send my kids Valentine's in a Walmart sack? Seriously, how tacky is that?)



Love this glimpse of her eyes...that's so her...hiding behind others

How fashionista is she with her rain boots?

Daddy showed up at the parties toward the end. Since we could each be with one kiddo, I walked back over to Eli's party. Another mom in Emma Kate's class took this picture after I left....