Jacks Birthday party

Due to circumstances beyond our control, i.e., weather, we had to fall back to our Plan B for Jack’s birthday party and have it in our basement. Andy found a great craft project that was just perfect for boys in range of 7-9 and there was plenty of pseudo-weaponry to keep them entertained for the whole two hours.

We celebrated Jack’s actual birth day with his grandparents with just a small party of pizza and cake. He opened up his presents from us as as well as the one’s from his Grandparents and his Uncle Mark. I would say he was pretty pleased with what he got.

No longer a seven year old.

Making a wish.

MMM… delicious cake.

The dog wants cake too.

The loot!

Some of the aftermath. A lot of what he received was Mega Blocks or Lego so it required some assembly.

I was a little leery at having so many kids in my basement, especially since we haven’t done too  much to redo it so that it looks at least a little presentable, but it was clean and safe and full of toys and there was plenty of room to play.

They were fairly well behaved and didn’t break anything or hurt anyone too much. They were all full of energy and were able to keep themselves entertained for the majority of the party.

We had a craft activity planned which went over better than I expected. they were able to calm down and pay attention and each made their own paracord bracelet to take home along with their gift bags full of goodies.

We had cake and ice-cream floats for desert and everybody sang Jack Happy Birthday. The time passed so quickly that they were barely finishing their cake when all the parents started to show up. All the parents were pretty concerned with how it went and relieved that it went so well. I think they were looking to see how bad it might be if they did the same thing.

These are Jack and Alex’s bracelets that they made themselves (mostly). They love them and wear them every day. I got an update and their friends still wear their bracelets to school the majority of the time.

Happy New Year

We have fairly new traditions each year that we have been cultivating since we moved to beautiful Wisconsin. One of those is our New Year’s Eve celebration family style with our very good friends The Balistreri’s and Emanuele’s. We have for the last three years joined their families to ring in the New Year with all of our children who are around the same age. While the children laugh and entertain themselves we get to have a little adult conversation and catch up on what has been going on in each other’s lives along with a meal prepared by Melissa, who is a phenomenal cook, though she would say otherwise. What a better way to ring in the New Year than with the people you enjoy?

Some sledding

We tried to go sledding after having had a little bit of snow. The hills we go to were a little hard though. One hill had good powdery snow, but it had been worn away where you sled. The other hill was good but our sleds were leaking air which made it hard to get good speed. We had fun anyways, which is the whole point.

A few of our Christmas memories this year

Christmas foosball.

Looking at the gifts the kids made in class.

Playing Kerplunk.

Echo trying to help build Lego sets

The presents under the tree and the kids patiently waiting to open them.

A firefighter and mercenary. Watch out for the rubber bands they can hurt.

Resting and enjoying one of my presents.

The crazy hat family photo.

Jack building his Halo Mega blocks set and Alex and Mark working on Monster Fighters Lego set in the background.

Echo the Christmas dog. She was s o well behaved the entire time.

The majority of the Christmas memories were made on Christmas Eve when everyone was around. On Christmas day Andy had to go to work so he couldn’t spend that much time with us. We did have Christmas morning together with just Andy, me, and the kids before it was all spoiled by work.

Hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas and is looking forward to a great New Year!

End of the World? Not quite…

Although it sometimes feels like it could be the end of the world when you are dragged away from all the fun that freshly fallen snow has to offer to the drudgery of something like school.

After not getting anywhere near the drop of snow that we were told to expect it was kind of nice that at least there was enough for the kids to find some fun.

jack had just enough time to make a shallow snow angel on the driveway while waiting for the bus to come pick them up to go to school.

Because the wind had blown really hard there was plenty of fallen branches to occupy their time while waiting.

At some point the fun is bound to end and real life begins.

At least it was only a half day.

Alex’s Holiday (Christmas) Party

Is it wrong for me to find it highly amusing that even though it is called a holiday party, everything that you do is included in Christmas? Anyway, I was able to volunteer at the school for Alex’s kindergarten party. He loves it when I am there. I think in Kindergarten it is a point of pride when your parent shows up in your class room. It was also pajama day so it was not really like a school day at all.

We played all kinds of fun games. they got to decorate cookies.

Eat the cookies they decorated.

Be wrapped up in toilet paper.

Become a snowman with a scarf and buttons.

And they even had food and drinks.

Plus, the day ended an hour early due to the anticipation of inclement weather. There is no better to put you in a good mood more so than a kindergartener celebrating a holiday.

The first Snow of the season!

Oh how the children have been waiting for this day to come. Every day they check and ask and even listen to the weather to see if it will snow. It finally did and they were out of the house for most of the putting their tiny child prints in the snow and building the first snow man of the season.

Of course, sadly the next day was a bit warmer and after that it rained so there wasn’t much left of the snow man besides a pile of hardened snow.

Guess that’s what pictures are for. Oh and then there’s the crazy dog  who completely loses her mind in the snow and runs around in circles at top speed for hours for no reason. The dog that hates the water loves the snow.