A Lego Party

 Rachel turned the big 9 this week.  She requested a Lego Party.  I didn't know what to do with that theme but the internet had a plethora of ideas.  Unfortunately, some of these pictures are a little dark.  But it was a fun party. 

You can't have a Lego party without yummy pizza.  My parents kindly brought some pizza to share. 

This is our Lego pinata.  The cups didn't last long, but it was cute. 

It was a Friday night, so it was really dark during the pinata.  No one got hit by the big stick, so a win. 

The kids had to find the big legos around the house. 

They were able to trade them in for some edible lego candy. 

We had a Lego ring toss.  

And the kids all loved moving Legos over with chopsticks. 

Some of us thought they were drumsticks and got upset when they were taken away. 

Rachel doing a pin the head on the Lego man. 

I hid some candy in a tower of Legos.  Each time a 1 or 6 was rolled the kids would try to take pieces off the tower. Adam and Hannah had their own tower so they wouldn't mess up the bigger one for the older girls. 

We did a Lego relay race.  We had to hold a Lego with a spoon and race up the stairs and back to the table.  There was some blatant cheating on both sides of this race. 

Rachel liked her presents. 

Here she gets a clay maker.

Will made a Harry Potter puzzle for Rachel.

Lego brownies were a hit. 

The next day was Rachel's actual birthday.  She requested breakfast in bed, which ended up being the couch.  We made some homemade donuts and scrambled eggs. 

Happy Lego Party!  And now I have a 9 year old.  I think Rachel had a great time at her party.  Now I have a 1 week break before Hannah's birthday party. 

Early Christmas

 We have done a couple of things to make our home more Christmas-y.  I love the whole month of December and have been listening to Christmas music for the past couple of weeks.  It is great.

Our advent calendar came out, filled to the brim with candy.  Until Hannah discovered there was easy candy to grab.  She would steal like four pieces every day.  So now the candy is not in the calendar but in an up high child proof kitchen cupboard.  The kids have to ask me for their candy every morning.  It is still such a cute advent calendar that we have it up keeping track of the date. 

Rachel made us this chain to count down for Christmas. 

She also designed up this cute candy cane.

We thought about not getting a Christmas tree to save a little money, but there was much tears at the thought.  I found this artificial tree at WalMart for not too much money.  So I was the hero for the day.  The kids had a fun time decorating the tree.

Hannah was less sure about decorating.  But she liked seeing her baby ornament with a picture of her with a butter face. 

The final tree is so covered in ornaments that you can hardly see the tree branches.  It turned out really cute.  I do miss the Christmas tree smell though.

The elves have come out and like to get in trouble around the house.  This elf needed a midnight snack.

 

Can you find the elf?

And these elves took out a bunch of grocery bags and spread them on the kitchen floor.  The kids have loved finding the elves every morning. 

We went to a Hermiston drive through light show.  We weren't too sure what to expect but it was awesome.  Everyone thought this train was really cute.  

And Santa's workshop looked like a busy place.

I loved the Nativity scenes. 

And this was the last one as you were leaving.  I love the reminder that Christmas is about our Savior and He has promised us peace on Earth when we follow Him.

So those were some of our early Christmas activities.  There has also been a lot of wrapping and baking. It has been fun getting ready for Christmas.  

Adam Turns 5!

 It is hard to believe that my little boy is now five.  I think he had a fun birthday party.  We did it last Friday while we were in Pasco for Thanksgiving.

All birthday parties need to start off with balloons.  These were great fun.

Adam decided he wanted to have a Mario themed party.  I was kind of excited about this one because I had never planned one like this and I knew there would be lots of ideas on the Internet.  It ended up being a fun theme that everyone liked.

I made a Mario Kart cake.  I think it turned out pretty well. And Adam liked it; so that's what is important.

Some of our other party food included blue cloud Jell-o. I know this isn't really Mario themed, but it showed up on the tablet when I looked up Mario food, Adam saw it and really wanted Jell-o. 

We also needed fire power; that's crucial. 

It is hard to tell but these are suppose to be the piranha plants.  Will cut the tips off the strawberries to make it look like a mouth. They were yummy.

We had a few fun Mario games. Adam is searching for the lost Yoshi eggs, which were really just Easter eggs with white circle stickers.  The eggs were filled with candy and hidden all over the house.

Megan searching for some eggs in the couch cushions.

Then we had a cookie walk.  Not cupcakes because I knew we were having cake later.  I printed eight main characters from the Mario games and the kids had fun walking around to the Mario songs.

We played Pin the Mustache on Luigi. I drew this Luigi and it was kind of challenging to draw it without a mustache.

Some mustaches got a little closer than other ones.

I just put an 'M' on a winter hat and we played Mario Says.  I wasn't sure the kids would like this game, but they did.  

Suddenly a whole bunch of goombas appeared.  We had to stomp on them to make them go away.  Adam was a really good stomper.

Some of us popped those packing bubbles (I mean goombas) a little more carefully.

This is Adam's cousin, Raine.  She lives in the Tri-Cities and was able to join us for the party. We had to throw Mario down the drain pipe in order to collect chocolate golden coins.

And finally a Luigi pinata.  Adam prefers Luigi and Hannah prefers Mario.  I filled the pinata with MnMs.  The pinata was a little hard to break.  I will have to remember to not double up on the cereal boxes. Thanks dad for risking your safety for pinata duty.  

Hannah had a couple good hits. 

Then it was Adam's favorite time - present time. Adam got a lot of great things.  

Will made him this Luigi puzzle.

He got a stuffed Luigi from my parents.  That's one of his favorite presents.  It has come to bed with him the last couple nights. 

Then we ate all the yummy food/ 

The Mario party turned out really fun.  Adam thought it was great.  Now he is a whole hand (five years old).  I have a couple weeks break before the next party.