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.

Pumpkins Pumpkins Everywhere!

 With it being Halloween time, we are overloaded with pumpkins.  It has been a fun pumpkin-y week.

We went to our local farm to pick some pumpkins.  They had a cute photo station set up. 

Going on the tractor to get out to the pumpkin field.  I think the tractor ride is a favorite.  We were the only ones at the farm this evening.  

Picking from hundreds of pumpkins is hard work.  Hannah wanted a small one.  She was a good searcher. 

The farm had a few extra family activities. We had fun in the hay maze.  

There were frisbees for throwing.  

And balls for shooting.  

And pumpkins for climbing.  Honestly, the children did not want to leave.  Adam got really upset and told us he would give up his bed and live there forever.  Yet we brought him home anyway.

A couple of days later we carved our five pumpkins.  The kids did a good job scooping out the seeds and the gunk.  We roasted the seeds that evening. 

The older girls all carved their own pumpkins.  We have some cool jack-o-lanterns now.

There were other pumpkin things this week too.  We made pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies.

Hannah and Adam got pretty covered in flour during the making of the cookies.

Having a cookie decorating party. 

Some of us really liked adding the decorations.

We also did a pumpkin craft.  I had never tried cutting the apple in half and dipping it into orange paint to make pumpkins.  But I think they turned out really well. 

So it has been a very busy and very fun week of pumpkins. 

Long Overdue

 This blog post is long overdue beginning of the school year pictures.

We have been preparing Adam for preschool for about three months.  We wanted him to be excited to have a new teacher and meet other kids his age.  His feelings for preschool have wavered between excitement and sadness.  The picture caught an excited moment. 

Megan is starting second grade.

Rachel is in third grade.

Whitney is in her last year of elementary school - the great 5th grade. 

The girls all do school virtually.  It will likely stay that way until at least January. I was a little worried about virtual school, but after a few hiccups on the first day, everything has been fine. 

On the other hand, Adam actually gets to go to preschool.  He even gets to ride a bus.  His class is only about six kids so social distancing isn't too challenging. Adam hasn't told me too much about what he does at preschool but he still likes going. His teacher is impressed with his reading abilities. 

In fifth grade my teacher, Mr. Droke, gave out Droke Dollars for good behavior.  He would have auctions and we could purchase random things.  So I decided to copy this idea while schooling at home.  The Keeler Kash is given out if the kids are good at school and do their homework without complaining. 

The last Friday of the month is Keeler Kash auction day. I bought a few little things, like this car that Adam bought.  But most of my auction items were coupons like "Extra 30 minutes of video games" and "One no having to clean day".  These coupons were more loved than the actual items.

Anyway, school has gone well so far. It is hard to believe how big my kids are getting though.