Saturday January 26 2008 - BUSY WEEK...

It started with Ava's practices for a play she is in, and choir and bball and then her birthday. We made cookies on a stick for her class that day. Here she is trying hard to prove she has no boyfriends!!!

Kendall has been busy with bball. He was coaching all weekend and got home tonight just as we were finishing up Ava's bday party. Why on earth I would do a party without him here is beyond me. Seriously though, it wasn't bad (thankfully my sis. in law came over to help.....it wasn't bad right Meg???). We did a Restaurant theme. My girls absolutely LOVE playing restaurant. Mya cracks me up when I spy on her playing in the playroom downstairs. She's so sweet when she pretends!!!! I love that they still play with the little playset that my dad built us when we were little. Here's a shot of my sisters and I many years ago......

Serious hours were spent by the 3 of us with this little kitchen and I LOVE that my 3 girls still use it to this day!!! It's always fun to "pretend". When Ava turned 4 I did a little party and made aprons for her friends and we had fun decorating pizzas and cakes. Well, believe it or not....it's what she wanted again...only this time instead of aprons we decorated mini clip boards so they could take each other's orders. They still got to decorate their own little mini cakes though. It was so much fun. And the major difference is that THEY made it all!!!!!! We made everything homemade.....(hence a 3 hour party)....so homemade pizza, homemade corn dogs, homemade ice cream as well as some fun drinks in fancy glasses and yummy appetizers which included nachos with homemade cheese sauce! My favorite parts of tonight came from non other, than my own little girl! She and 2 others were in charge of the "desserts" station. Here one of the things they had to prepare to go on the dessert was chocolate pudding. So I could hear them reading the recipe...." 2 cups of milk"..... good.....and after a while I could hear Ava saying, "Mom, we need help, this isn't working." So I go over to assist and seriously had to hold myself from bursting into laughter. They were so excited about doing it all on their own....and reading the instructions, that they totally forgot to add the pudding mixture. Much to her defence as she made it known...."well you didn't write that down". Note to self.....7 and 8 year olds need EVERY detail given to them still. So here she is whipping the milk....and it's not turning into chocolate pudding. Still cracks me up. There were so many times tonight I just had to smile and watch and try hard not to laugh. Mya was right in there with the big girls loving every minute and having fun ordering whatever she wanted off the menu. I'd include some shots but since I only took group pictures with other peoples children, I think I'll have to only include a couple shots I took after the guest went home and our girls went to bed. If I had to change anything I would have done it earlier in the day so we all weren't so tired after it all. Here's the aftermath.......Yikes!!!!! Most people clean as they go, but with Dane in my other arm....this is the result...

So as I finished cleaning up tonight, I decided that next year for her party the theme would be a "Cleaning party". You know, each guest could receive a pair of rubber gloves and we could just send them off on different tasks to clean my home!!! We could even buy those "100 flushes" for the treat bags!!!! jokes. Though it's really not a bad idea! Brookie was an angel tonight. Seriously such a good girl. For the most part she entertained herself and we only had to sing "Happy Birthday" twice (cause she wasn't totally included the first time........ and of course opening presents was difficult for her but other than that....this little two year old was amazing!!!!!!!!) I took this shot of them all earlier this afternoon as we were waiting for the water to boil for our lunch....

I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I LOVE THESE KIDS!!!! Ava was reading to the girls while Dane and I were tackling lunch...... and so it's one of those times when I made them freeze right there, threw Dane in...and got a shot. Picture taking has become so complicated for me these days. It's always such a huge deal that I often think it's not worth it.... usually by the time I've ran to find the camera...the moment is over....someone is crying....you know how it goes...but I'm glad I did today! I saw a newborn baby last Sunday and realized that my Dane is not such a newborn anymore. At 7 weeks, he is now giving smiles, cluster eating through the day but sleeping pretty good at night and he's got some funny little expressions and we just get so excited at any cooing he makes. It's funny how thrilling those sounds are. He makes us giggle and laugh just anticipating each new sound. Here he is with Kendall when he got home late last night. I suppose only a mother could absolutely gush over his expression here. I just think he's so funny sometimes.

I keep trying to get that perfect picture of him and haven't yet. I badly want to capture what it is that I see when I look at him. These pictures are close, but still..... they just aren't the real deal!!!! So that's what we've been up to. And next weekend is the Baptism and Blessing. We decided to combine them and so Ava and Dane will share their special days together! Though I think for the shin dig next week, I'll keep the cooking to myself!!!!!