Family Party for the Girls

Having a winter birthday always means that it is a little hard to plan a party! You never know what the weather will do and with so much sickness going around it is always anyone's guess as to if you will be able to have the party that you planned or not. In the past this has stopped us from always doing a party for the girls but this year we decided to give it a try. Luckily, everything went as planned and we didn't have any illness or bad weather to contend with. It was fun to have everyone over to help us celebrate these 2 cuties. 

Grandma made Emmy the mermaid cake that she requested.

Abby wanted an ice cream cake.

Thank you everyone for making this day special for Abby and Emmy.

Abby turns 9

Abby is turning 9. It is hard to believe that she is that old already. She is by far our easiest child and always has been. She is laid back and easy going and eager to please. She has the patience of a saint especially when dealing with Emmy. She is artistic, flighty, sweet, messy and has no sense of time. She is a home body and can entertain herself for hours by crafting, drawing or playing with slime. She likes to cook, bake and help with Emmy. She is terrible at cleaning her room, craft room and play room. She is a bit of  a tornado with her stuff so its a good thing that her sweetness makes up for it. She loves dance this year and has been working on her turns with her turn board. She used to be pretty clumsy but she has really gained more grace this year. She loves the color pink and everything sparkly. She has an obsession with slime and does her fair share of watching and playing on her Ipad. Her best friends are Mya at school and of course Addison which has been her BFF for years now. She plays volleyball, dances and is in Girls Scouts. She wants to be a daycare provider when she grows up. 

For her party this year she wanted to have a small group of friends over for a sleepover. She was excited that everyone was able to come. She had Addison, Mya and Lucy from Norris and Emily our old neighbor and she even made a point to invite Emmy. They all requested McDonalds for supper so Robb went and picked up a lot of Happy Meals. They had fun playing at our house for the evening. She opened gifts, made and played with slime and ate cupcakes. They also had a dance party in the playroom, which was pretty funny!

Making slime.

Lucy got her slime to make a huge bubble.

When it came to bedtime the girls were going to sleep downstairs but Addison started telling scary stories and then she told Lucy that we live right next to a graveyard and everyone was freaked out so we moved the mattresses upstairs and I slept in Abby's bed next to them. It won't be forever that I get asked to partake in the slumber party. They went to bed super late and I appeared to be the only one that was exhausted the next day.

Robb made pancakes and sausage for everyone in the morning. 

We then went to the matinee of Paddington Bear 2. We were a little surprised at her movie pick but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. All the girls loved it. I think Abby had a great party!

Fridays are Friend Days

Robb has always been a big proponent of having friends over and I am trying to come around to the idea. Robb loves having our house be the place where the kids want to come and hang out at and as he has explained to me many times before, you want to be the house that they want to be at or you never get to see your teenagers. I get that but at the same time more kids = more work to me no matter how you spin it. I am trying it be better at it, so we typically do Friend Friday and the kids can invite someone over. These nights our table looks like this and we cook for a small, hungry army. I know that one day, all too soon, this house and table will seem very empty so for now I will put up with and maybe even try to enjoy Friend Fridays.

Christmas Break with Cousins

This year Andy turned 21 and chose to go to Vegas to celebrate. Bob, Susie, Ginger and Aaron went along to help him celebrate. I was a little bummed that we didn't get to go but finding someone to watch 4 kids and get them to all of their activities is a bit challenging. Robb also is still having a lot of back pain and I'm not sure that he could even sit that long in a plane right now. Since we decided not to go, we got named the people that were trustworthy enough to watch Brook and AJ. I was a little worried how it would go with an extra 2 kids at our house but it went surprisingly well. It was fun getting to spend time with them and the kids loved it. I had some time off that week and Robb took a day off too. We had a couple activities planned as well as Bryce having a basketball tournament. We swam at the Y, attended basketball games, watched movies and went to Mahoney for the day.

This was our day at Mahoney. We have started going here once during Christmas break. They have a huge indoor play area, a sledding hill and an ice skating arena. We went with a couple of Roper friends and then had Brook and AJ too. AJ told me he had never been ice skating so I told him I would help him and we tried it. We made it around once and he had decided that ice skating was something that he never wanted to try again. Silly kid! Emmy loved ice skating, however, what she considered ice skating just about killed me. She would kick her feet out and move her arms around pretending to "ice dance" while I desperately tried to hold her up while I was also wearing skates. Brook and Abby the graceful ones of the bunch had a great time ice skating and they were both pretty good at it by the end of the day. Bryce and Caleb tried it and could get around if they held on but they decided that it wasn't all that fun. The boys all loved the toboggan hill and the girls opted to sit in the van and eat snacks where it was warm. The sledding hill was crazy steep and ended around a corner where you couldn't see them. Caleb and AJ made me nervous each time because they would try to steer the sled over bumps and ended up flying off each time.

It was really fun having the kids stay and it was humorous to see the boys having to interact with a girl their age that wasn't their sister. They both got tired of her talking about her boyfriend and they thought that they were probably cooler than he was. Abby and Emmy loved having an older girl to look up to and one that was willing to have dance parties and do crafts with them. AJ has the funniest personality ever and he was a pleasure to have at our house. He made us feel like a gourmet cook by loving everything that we made. He wanted all the recipes that we made. He is also just a hilarious kid in general. At one point I thought he was hoover boarding naked and I explained why that was dangerous. Turns out he just had on a really small pair of underwear. Too funny. He also loved to just take his pants off if we were hanging out at home. I'm glad that he felt comfortable with us. Ha Ha!!