Tea Party

We finally had Avrie's friend birthday party. She was driving us nuts with all the questions, how many more days until my party, then on Saturday she could hardly make it through her soccer game, when we came home she was asking what time it was every 15 minutes until the door bell rang.
And we were busy getting everything ready to go.

I enlisted the help of Ryan and his friend, who had just woken up,  they were in charge of hanging the pink curtains. They did a fabulous job.
 

 

We set the table, the first activity we did was make our tea party hats because a tea party isn't a tea party without a hat. Of course, there was feather boas and pear necklaces to go with the hats.

After the party hats were made it was time to eat and use our best tea party manners, I had 12 girls all saying please and thank you it was so cute and I can't believe how well mannered all of them were.

 We had fruit, tea sandwiches and cheese and crackers, although it was a tea party we had lemonade to drink.

 Next it was time to decorate cupcakes. There was lots of different colors of frosting and lots of toppings to choose from some of the kids used every topping on their cupcake.

Here are the girls working on their hats.

Yes, she ate all the toppings off of this cupcake and the frosting but left the cake...

After the cupcakes the girls planted flowers in tea cups to take home, that was a little messier than I expected and the table was covered with dirt and cupcake sprinkles. After that it was time for presents all the girls gathered on the sofa and sang Happy Birthday to Avrie and she opened presents.

We had time for one more game before it was time to go, we played musical dress-up when the music stopped if you were holding the special hat you could go to the dress-up box and put something on, there were some pretty crazy outfits by the time they were done.

We made quite the mess, but once everyone left the clean up crew came and helped me get this room back into order and all of those feather boas are now leaving feathers at other people's houses!
Avrie said it was the best birthday ever and she had so much fun!
I am glad that it is over, I don't love throwing parties but if I am going to have one I go under the motto go big or go home and this was a lot of work but Avrie loved it and I will never have another 6 year old to throw a party for....
*Note to older children in this family....when you were younger you had great parties as well so no complaining or I will pull the scrapbooks out and show you!

Part-time Job

Finally a post that is not about Avrie! I love living in Bellingham but it does come with its quirks, and quirky people! At our old house we had a garbage can for garbage and a similar can for recycling. It was so great and easy to recycle all we had to do was toss the recycling into the right can and a big truck came and picked it up and it was sorted at some other location.
When we moved to Bellingham our city issued garbage can was quite a bit smaller than our old one and we found out really quick that if the garbage can is overflowing and the lid does not shut down all the way they charge more to take away the garbage. With a big family we had no choice but to recycle, we go through a lot of stuff, and we were happy to recycle at our old house it was so easy. Not so much here,  we have to do our own sorting before recycling, if say a cardboard box is not broken down properly they will not take it, they also want everything rinsed out and clean as well. We have now lived here long enough that the memory of our easy to recycle big garbage bin is almost a distant memory and we have fully signed on to the task of the mega recycling job that needs to be done here.
Scott calls it his part time job, he only does it every other week so it does build up. At first we tried hard to sort and keep all the recycling organized but that didn't work out with the layout of our house, the garage is not close to the kitchen where most of the recycling comes from. A few years ago he bought a big blue recycling garbage can that fits into our coat closet and it is half way between the kitchen and garage and it seems to work for the most part.
Last Wednesday it was over flowing, maybe he forgot a week, and as he was out in the garage sorting I thought it was kind of funny, or ridiculous, that it is such a chore to recycle, why can't Bellingham make it easy for everyone to recycle instead of making it a part-time job for big families who would like to recycle?

 I know they really don't encourage big families here and I know this is not a ploy to stop people from having big families, but I find this ridiculous. What I also find ridiculous is that my husband keeps his own garbage/recycling can right by his desk, it makes it easier for him to recycle all of the Pepsi bottles that he goes through, almost enough to make a boat!

Tulip Time

On Wednesday we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take the kids out of school to go to the Tulip Festival. Destina didn't want to miss school and ruin her perfect attendance so we let her go to school until 10:00, Avrie was fine with missing a day so she stayed home and lounged in her pajamas until it was time to get ready to go.
We stopped for lunch on the way down and the girls had a great time.

They thought it was fun to run down the rows, Avrie fell into the flowers once and thought that was pretty funny.

 

I loved the purple flowers the best but it still takes my breath away to see row after row of tulips and all of the pretty colors.

 

Avrie said that her favorite part of the day was running down the rows of the flowers her favorite color was the pink ones.
Destina said that her favorite part of seeing the flowers was that some of them were so tall and she loved the kites flying in the back ground her favorite was was the orange ones. She also loved stopping at Munches for ice cream on the way home!

More Birthday Fun

We had our family party Sunday night Avrie choose enchiladas for her dinner and she wanted a "red" cake. After dinner she opened her presents and was so happy she had been waiting all day and the suspense was killing her.

 She could hardly wait to start eating her cake, and she was waiting for everyone to finish singing to her before she could blow out the candles.

She had to make sure her tongue was red, gotta love red dye!
 

 Not much left of her piece of cake!

 She was really happy with 3 pairs of new flip flops, now if she can just keep them away from the dog!

 When grandma and grandpa were here last month she made sure she told them she wanted a dream lite, and they came through for her with a big bear. She loves it and she has been excited to go to bed the last 2 nights because she can turn on her dream lite!

Kelsie really is the best sister ever, she spends a lot of time with Avrie and they are quite good friends!

And since today was her "real" birthday we took her out to pizza and then she had more presents to open from Ryan, Kelsie and McKenzie!

Happy Birthday Avrie!

Happy Birthday Avrie!

 I love EVERYTHING about you! 

I can't believe she is already 6 and almost done with kindergarten. She is funny, smart, naughty, talented, and she has a tender heart. We are lucky to have you in our family and I am blessed to be your mom!

We had our family birthday party on Sunday night, she has been so excited and talking about her birthday since Christmas. We will have a friend party at the end of the month and she has been working on the details of that party, she even wrote out all of the names of the friends she wanted to invite. Now if I can get my act together and pull off a party we will be in good shape!

  

Mom Moments

Do you ever have those moments when the second something leaves your mouth, you realize that what you just said was something of complete nonsense?  It happens to me all the time but tonight was a funny one.
Avrie is miss independent lately, waiting until no one is around and then doing something that she knows requires adult help or at least permission. The other day it was the big block of cheese on the counter that looked like it had been murdered and the huge big sharp knife sitting next to it. Of course, she knows she can not use the big knife, and she knows she should have asked someone to help her get some cheese.  This morning while Scott and I were gone to Destina's soccer game, in the rain, she hacked my FB account and sent out a message.
Tonight I ran to the store and when I got back she had scooped herself a bowl of ice cream,  and it was sitting on the table half eaten and she told me she was full as she was reaching for the bowl of grapes sitting on the table as well.  I looked at her and said, "You may not have any grapes until you finish all your ice cream!" Everyone started laughing, what kind of mother tells their child that they have to finish their ice cream before they can eat grapes? ME I did, and as soon as it came out I realized how ridiculous that sounded, but wasting ice cream is like a crime around our house!

Unfortunately, I had a whole room full of witnesses and I was busted!
I also came into my bathroom tonight and found about 2 feet of dental floss wadded up in my drawer, I wonder who did that? Luckily she was already asleep so I couldn't get mad at her for flossing her teeth!

Spring Break

Love having my kids home, but it has been nice and quiet this morning and I think I like that too. With Katie home we had an extended Spring Break, after she left the kids wanted to do fun stuff everyday. I was done with the fun stuff as soon as Katie walked through security. I had to go back to work and it started raining so how much fun could be had. Destina was invited to go swimming and Avrie just couldn't get over the fact that she could not go so I promised her that Scott would take her swimming while I was at work if she was good while we took Katie to the airport. On Thursday Scott loaded up the 3 little kids, Jayden went under much protesting, and he took them swimming, and to get ice cream. Ryan spent most of the break either skiing or working he will be happy with his next check I am sure. Kelsie's spring break was the week before so she was in school most of the week. On Friday Destina wanted me to do her hair so that was our fun activity for that day...not! Saturday was more soccer Avrie scored a goal and Destina scored the 3 goals for her team tying the game. Once again we had a window of sunshine it was a little cold but the rain stopped for most of the day, and then came back in full force Saturday night and all day Sunday.
It was a rude awakening for all the kids to get up early and out the door but somehow they managed. now if we can just make it to summer break only 2 months away!

Keep Climbing

Just in the Nick of Time

We had a really fun week with Katie home, the sun was out everyday and the weather was perfect. She left and it started raining today, I guess 7 days of perfect weather will have to do for now. We will miss her but so glad she came to visit!

More Fun!

Monday was a beautiful sunny day at our house so we asked Katie what she wanted to do and she suggested another hike. It took a little more cajoling to get some of the other kids to go but they all willingly went and Scott promised an easy flat trial hike.
We headed off to the Chuckanut mountain, there are several hikes on the mountain and Scott planned the ridge trail hike. Once we drove to the top Ryan decided to lead the way because he had been here before, so we followed him for a little while and pretty soon Scott was telling him that he was not on the right trail but Ryan insisted on taking us on a "better' trail. We followed like lambs to the slaughter.

We left the sun and we were hiking in the middle of a cloud and it was misting most of the time. Pretty soon our trail turned into a downhill biking trail it was pretty steep with lots of twists and turns and tree stumps, everyone was having a great time running down the trail even Avrie did pretty good as long as she was holding my hand, but all I could keep thinking was that if we are going down we will have to go up at some point to get to the car.

Sure enough when we arrived at the bottom we had to hike back up another trail it was a little wider and not as crazy as the trail we came down but it was pretty steep once we started going. When we finally made it to the road I was relieved and thought, "That wasn't so bad", until Scott said we were only about half way up the trail and we had to walk up the switchback road the rest of the way. Scott and Ryan took turns giving Avrie a piggyback ride and we stopped a couple of times along the way.

We were so happy to see the car, and then it was off to Menchie's for frozen yogurt, that was the bribe this time.  My quads are still in pain from going downhill for so long but it was fun and Ryan will not be the leader next time!

Easter

We go to church in the afternoon so we woke up and had our traditional Easter Morning Breakfast - Golden Rod Eggs, then it was off for the Easter egg hunt up at the school. This year I filled 155 eggs that was 19 eggs for each person with a couple to spare. Scott decided to be a little more creative in his hiding and used tape to place the eggs up high.

Each child had an egg filled with money that had their names written on the egg in sharpie and they had to find their own egg, McKenzie never found hers, so some lucky kid is going to find an egg full of money one day at recess. Scott likes to make things difficult.

Destina challenged Jayden to walk up to the school with his basket on his head, he didn't make it but Destina walked all the way to the school balancing her bucket on her head, she said she used to carry water on her head so this was nothing.

Some of the kids check their eggs to make sure it has what they want inside, if not they put it back and kept looking.

McKenzie was going across the monkey bars while looking for eggs.

Good thing all these girls were cheerleaders at one time or another so they could get the eggs that Scott placed on the basketball back board.

I think they were trying to get the birds eye view and see if there were any eggs they could find from up high.

The older kids asked if they would still be able to have an Easter egg hunt when they had kids, I think I will be doing Easter egg hunts until I die at this rate, they don't want to grow up.
Since Katie is home we have to do a family picture, not sure when we will all be together again so I didn't want to miss that opportunity, but that has been easier said than done. Getting all 10 of us in one spot at one time has been difficult. We decided that after church was going to be our best opportunity, but we were short on time because Tim and McKenzie were going to his parents for dinner so again we had about 15 minutes for pictures. We headed back up to the school and did a couple of different shots, trying to get 9 other people to cooperate was not easy as well. I thought I had a good shot and then I got home and everyone was looking good except little naughtylove decided to stick her tongue out and I didn't notice until I was home!

You might have to click on the picture to see it better, that little stinker! Then she went on to give me some really great shots of just her, I'll post later! I did manage to get one family shot that I am pretty happy with, all things considered, but you will have to wait for that one!
everyone was hungry and ready for dinner so after pictures it was time to eat yummy ham and cheesy potatoes then we had a family movie night, which half the family hated. Can't win them all but I have loved having everyone home and hanging out causing trouble and making lots of happy noises!

Easter Weekend

We have had a busy weekend, not sure if I mentioned that I love having Katie home, but I do.  She is the missing link around our house. She gets along with everyone and makes things more fun.
Saturday started out with soccer games Destina had her best game so far this season. She played goalie the first half of the game, this was her first time playing goalie she did a pretty good job, but they scored on her twice. The second half she played forward, and she scored 4 goals on the other team. All of the other parents and coach on the other team were yelling for their girls to guard her, one of the girls on the other team said to Destina, "Your not getting past me".  Little did they know that challenging her is just what she loves, and she was even more determined to get past and score. They won the game 6 to 2. The best thing was we have had 2 sunny Saturday soccer days, keeping our fingers crossed for more!

Off on the sidelines McKenzie, Katie and Avrie were having fun.
Next it was Avrie's soccer game and she had fun.
When we returned home it was time for our friend's Easter Egg Hunt. The girls look forward to this party every year. They have fun playing with all of their friends and finding candy!

Destina found a new baby to hold only 6 days old and she was not even interested in finding candy.

Later the kids came home and played outside and then it was time to color eggs.

It was a long day but full of fun Easter and Spring activities!