4th of July

The 4th of July is always a holiday my kids look forward to. I wish it was because they understood the main reason for the celebration, but it is actually because they look forward to our neighborhoods yearly 4th of July Block Party. This year my neighor Tami and I sort of took charge and then the craziness began....

My Sister, husband and their kids stayed the night before at our house. When we woke up, we all woke up to the strongest winds ever. The party is always held outside and we knew it had to go on, so we just went with it. It will probably be one of the mist memorable 4th of July block parties... We set up as much as possible but with the wind things weren't wanting to stay put.

First off we had the parade around the neighborhood.




Afterwards we plugged in all of the grills for the pancakes and as we were cooking them, the power we were using had an overload and quit on us. This left only half cooked pancakes. The only solution was bringing the grills to someone's house and cooking there. I took on the job as the runner who ran up and down a hill to Tami's house picked up the cooked pancakes, ran them back down the hill and onto the food table. Great WORKOUT, seriously.

Eventually everyone got fed and the games/activities were to begin, only problem was the wind and the cold. Luckily we have a very supportive neighborhood and several people opened up their garages to host the activities.

I did face painting again this year and was super excited to tryout my new face paints. I did face painting with a few other of my talented neighbors. It was crazy as usual but with the walls of the garage blocking the wind everything worked out.



Overall it was an exhausting event for the adults, but the kids loved it and hopefully next year we can get rid of the wind and plan ahead for the power overload which we should had already done since it happened the year before.... ;0)

Brother Visits

One of my favorite memories this summer was when my oldest brother came to visit. Since being on his own her has lived all over. Most recently him and his wife are living in Japan with my adorable niece, Parker. Since they have had her I have not seen her other than pictures and skype so this visit was a major deal.



It was so fun seeing my brother as a dad. Overall it was just great hanging out with him and his wife. The bonus was getting the WHOLE family together again. It has been a couple of years since his last visit.

Tate graduated Pre-School

Anderson Family Trip

Way back... when the summer began (in June) we had an Anderson family vacation. It has been a long time since we have been able to all get together and finally we did. We went up to Matt's family's cabin and spent a week there. We did tons of four wheeling, hiking and even horse riding. My brother in law had a buddy bring his horses to the cabin. There was even a pony for the smaller kids to enjoy.





Some other activities we did were decorate t-shirts and the girls all got to make their own dolls. It was defiantly a vacation to remember.

Valentines

(YUP, this is a bit old. I started it and never finished, but here you go.....)

We had the craziest Valentines week, but I absolutely loved it! I have sort of been on a kick lately of parties, so I thought it would be awesome to invite a few of Tate and Addie's friends over for a valentine party. Last minute my nieces and nephew joined too, so that their mom and dad could go out for their anniversary. There was defiantly going to be a party!

Tate really wanted to decorate the house for valentines and so I had him help me pull something together. It turned out pretty cute for it being cheap hand made decorations. I didn't even have to spend anything since we just collected things around the house. ...





Speaking of Tate helping me, I swear I know how to spell Valentines. I had Tate string the letters on and at some point they must have gotten mixed up. For some reason I didn't even notice until everything was all hung up. I wasn't about to pull the sign down and get the letters reorganized.


We had some cousins and a couple of friends come over. We ate heart shaped grilled cheese, decorated cookies and played a couple of games. Overall it was a success!!!

Superheroes in Training...

My cute mom is always wanting to do memorable things with her grandchildren. Last summer she held a tea party for the girls and their dolls. It was so fun. Of course she then wanted to do something for the boys. I gave her the idea of something with super heros. From there, this is what we came up with.

Made Capes

Found these adorable certificates to print at Designergirl007


Then my sister in-law and I made these fun cupcakes!

"Ok, I am a little crazy since this was only for two little boys, but what the heck, we all had fun."

Then we had to have some games so that the boys could complete their Superhero Training. Like the "X-Ray Vision Test" where we blindfolded the boys and had them guess what it was they were feeling in the bowls. (We had pasta, rice and cut up tomatoes).

The favorite was the "Speed Test". We have a small hill in our neighborhood where the boys could sled. As they slep I timed them and had them race. They had a blast!


Our last game was "What are your senses? Test". We had a list of questions we read to the boys and they had to answer them. One of the questions was a scenario where they had to pretend a bank was robbed and tell me how they were going to stop the robbers from getting away. It was so fun to hear the boys crazy answers.

After games we decorated mask and ate pizza!

Finally the boys were officially sworn as Superheroes! They could choose their own name, which Tate chose "Batman 6"???? I don't get it either?.... and then we signed their certificates and took pics. Tate's sort of looks like a mug shot. I hope this isn't suppose to be telling me something.

Looking for New Sitter......!

Sometimes it just takes four hours to show a husband how hard being a mommy really is.....

So about a month ago Matt watched the kids while I had to head out. I was gone about 4 hours. I told him to watch dinner, which was a roast in the oven, and most importantly... OUR KIDS!!!

As soon as I walked in the door Tate came running to me yelling, "Mommy, Addie peed all over the floor". I walked to the family room to see Matt sitting on the couch in loss for words. I have never seen him so overwhelmed. I asked him what else happened and he told me how Tate broke a lamp and dinner got burnt. Right then I see Addie running in the kitchen naked. Her hair looked wet and I asked Matt if she just got a bath? Matt then told me how he had given her a bath.... over an hour ago. I then asked, "Why is her hair still wet". "Oh, it's not wet", Matt said, "It's Vaseline"! So to top everything off, Addie had gotten into some Vaseline I had in a basket on her dresser for when she was a baby. She thought it was lotion or something and rubbed it all over herself and hair....



It took me three days to get the Vaseline out. I tried Corn Starch and Baby Oil. I read online you could use peanut butter or raw egg, but honestly that just seemed nasty. Luckily my cousin reminded me of Basic H2, which is an all natural degreaser and it got most of it out. After the second wash with it, her hair was back to normal.

Here are some pics of the Corn Starch washing.... Addie thought it was so funny!