Before Thanksgiving!

I type this as I sit waiting in Salt Lake City with Andy's family (Janet's sisters and cousins and people everywhere) for our bacon-covered turkey to get done and thought I better get caught up before December hits.  We have been busy (as usual) this Fall...watching the World Series (hence the baseball pizzas), building things at Home Depot, 2 weekends of camping, and enjoying a perfect Kansas fall.

 The first Saturday of the month on Home Depot is a kids workshop.  We LOVE these days.  This day we made pallet coasters.  Both girls are quite impressive with a hammer....and a paintbrush. 

We went on our first camping trip with just our family.  It was fun to be together and are so thankful the girls love nature as much as we do.  The following weekend we went with friends (which is also enjoyable)!  We love camping in October because the weather is perfect!

 The girls putting on Frozen concert.

 Andy was ecstatic to finally be able to introduce the game of golf to the girls.  We took them to a driving range and Hadley is already a pro (and by pro I mean she can sometimes hit the ball).  It's a work in progress which Andy is very excited for.

 And Joni tried it for a bit and then was content to pick and play with flowers.  Love our girls and their different personalities.

Pumpkin time!

 This year the girls changed things up and painted AND carved their pumpkins.  

Joni's was a fairy house.  

And Hadley wanted a cross on a hill.  

And just like 2/3 of the rest of the world, we were Frozen characters for Halloween.  Joni is retro Anna...

 Hadley is Elsa...

And we were Sven and Olaf.

"At the time, few would have suspected that the sound of a hammer striking the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany, would soon be heard around the world and lead ultimately to the greatest transformation of Western society since the apostles first preached the Gospel throughout the Roman empire. Martin Luther’s nailing of his ninety-five theses to the church door on October 31, 1517, provoked a debate that culminated finally in what we now call the Protestant Reformation."

Our first annual Reformation Party was a hit too!  We played hammer the Thesis on the door and made a craft too.  We are excited to continue the tradition.

And another fun project for our house when I learn just how handy my handy man is...with the help of Kemper, they transformed our fireplace (which has been on the list since we moved in).

Happy Thanksgiving!  Love to you all!

Happy Birthday Hadley! The Big 6!

Hadley's birthday weekend was super fun...party on Friday, birthday on Saturday.  She told everyone she saw, "I'm 6 now!"  I wonder if 6 is a milestone to children....at least it was to Hadley.  Last year when she turned 5, the first thing she said was, "Now, I'm gonna be 6!"  6 is exciting!  

Hadley is forever asking for breakfast in bed.  We have explained it isn't fun when you know it's coming, she loves breakfast in bed.  So we got up early (on a weekend after a crazy party night, mind you), made her rainbow pancakes, and served her in BED!    

If you know anything about us, you know we like to do birthday parties.  In another time I could be a party planner, I think, maybe.  This year we convinced Hadley (not very difficulty), that a HOLIDAY PARTY was would fun.  And it was.  It was.

We celebrated New Years, Valentine's, St. Patty's, Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  We tried to represent every holiday when we could.

DECORATIONS

One of the funnest parts about the party was that the invitation said to come dressed as your favorite holiday.  It was exciting to see what all her friends came ready for.  Judah (below) and his family color shirts every year for 4th of July. 

Paige and Ty were Christmas trees :)  So cute.

I'm guessing you can figure out Lydia....that's baby Jesus :)

And Willa had Valentine's covered.  Hadley's favorite holiday is Christmas but she wanted to wear pink too so she was torn.  As I was looking through her Christmas dresses from last year, we found this jackpot of a dress.  A PINK CHRISTMAS DRESS.  It was meant to be!  She called it her Valentine's Christmas dress.

And the adults played along too!  4th of July, Christmas, and Easter.

ACTIVITIES

When the guests came in, they put their present under the tree....

and then went over and wrote something they were thankful for on a leaf they then glued on the Thanksgiving Tree.

Then we decorated mini gingerbread houses (graham houses).  Turns out we can fit a ton of people into our kitchen.  

The most exciting time of the evening was doing fireworks.  We bought extra in July to have for this it totally paid off.  The kids thought it was awesome.  We did it in the parking lot across from our house....

First smoke bombs...

then some fountains...

and some sparklers...

and finally some snakes.

DESSERT

Instead of a cake, we had each holiday represented by a dessert.  Heart cupcakes for Valentines....

Oreo clocks for New Years...

Christmas cookies for.....Christmas...

tomb cookies for Easter...

mint chocolate chip ice cream and green grapes for St. Patrick's

watermelon stars for 4th of July...

and turkey cookies for Thanksgiving which I didn't get a picture of.  And Happy Birthday water :)

Instead of singing happy birthday, we counted down (like New Year's) and everyone had a party popper to pop after we yelled happy birthday.  The kids LOVED it.  Happy birthday sweet girl:)

After cupcakes, we did a scavenger hunt (which was the most crazy, chaotic thing we could have done with a house full of people (44 not counting our family)).  At the end (in the dryer) were goodie bags for the guests.  

Present time.  We are super blessed by sweet friends who love our girls.

Speaking of loving our girls....our parents do a good job of spoiling them (especially around birthdays).  And the one thing she asked for more than anything else was....a pony.  Since we didn't want a pony tied up in the backyard eating hay (Hadley had it all figured out) the next best thing was Legos.  And did she get Legos!  This set was from Nana and Papa (along with a membership to Legoland!!!...more on that later).

Oma and Opa got her a Summer Horse Riding Camp Lego set.  It is huge and awesome and super exciting.  It has horses (3 actually) which apparently were good enough replacement for the real thing.  Then....LEGOLAND!

They have this crazy room at Legoland where people have spent what I'm sure is thousands of hours to build all the hotspots of Kansas City (including downtown, the speedway, a famous KC theater, as well as a Wizard of Oz set.  Super cool and a major TON of legos everywhere.

All Legos my friends....ALL Legos!

Here is a close-up of the door (which I love because of the guy hanging out of it).

They had soft Legos to play in...

and Lego rides too.  It was (and continues to be) a great gift!