Reading is Fun!!

Megan is new to a reading program at school called Accelerated Reader. She has been going strong for about a month and a half. She gets to pick out some books and bring them home and we read them with her every night. Then the next day she takes them back to school and takes a test on them. Usually Andrew wants nothing to do with the reading time or he'll hang out in the room but isn't really interested. For the first time ever he crawled into Jeff's lap and said "yes read" with a big grin on his face. I just got the tail end of a book on video and thought it was a nice step in the right direction for us. It is hard to keep his interest on much of anything so this was really nice for us.

Oh let it shine...

My kids have just had a week off of school for Mid-Winter Break. At the start of the week they were kind of excited for a bit of time off but as the week wore on they became bored and restless. It wasn't easy trying to come up with interesting things for them to do. They usually ended up fighting with each other of the littlest things.

We actually have had some good weather lately with the sun out. The air still has a little winter bite to it but the sun is out and that means it is all good to go outside for some fun. Jeff and I took the kids to the park and they soaked up every second of it. I think the rest of Puyallup had the same idea as the park was packed with people. The play structures had so many kids on them that it was hard to keep track of where our 2 children were. We ended up taking a little nature hike around the pond (.8 of a mile circle). The kids enjoyed finding the biggest sticks they could find to dip in the water or help them walk the hike. As we stopped at little water side spots the kids also tried their hand at rock skipping. Let just say a lot more practice is needed :} It was a fun outing and nice to get out of the house. I think we all needed it. Now it is time to get back into the swing of our normal routine as school starts back up tomorrow. It will be nice to have life get back to normal.

Andrew's 1st spend the night

While Megan was enjoying her slumber party with her friends Andrew got some fun one on one time with Grandma and Papa. This was his first big spend the night all by himself at age 4. I'm told he was really good. I was a little worried for the night time but he fell asleep by 9:30pm without any problems. I'm glad it worked out so well and everyone was happy.

Slumber Party Madness

Well we survived the first slumber party!! We ended up with 8 girls total and boy was it a party. We did have two of the girls leave early as they weren't ready for a spend the night yet. So that made it 6 for sleeping here.

We played the Wii and Megs Pet Shop toys as our guests arrived. After that we had yummy pizza and bread sticks for dinner. Then we started to get into the real fun. We started off with a craft of "princess wand" making. All the girls loved this and put their own special touch on their wands. We followed that with presents and cake. Megan picked of course chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Got Milk??

Next we started with the big activities of the evening. We played pass the package, sock grab, sleeping beauty, hide and go seek glow sticks, mummy wrap, and a white elephant type prize exchange.

The girls showed their girly character during the games. It was interesting to see who wanted to be in charge and who wanted to win everything. We had some tears at one point and a little home sick sadness but all blew over within 5 or so minutes. For the most part everyone got along really well and had a great time. It was something to see some personalities fit together.

We rolled out the beds around 10:30pm and the girls got to watch a movie and have popcorn. Everything was going really smooth till the minutes started to tick away and tiredness began to kick in. Around 11:30 two of the girls had fallen asleep and the rest wanted to so I left them with the movie going on a sleep timer. I'd say about 15 or so minutes later I heard the pitter patter of feet asking to turn off the TV as they couldn't sleep with it on. Lets just say we made several trips up to the girls for several talks that lasted till 2:00am. We had some real night owls that just couldn't sleep. I really think for the most part each girl fell asleep at one point to be woken up later by others. Each time we had different sets of girls with one consistent culprit. Oh you guessed it our little Meg was the ring leader. Jeff and I are a bit tired today so I can only imagine what the girls are going to be like for their families.

I woke up at around 7am for a quick shower and then came upstairs to see a few girls awake. Some of the night owls were snoring away but quickly gotten woken up by the others. We had pancakes for breakfast and then each girl got to pack up their suitcases and get dressed while I painted toe nails and finger nails. Starting at 9:15am one by one the doorbell rang and each girl went home.

As the last girl left Ken and MarGene arrived to return Andrew to us. I'd like to say again a big huge Thank You for taking him. I have no idea how we would have survived the night with him underfoot and I'm so glad for the offer. Thank You!!

All in all we had a successful night and had a ton of fun. We are a bit exhausted today but it was worth it for Megan to have so much fun. Not sure if we are ready to do it again anytime soon but I'm sure it isn't our last slumber party.

Gearin' up for more birthday fun

First off I'd like to give a shout out to Ken and say Happy 60th Birthday!!!! Today he changes the front number as another decades passes. Have a wonderful day!! I'd also like to say thank you for taking Andrew tonight for his first sleep over so Megan can have her slumber party to herself. It will be a huge help!!

As I gear up to have Megan's slumber party the stress has started to kick in. We invited 13 girls and so far we know that 6 are for sure coming. This I feel is a manageable number of girls so it shouldn't be too bad. I think we've pretty much got everything together for the evening but I'll be glad when it is over with. Jeff made Megan's cake last night and the kids had to help by cleaning up :}

I remember the days of licking the spoon or bowl with free abandonment like this. Well wish us luck and keep an eye on the blog for more pics of the big event.

Oh the cupcakes

A few weeks ago Megan and I went to the school for a special intro to a new reading program. While we were there Megan's teacher came up to talk to us and said "February is a big birthday month so we should be getting lots of treats. Megan says that her mom doesn't do treats so I guess you won't be sending anything." I was very perplexed by this comment as I have sent something for Megan's birthday ever since she started preschool. I let the teacher know that of course I would be sending something and had actually thought about bringing in cupcakes. Meg just stood beside me with a sheepish grin on her face.

So as Meg's birthday was this past Sunday it is time for the special birthday treat. Since there are a handful of birthdays in Megan's class we had to coordinate a day that would be just for Megan and tomorrow is the big day. Jeff helped me out and made the cupcakes and we let Megan decorate them. Don't you love her artistic talent? I set out a few options for her to choose from and she had to use them all. We ended up with 30 cupcakes with "character" to them. We'll say Megan gave them her personal touch. These are for sure hand made!

Happy 7th Birthday

Happy Birthday to my baby girl!! It is hard to believe she is already 7 years old. As I looked back at her baby pictures it was easy to see how big she has grown and how much she has changed. I think Jeff and I have learned just as much as she has in her seven years!!

We celebrated today with letting Megan have whatever she wanted for breakfast. She choose blueberry muffins with butter on them and hot chocolate. That was followed by her main present from us. She got a camp rock guitar and computer game. You get to play the guitar along with music from camp rock that shows on the tv screen. She loved rocking out a bit this morning to try it out. She got other stuff but this was the present she wanted to play with first and loved it.

We are now off to church and she can't wait to pass out her slumber party birthday invitations. For some crazy idea Jeff and I agreed to let Megan invite 13 girls to a slumber party! I'm sure they won't all come but we are gearing up for a house full of giggling girls who won't get any sleep. Oh help us that night. I'll be sure to take more pictures of that evening so you can all see how much fun we have.