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.

Remembering...

I miss you and not a day goes by that you aren't in my heart!

Happy Birthday Big Brother

As I got a bit caught up in taking care of a sick little Andrew and my daily tasks I didn't make time for my blogging activities. As I laid in bed last night I remembered that I had forgotten to post my Happy Birthday to my big brother. So Happy Birthday Jeff!!! Sorry it is a day late :{ I hope you had a good day. It was fun looking through all of our pictures as we were growing up. We certainly went through some "fun" times.

Hair Razing

It is that time again to cut Andrew's hair. It is always a battle every couple of months when it is time for a trim. We've tried so many bribes and techniques it is hard to come up with something new. It always seems to end up with a struggle to get him to finished or stop screaming. It is great fun and Jeff and I dread it every time it comes around.

The latest attempt at making it fun was to let Andrew help cut Jeff's hair first. This always puts a smile on his face and he finds it great fun. It is nice and peaceful until it is time for him to get his hair cut and then we find ourselves back to square one. What does one do with a "neat" child at times like this??

So this last time we were at a loss as to what we should do. It is never fun trying to force the hair cut. So we let Andrew hold the clippers and he smiled and liked it. So Jeff took a stab and said how bout you cut your own hair. The next thing we knew Andrew went for it and was using the clippers on himself (with a cutting guard on) and he felt completely in control. He would only cut the top and did this over and over and over but was really happy in the process. He did a strip on the top all done very well all by himself and gladly turned the clippers over for Jeff to finish the rest all without any struggle or scream. I think this may have been the first time it went so smoothly for at least 2 years. It took over an hour to get it finished but how nice it was to not have to do battle. It is a little scary to let him have the clippers but we stood close by and monitored everything he did. Really he barely touched the top half the time. It was more missing than actual cutting but he doesn't know that. All that mattered was that he had control and loved it for the first time. Yeah for small steps forward!!

Zoolights

There is a Zoo in the area that decorates the grounds with thousands of lights and hundreds of displays. It usually runs during the Christmas season and ends early January. This year it got extended because of all the snow we received. Ken saw the extension and had the great idea to go out and see them. So thanks to Ken and MarGene suggestion we got to go out and see some awesome sites.

The pictures don't exactly do the view justice. Everything was so beautiful. To see the effort that the Zoo went to was really neat. It was a clear crisp night so we had a very dark background and the colorful lights popped out.

When I picked Megan up from school and told her we were going to see the Zoolights she asked if we would be able to see animals. I explained how the zoo grounds were decorated with lights and she said to this "How boring" I was a bit shocked since during Christmas one of her favorite things to do is see houses all decked out with lights. I told her she would have fun.

Once we drove into the parking lot and she could see some of the lights she began to get really excited. Her whole attitude changed and once we entered into the park I could tell she was enjoying herself. I think it was Papa or Grandma who asked if she thought this was boring as we looked around and she said "NO"

We had a ton of fun and ended our night at McDonalds which had a playland. The kids were really good for once and we had a great outing. I'm really glad we got the chance to go. We left the McDonalds with 2 pink cheeked kids to put to bed.