The Circus!

Cole and his buddy next door have very active imaginations, to say the least. About 3 weeks ago, they started building a "circus" in the basement. Now, neither one of them had ever been to the circus, so they really had no idea what a circus entails. (They have read books that talk about a circus and Cole has been to Circus, Circus in Las Vegas, but that is the extent of their experience.) Nevertheless, they developed games, booths, activities, and libraries (yeah, no idea where that came from). I didn't really mind because it kept them busy for several days and it was in the basement, so I could ignore the mess. Pretty soon they were telling others about their circus and telling them they would invite them to it when it was ready. I assumed that just like many of their other ideas, they would get bored with it and move on to something new. However, this never happened and last Saturday they started calling their friends to invite them to the circus that afternoon. At that point I panicked a little bit because I wasn't entirely sure what or who or any details that they had planned. Thankfully the first couple of people weren't able to come, so we were able to talk them into doing it on Monday, which was a holiday, so we could get a little better organized. I sat down with them and we made a list of who they wanted to invite and what food they wanted to have. (I figured I could do the food and they could do the games and we could all be happy! Plus I figured that if we provided good food, then everyone would love the circus, even if the games were interesting. And then, my little boy could be happy because everyone loved his and his buddy's idea!) So on Sunday, we delivered invitations,
and on Monday afternoon, we had the circus!
They even had a clown! (The clown did an excellent job being goofy, as usual. Everyone loved him and the lipstick came off...eventually!)
I apparently missed a lot of the games because I was socializing upstairs with the other adults who came to see what was going on! But they had a boy library and a girl library,
a hunting area where they shot bows and arrows,
a movie area,
and they tell me this one was a foot massage game.
They also had free time to play with toys.
Both boys did tell me the games did not go as they planned because they ended up having way more ball fights then they expected.
But they still enjoyed it and thought it was great!

Not to be outdone by the games, we had to come up with good circus food. Cole's buddy's grandma has a cotton candy machine that they borrowed. It was probably the hit food, as you can imagine.
Addy didn't really like the cotton candy. I'm pretty sure the fact that it made her hands sticky had something to do with that!Some circus guests enjoying the food.
We also had snowcones, even though it was like 30 degrees outside. (Thanks Aunt Katie!)
And, we had a decorate-your-own cupcake area.
All in all, I think the circus was a great success. Everyone seemed to have a good time and the boys were very proud of themselves. It wasn't even too much work for the moms, so they might get to do it again some day!

Ringing in the New Year

This year for New Year's Chad and I did the traditional early dinner with our friends at PF Changs (we have some old friends who can't stay up late! Or they have kids who think they need to be out and about later.). As usual, we ate way too much of the lettuce wraps and main courses, and then we tried to eat a whole piece of the Great Wall of Chocolate. (Ok, I tried to eat the whole piece before anyone else got a bite!)
When we got home from dinner, Chad's cousin and his family came to spend the night with us. I don't think we have ever really had someone over on New Year's Eve, and since our kids play so well together and love being together, we had a lot of fun.
Being the nice parents that we are, we told the kids they could stay up and watch the ball drop. Of course, they didn't know it dropped at 10 o'clock on TV instead of midnight! (There are some benefits to living in the Mountain time zone!)
When the ball dropped, they had a great time blowing their noisemakers,
Shooting off poppers,
and drinking sparkling cider (which the kids called wine). Then, since they had "rung in the New Year", we sent them down to watch a movie and wind down while we played a little Guitar Hero (ok, a lot of Guitar Hero!) Apparently I was too involved in playing Guitar Hero to take pictures. (I also could have skipped the pictures because I didn't want a record of me losing, a bunch! I am definitely no one's guitar hero!)
When I finally conceded that I was never going to win, at least before the sun came up, we all headed off to get a quick night's sleep.
The next morning we got up and gathered our warmest clothes. Chad's extended family decided to revive an old tradition of sledding on New Year's day. After listening to Chad and his cousin talk about how much fun the sledding was and how long the hill was, I was a little skeptical to see what we were really getting ourselves into, but in the end, their memories were pretty accurate (although it's not quite a mile long) and we had a great time!
It was a little bit cold out there, so we had to bundle the kids up pretty good.
We bought some new sleds and tubes especially for this event.
Cole was about the only one who didn't mind going down on the tube.
Everyone else thought it was too hard to control, but if Cole hit the edge, he just hopped up, ran back to the middle, and started again.
Emily didn't seem to care what she was on. She was having fun no matter what!
Chad preferred going down headfirst on the runner sleds. He is now in the market for some, if anyone knows where to get some that don't cost an arm and a leg feel free to let him know!
Skeleton anyone?
Who is that old man?!?!
In the end, I think the kids decided their favorite way to go down was riding on someone's back.
Cole loved riding with Chad's cousin Kevin. (I think Cole loved that Kevin didn't slow down just because Cole was riding with him. My sometimes wimpy child apparently has a need for speed!)
Even Addy went down the big hill ...
once. Then, she decided it was much more fun to play in the snow and hang out with Grandma!
My kids are already asking when we can go sledding again. Hopefully the tradition can continue with enough snow on the next New Year's Day.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

My kids are at a fun age for Christmas right now. Cole remembered enough about last year that he was very excited for Santa to come. Emily fed off of Cole's excitement and got pretty excited herself, even if she wasn't quite sure what was going to happen. So, I figured this year we were finally going to have an early Christmas morning, one where Chad didn't get to shower before we opened presents. However, for some reason, my kids who never sleep in, actually slept in. Cole didn't come into our room until about 8:15. He was fairly excited that Santa had come and wanted to go check it out. But his mean Dad told him he had to wait until Emily woke up before we did anything. (I think this was a stall tactic so Chad could get his shower in.) While Chad showered, I turned on the TV to entertain Cole and keep him from going crazy. About 15 minutes later or so, Emily came in and sat down and started watching the Christmas cartoon that Cole was watching. In an effort to get them excited, I asked Emily, "Did Santa come?". She looked at me, said, "Yeah I guess so", and then went right back to watching the show. The show didn't end until 9:00, so we didn't even start our stockings until after that. It seemed so un-Christmasy to me!!
Then, after we did stockings and unwrapped a few presents, Chad decided he was hungry and wanted breakfast. So he talked the kids into taking a break and playing with some of their presents while I made breakfast.
Once we finally got going though, the kids were fun to watch.
Addy figured out really fast how to rip the paper off and see what was inside.
But the present wrapped in a trash bag threw her off a little bit.
"You want me to look in there?"
"I'm not supposed to play in the trash!"
"I hope all trash bags hold this kind of stuff!"
Emily was very funny. After she opened every present, she told us, "It's what I always wanted."
This face was priceless! (Santa had a trash bag present for everyone. This one contained a dollhouse.)
Cole spent most of the morning being observant. It did not take him too long to figure out which boxes contained clothes and he avoided those as long as possible. After Emily opened her Princess Wii game, he spent the next little while trying to find a present with this name on it that was the same shape as Emily had gotten. He eventually found it!
I thought he was a little young to be scoping out his presents, but apparently not. In fact, he was so observant that he also asked why Santa had used our paper and tags. Who pays attention to that at 5?!!? Thankfully his Dad was quick to point out that Santa has access to the same paper and tags that we have. Sheesh. I am in big trouble with him!
These are a few of our favorite things.
Then, to top the day off, we had a nice dinner of Cornish Game Hens (or baby chickens as Chad calls them). They were very tasty, even if I do say so myself. My kids weren't so sure about them though. Oh well, you can't win them all! (Notice the favorite present of the day, the dual action light sabre, had to come to the table with us!)Addy apparently preferred her plate to the baby chickens!Overall, we had a great Christmas and hope you did too!! We are also very glad that we have 11 months to recover from the Christmas holiday!