C's Birthday Party

Her 13th birthday isn't until next Friday, but with Spring Break, we decided to have C's party this Friday.

She had 12 friends over for a 70's themed party that lasted SIX hours (yikes....).









They painted pet rocks:

People brought 70's music and they danced, played twister, watched The Brady Bunch, and generally hung out and did teenager things. :)

There was pizza--and cake, with singing:



The cake was a layer of chocolate and a layer of yellow cake, with mocha cream filling and buttercream frosting.

That's five boyfriends, if you're keeping track...

I think a good time was had by all--and six hours wasn't "too long" after all!

M's Birthday Party

M. wanted a dinosaur party for her fifth birthday. I was thrilled to see that most of her friends who'd already had birthdays had simpler, at-home parties, so we decided to do the same.

She invited seven friends who came for lunch after morning kindergarten. They had mac & cheese, dinosaur chicken nuggets, petrified leaves (sun chips) and baby dino eggs (grape tomatoes).
They made dinosaur hats with googly eyes:
And played dino-themed games like "Pin the tooth on the Tyrannosaurus" and "Stinky Dino Egg":
After dino cupcakes and ice cream and then presents, everyone was exhausted (G. actually took a nap!).

M. got some great gifts, including THREE more Webkinz! Overall, I think it was a success. :)

Christmas with G's side of the family

Yesterday we drove through blizzard-like conditions to celebrate Xmas with G's side of the family--his parents, his sister and her family, and his brother and his family.

We all had a great time! I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here are a few:

Four of the boys, watching the train go around the tree:



Ready to open presents (all but the youngest):Time for presents??? All five grandsons:

More Halloween Pictures

T. and M. had their school Halloween parties on Wednesday.

M. was a bunny:
And T. was Harry Potter (I didn't get pictures since, in 4th grade, they only change into costumes at school, so these are from his teacher's website):



On Saturday, our village "downtown" had Trick or Treating with the businesses. One of the businesses had a stand offering free airbrushed tattoos.

C. got a skull on her face:

M. got a sparkly butterfly on her hand:

And T. got a snake on his pipes:

(supposedly they last for up to 3 weeks!)


Saturday night was a costume party at the home of some dear friends of ours. T. was again a mad scientist:
M. was a bunny (minus the makeup nose and whiskers)
C.'s getting into the goth thing:

And G. and I were Mario and Princess Peach:

The party (as always) was a blast!

Sunday was trick-or-treating, so we had to carve pumpkins:
Unfortunately the pumpkin M. picked out on her field trip rotted in back (and it was REALLY tiny) so she decorated it with stickers and marker):


And then it was TOT time. T. finally got to wear the Darth Vader costume:

C. and M. were goth and bunny again:
And this is C. with two of her best friends. M1 is Frida Kahlo (check out this picture and this picture, if you don't know who she is--the costume is fantastic) E. is a fairy:
It was a great Halloween season (and it's not even October 31 yet...)!

T's Friday Night Guy's Night

When C. was in fourth grade, we made the switch from doing one-on-one "playdates" to having group gatherings once a month or so, on a Friday night.

I'd been telling T. that he could do the same and last week was his first one. As with C., the friends come over for 2 hours. They hang out, then have dessert, then hang out some more. T. chose chocolate fondue for his dessert. Here's pictures from Friday night:

Apple Picking!

It was a beautiful day for apple picking.
The younger girls may have eaten more than they picked:
Aren't the best apples always at the top of the tree? (Actually, in this case, the ones at the top were horrible!)
We picked lots of Cortland apples (the best, IMO, for cooking with) and then went out for a late lunch.

When we were getting back into the vans, I leaned in to put M. in her carseat after opening my door. A gust of wind slammed the driver's door on my hand. I saw it happen and felt oddly removed from my body, but couldn't pull my hand free. I reached over and opened the door and that's when my hand started hurting. Look at what the door did to my wedding ring:


I could barely get the ring off my finger, it was so misshapen. After all that, it's amazing that this is all that happened to my hand:
(just a sore where the ring dug in)

I feel very lucky that no bones were broken (or, as my neighbor informed me, that my finger wasn't sliced off by the car door!)