6 Years!!

It was another great day of celebrating Timothy.  It was a very snowy start to the day and we were not sure how that would affect our plans, but really it only added one fun activity.

Timothy was up early and ready to open presents.  The first thing to open was long hoped for rainbow loom.  One bracelet was made before a breakfast of santa pancakes.  Then much to our surprise Timothy's friend Eagon showed up at our door.  The boys got in an hour of play time before we went to church.

Yeah!  The rainbow loom!

The snowy weather and mild temps made it a perfect day to try out a big sledding hill.  Troy and Timothy spent some time sledding together and had a lot of fun.  Next it was on the Jumpin' Janes for some inflatible fun.  And after that, Happy Joe's for Pizza and a surprise birthday song and ice cream sundae.  Wow what a full and fantastic day for our favorite boy!

Ready to sled

Loving the big slide

Silly faces with Daddy!

Waiting for our pizza dinner.

 

At 6 Timothy is really growing up.  He has learned so much in kindergarten and is even beginning to read.  He loves to be with his friends and could probably be happy to play with one of the many neighborhood friends all day.  He still has a cautious side and won't jump into knew things, but he is also full of energy and ready to run about for a long time.  He is a great hula hooper.  He loves the outdoors and exploring nature.  This year he has also taken a little interest in 'arts and crafts' as he calls them.  He is truly a terrific boy and Troy and I are blessed by all that he teaches us.  Happy Birthday Timothy!!

6th Birthday Party

It was party day at our house.  Timothy turns 6 tomorrow and we celebrated with his friends today.  I think this is the first year we actually had more kids who could attend the party than couldn't.  With a birthday this close to Christmas, it can be a bit of a challenge.
The theme this year was fishing. And Timothy insisted on lunch with his friends with a menu of mac and cheese and Cheetos (mom added apples, carrots and goldfish crackers.)  The mac and cheese was goldfish shaped to go with the theme too.

After lunch, the games began.  First up was shark, shark fish.

  Then Troy went "fishing" for kids using donuts as bait.  This was really fun to watch!

We had a few other fishing theme games and then it was time for parachute fun.  Timothy got a new parachute from Grandma Rebecca and it was a hit.  The kids loved making waves, running under it and bouncing stuff off of it.

Next was the fishing pond where Timothy's friends got a prize to take home...sea creatures that grow by 600 percent!  (We've got two growing on our kitchen counter!)

Then finally it was presents and cake time.  Teresa had been asking quite a few times about cake and one of Timothy's friends wondered if we had any.  I guess it was about time to get to the cake!

Timothy and all his friends smile for a quick picture before cake.

Timothy had a really fun day and his friends seemed to enjoy all the games too.  I was happy it all went off as planned and that I was able to keep 8 kids busy for 2.5 hours with no tears or melt downs!  And truly, Troy and I both had fun making it a special day for our soon to be 6 year old!

Christmas Program

Troy had the title of co-director of the Christmas program.  I tried to dissuade him from signing on, but he wanted to help.  And in the end it is good he did.  He helped keep it simple and short and spearheaded the costumes and child illustrated power point.  And yes, in the end the program was cute.

For the first half the kids sang a few songs without their costumes.  I managed to get Timothy in some sort of dressy clothes (not with out complaints) and Teresa in a dress (her christmasy clothes got wet when she had an accident during a tantrum after church--oh well!)  Teresa sang the songs well and Timothy sang occasionally.  The best was when Teresa kept telling me between songs that she was so sleepy and she wanted to go to sleep.

 For the second half of the program, the kids got to dress up.  Teresa was hoping to be a whale, but settled for the second choice of a sheep.  She was the cutest sheep there!

 Timothy went for the shepherd costume.  Right before going up, he decided to add a beard to match the other shepherd.  I think the beard was a nice touch!

 After all the hard work of singing and dressing up, Timothy and Teresa enjoyed some hard earned treats!  Probably the best part of the night.  Earlier in the day Timothy was truly excited for the program.  That made the co-director really happy!  We'll see if Troy bumps up to director next year!!

Santa Comes to Town

Santa's coming to town, ...on a fire truck! At least, here in Asbury that's how Santa comes to town. And he brings candy, and music, and all the kids in the surrounding neighborhood come out to see him. As the video shows, Timothy & Teresa were both eagerly awaiting this past Saturday (Dec 14). And they soon enough got more excited about the candy than Santa (kids will be kids). Altogether, a fun time with our next-door neighbors waiting for some neighborhood holiday fun.

Holiday fun!

I love holidays and all the fun things that go with them.  This week we had some holiday fun at our house.  Timothy had a school delay due to fog this week.  We spent the extra time making some snowman cookies.  The cookies spread a ton and looked funny, but with a bit of frosting and decorations they turned out cute!

Eating two little cookies for morning snack.  You gotta try out your product!

Later in the afternoon we did the decorating.  Teresa works very hard at placing the sprinkles and decorations.

And yesterday for lunch we needed to spice up the usual pb sandwich.  So I made a Rudolph toast instead!  This morning it was snowman bagels and tomorrow is Santa pancakes.  Cooking and holidays equals lots of fun!

Family Time!

We were happy to have the chance to see both of our families at Thanksgiving.  We were also happy that the weather was good in our area.  Driving was smooth sailing--just long! We can add DVD players to our list of things to be thankful for!

We had a nice Thanksgiving day with my parents and two brothers and their families.  It wasn't quite warm enough to have the football game of two years ago, but the kids big and old did get out for a bit of running around.  And my mom gave us an assignment to jot down something we are thankful for each day until Christmas.  Timothy is really into it and is using all his new kindergarten skills to write and spell on his own!  Teresa is mostly thankful for sea creatures, but at least it is a new one each day.

On Friday we sort of had Thanksgiving again with Troy's sister and mom and some extended family.  Susan puts on a great spread and this year with grand kids and great grand kids there was even a kids table!  We had a relaxing day, playing, chatting, and enjoying being together.

Grandma Judy and all the little ones...and one bigger one!  A very blessed Grandma!

This was the first year we did not have to head back on Saturday to be home for church.  We spent the day helping Grandma Rebecca decorate her Christmas tree.  Timothy had wanted to do this within 5 minutes of arriving at Grandma's!  Both kids had a delightful time choosing and hanging the ornaments.

We were lucky enough to get to be a part of our nephew's baptism on Sunday before making the trek back.  The kids were very good in the car, but the last twenty minutes we were all ready to be done.  Upon arriving home, I quick heated up leftovers (thanks mom!) and Troy dug out the tree.  After a quick dinner it was finally time to decorate our tree!  Fun!  The kids could hardly get to the ornaments fast enough!  We ended the night with the lighting of our first advent candle.  It was beautiful.