BumbleBee turns 7!

BumbleBee's 7th birthday was on a Monday in January. The Sunday before we had his friends and classmates at a party at the bounce house place. He had tons of fun jumping and sliding with Double A and his friends.

 The day of his birthday we had diner at home and celebrated with super fancy cupcakes. He got a few presents from family and his daddy got him his first BB gun. He was so excited and surprised!

First Mississippi Christmas

This was our first Christmas in our new house in Mississippi. We were excited to have family come stay with us. It was one of the most exciting Christmases I can remember as an adult...mostly due to the two great gifts the kids got this year. Santa wrapped a note for DoubleA and sent her on a scavenger hunt. It ended with her finding the one thing she wanted most but really knew she wasn't getting...a kitten!

She was so excited and surprised. She has named him Flash. He is pretty speedy.

BumbleBee REALLY wanted a "Bass Pro Four Wheeler." Its a battery operated ride on type toy. We told him it was too expensive and he probably wasn't getting it. His grandparents took pity on him and got it for him. It was hidden in another room and halfway through the morning I pulled him aside and asked if he had gotten everything he wanted (he had already unwrapped the biggest boxes with no four wheeler). He forlornly answered "yeah, mostly." This was when grandpa sent him into the guest room to "find his knife." When BumbleBeewent in he saw the four wheeler and jumped up and down he was so excited!

It looks like BumbleBee wasn't the only one excited about the Bass Pro Four Wheeler!

My mom and dad were here among many other visitors. At one point we had up to 15 people here!

Its always exciting when the cousins are together. They had so much fun playing together and made tons of noise.

I had done a detailed menu plan and spent much of my time cooking meals and desserts. I enjoy doing this and Husband#1 helped with main dishes by cooking most of them on the Big Green Egg. Many other people pitched in with prep, table setting, and most importantly...clean up. I made a yummy Gingerbread chocolate cake. I also made a cream cheese wreath which turned out to be essentially a king cake without all the sickening sugar. Husband #1 told me I should rename it a Queen Cake and claim it as my own. We had a seafood casserole, fig and balsamic glazed cornish hens, mini ham and roast beef roasted party sandwiches, beef tenderloin, and so on. Husband #1 and my brother learned how to smoke cheese and they did some duck breast.

I have gazoodles more pictures from Christmas but will spare you the "slideshow." :)

First Grade Christmas Show

BumbleBee is in first grade and every year they do a play based on the Christmas story of baby Jesus. BumbleBee was a star (not THE star!). They sang traditional Christmas songs and re-enacted the night Jesus was born. It was cute because much of it was from the perspective of tiny insects and how God thinks they are just as important, etc. You get the idea.

First Day of School

The kids had their first day of school in August, just four weeks after we moved. I had them in a week of summer camp at the school so it wasn't all completely new when they arrived for school. DoubleA was excited about wearing a uniform and just for school in general. BumbleBee was quite nervous and worried.

They are doing great. They have settled in and are making friends nicely. I especially like the fact the school has drop off and pick up lines so I do not have to get dressed in the morning before we go to school. I do miss going in and seeing the teachers and other parents, though. I feel like I am not really meeting people as well as at their last school when I walked them in everyday.

FOOTBALL!

Being so much closer to our alma mater made it easier to use our football season tickets. We cheered for the Golden Eagles all season and they won the conference championship!! Unfortunately the bowl game was in Hawaii on Christmas Eve so we were not able to attend...maybe next year!

Halloween

(For those of you who have not read back yet...I am updating randomly and you should scroll back to see if you missed anything.)



Our first Halloween in our new house! We live in a gated neighborhood so still no trick or treaters. The neighborhood decides when we will trick or treat and this year it was on Friday Oct 28. Saturday is too busy with college football, Sunday is too busy with Church and Monday has school and work. We have a neighborhood party with bounce house, etc and then the kids go trick or treating (read: run wild in the street). Husband #1 was not able to make it so we went trick or treating on the actual day of Halloween in another area of town.


Can anyone guess what the kids were dressed as this year?

If you guessed Flesh Eating Monster and Taylor Swift...you were right! BumbleBee picked his costume based on the coolest weapon. He picked out the ax thing and then chose a random costume to go with it. Double A chose Taylor Swift because she LOVES Taylor and that is the only music she listens to and Double A is convinced they look alike (because of the hair).

I watched some YouTube videos and learned how to make BumbleBee's face look like this. It was very cool and I was quite proud of my work. He was nervous so I did it on my own face too. It is Elmer's glue and toilet paper. I did not have Halloween makeup so I just used various kinds of eyeshadow and powder until the color looked right. Then...it just peels off like glue that dried on your hand!

Double A was just super excited to be able to wear makeup. Good golly, you think her eyelashes are long enough?! She once told me that it bothered her to wear sunglasses because her eyelashes hit the lenses. Must be tough.

Catching Up

Okay, so here it goes...I have gone about five months since my last post and probably about that long before that post. I am playing catch up with photos and what not. I really want to do better with this blog because I do enjoy it but feel I cannot move on until I go back. So, here starts a series of random, out of order posts to catch people up on SOME of the stuff we have been up to lately. They are in no particular order and may not be completely thorough but you are going to be appreciative of what you get and enjoy looking at the pictures and reading the posts...RIGHT??!!

This is Double A's 9th birthday. We had a party before we left St. Louis so she could invite all of her friends. She had a great time even though it was pretty stressful for Husband #1 and I... keeping track of all the kids at a local pizza/arcade place.

For her actual birthday she was visiting her grandparents so we celebrated a few days after at home by just opening presents. She got these legos and a password journal which she desperately wanted and has never worked properly. She asked for money so she could buy her own iTouch. She got most what she needed but did not buy the iTouch until right before Christmas at our urging. She doesn't like to spend her cash, which I suppose is a good thing!