Christmas Cookies!

Christmas is coming soon...so that must mean it's time to decorate some COOKIES! Yay!

Ashley and Elizabeth were counting down the days this week until today in anticipation of our big cookie decorating event.

Ashley invited two friends from her class (Louisa and Abby)

...and Elizabeth invited two friends from her class (Giri and Anya)

...to come to our house to join in the fun! And what FUN they did have!

All the girls got along famously! (Didn't hurt that Anya and Abby are sisters!) There was lots of giggling, frequent complimenting ("Oh...yours is really pretty!"..."I like yours, too!"...), and MUCH mess-making!

 And, in the end, one exhausted, but very happy Mommy! I could not be more thrilled with my girls' taste in friends—truly a gathering of kind-hearted, fun-loving sweeties!

Pancakes & Pajamas Party!!!

What do kids love as much asPANCAKES?!?!...Eating them with their friends, of course!--while wearing cozy PAJAMAS!

So...for Elizabeth's 8th birthday, she had a Pancakes & Pajamas Party! And it was tons of fun!

These days, Elizabeth enjoys spending time with a small group of friends, rather than a large bustling crowd...so we opted for an intimate gathering of 6 guests...plus the Birthday Girl and her little sister! Her guests arrived at 9am on a Saturday morning—decked out in their favorite PJs—for some pancakes, donuts, games, and prizes!

As soon as they stepped in the door, they took off their coats and shoes and got to pick out a cute pair of fuzzy slippers to wear! (And they took them home as party favors to keep!)

Then, they sat down at our crafts table to make Froot Loop necklaces, personalize some pink plastic spoons by gluing their names onto them with glue dots and letter beads, and play a highly-competitive game of Breakfast Bingo!\

While we were playing Bingo, Daddy got the griddle going and started prepping the pancakes!

The Birthday Girl and her guests gathered at the breakfast table for donuts, juice, chocolate milk, and pancakes with their choice of toppings: blueberries, bananas, strawberries, marshmallows, and chocolate chips!

After eating, we went down to the den for a musical game of "Pancake Walk"....this is the game where EVERYONE is a WINNER! When the music stopped, I called out a breakfast food! Whoever was standing on a space marked with that food was the winner (and was out of the game!) And we continued playing until everyone won!

Next up was a rousing game of Pancake Pile-Up! (This was a "back-up" indoor game that we ended up using instead of some of the outdoor games I had planned because the weather turned ridiculously cold!...but it turned out to be a big success!) Each team raced to carry plastic pancakes on a spatula from the "griddle" to the plates to create a stack in the order listed on their cards. The first team to stack all five of their pancakes in the correct order...AND place the little pat of butter on the top of the stack...won the game! They played this one several times!

To calm things down a bit, we ended the indoor games with a Birthday Party word scramble race! Two teams got a stack of letters that spelled a word for something you would find at a birthday party! They raced each other to unscramble the letters to spell the words "games," "cake," "friends," "balloons," and "prizes"!

With only 10 minutes left until pick-up time...we bundled the girls up and took them outside for a final game called PANCAKE TOSS! We gave each of them two frozen pancakes with their names written on them in marker and had them use a spatula to try to toss the pancakes into a hula hoop in the yard! This was a huge hit...and unfortunately we only got video of ONE kiddo doing this! But trust me...it was superfun!

All in all...a very fun and successful birthday party!
Happy Birthday, eight-year-old Elizabeth!!! We love you!!!

Author Bio

So...Daddy has a forthcoming book in publication and he has to provide a bio for his About the Author page. It was proving to be a bit of a struggle, so I decided to let the girls take a stab at it. Here is what they came up with:

"P**** ******* likes to type, talk, and read his books and play with his little girls and keep the house neat and do shopping at Costco and type messages and look up on the Internet on the iPad. Daddy loves to play BeJeweled, Angry Birds Go!, and other kinds of Angry Birds games. He loves us so much and he takes care of us and likes to play with us. He also likes to play rugby and watch other sports on TV. Daddy is very friendly and he is the awesomest Daddy in the whole wide history of Daddies. Daddy works at the National Defense University and he loves work. He goes to work with a smile on his face and comes home with a smile on his face. Daddy is very smart and knows lots of countries. And he loves doing country puzzles with us and teaches us the countries at bedtime. We love Daddy!"

Brilliant! Couldn't have said it any better myself! Well...except maybe the "keep the house neat" part! Not sure where THAT came from. I think the girls might be under the impression that simply TALKING about cleaning the house makes their parents some sort of NEAT FREAKS or something! That is decidedly NOT the case with us...but...ah well...why burst the bubble of the little ones?

Anyway, I kind of think this is a much better and more accurate picture of Peter than the "official" bio that will be included in the book. So I wanted to preserve it here.

Happy 5th Birthday, Ashley

First...has it really been nearly 2 years since my last blog post??? EEK! Well...better late than never, I suppose!

Hear ye, hear ye!

Princess Ashley turned 5 on Saturday! 

We celebrated with a royal ball in her honor and welcomed 12 princess guests

 into the kingdom to join in the festivities!

Many arrived in princess attire, but others were invited to choose a dress from the selection provided!

Then we played Princess Walk! (Walk around in a circle until the music stops! Then stand on a princess square. Elizabeth calls out the name of a princess, and if you are standing on that princess, you win a prize! Game continues until EVERYONE wins! HOORAY!)

Big Sister Elizabeth (dressed as Merida) was a huge helper! She called out the winning princess and helped identify the winners!

Next, we played Pin the Crown on the Princess!

And we sang Happy Birthday to the Birthday Girl...and had princess rainbow cupcakes with strawberry frosting!

Then, we had princess playtime in the GORGEOUS 65-degree weather! I mention this specifically because, as I am typing this less than 48 hours later, we are under a Winter Storm Watch and school has been canceled for tomorrow morning due to the expected 4-5 inches of snow on St. Patrick's Day!!!

A FABULOUS birthday party for our happy little princess...and a good time was had by all!