It Finally snowed!

For Christmas Aunt Terri bought us a snowman kit.  In mid February it finally snowed.  So the kids managed to drag me outside to help build our best snowman ever! Thanks Aunt Terri!

Grandma Due gave Emily some snow paint for Christmas that she finally got to use too.  We wrote a message for Dad.  He was at church still, missing all the family fun.

                                                                  Classic Jake always on the ground

Creative arts contest 2012

This year at school the creative arts theme was Helping Hands Makes the World Go Round. Emily had a hard time coming up with some ideas this year.  So she only entered one category and she won 3rd place.  She drew a picture "Mom's make the world go round."  She also won $6.oo.  

We were very proud of her!

Emily is 9!

Now that Christmas and Emily's birthday is out of the way I can get back to blogging.  Emily turned 9 on Sunday January 8th.  She was sad that it was on Sunday and we couldn't have her party, so we invited the family over to celebrate.  

This is Emily's owl cake that she helped decorate.  We had fun!  She was a great froster of all the cupcakes.  She is growing up so fast.  She loves to help in the kitchen whenever she can.   She is so creative and is always making things to give to others. 

 
The day started with a Crispy Cream donut with a candle of course. We had ribs and heavenly potatoes, green jello with pineapple, and green salad for dinner.  We played "Who Knew" Emily's favorite new game.  The night ended with Just Dance 2.  Sam wins the award for the cutest.  Everyone was involved.  Even Aunt Jill was doing the moves from the couch.  Quite entertaining.

On Monday Emily had a Birthday baking party with a few friends.  My sister Jill got me started with this fancy party from this website One Charming Party.  I made aprons for everyone and Jill made all the fun decorations and invitaiton.  She ended up sick with kidney stones on Monday and I was in a panic.  Thanks to Lauren for coming to the rescue we had everything ready in time.

 According to Emily party was the "Best Birthday Ever!" The girls made flowers for their hats and decorated cupcakes Emily picked out.  We had hot fudge cupcake sundaes for the finale.  Once all the preparations were done the party was lots of fun.  

All the girls had fun with Kiwi.  Jake tried to chased them around the house with his snake, Crusher. They also had fun playing Kinect sports.  After the party we decided to go out to dinner to Quizno's and while we were gone Maddie ate all of Emily's cupcakes, paper and all.  I had put them on the little table to take a picture and left them there when we left the house.  Needless to say there were lots of tears by Emily "I didn't even get to taste one!"  We told her at least we put Kiwi away before we left, so Maddie didn't eat her!

Halloween Fun 2011

This year for Halloween we went trick or treating with Tommy and Sammy.  The boys went pheasant hunting in the morning.  In September Devo and Troy joined Paul's hunting club.  We've enjoyed seeing Terri and Troy a little more often.

 Jill always throws the greatest parties.  She had swamp juice, Frankenstein brains, and a scary snake calzone for the kids.  Sam was the cutest "Blue" from Rio you ever saw.  Tommy was a lego head. Jill loves making their costumes. Paul had the greatest set up for trick or treating with a lighted trailer hooked up to 4 wheeler with music and all.  Aunt Terri and Uncle Toe (The empty nesters) stayed home to hand out candy.  Sam started with them first.  Jake loved trick or treating running from house to house with his pillow case. Sometimes he hit the house twice waiting for the other kids to catch up.

 Carving pumpkins was fun.  Emily pick a complicated pattern but did actually quite well with just a little help from Dad.  Jake wanted to do it himself. After he got started I stopped worrying he would cut off his fingers.  Devo had fun doing some etchings on Jake's dinosaur after he was done.

The school has a parade every year and Aunt Terri help Emmy get ready.  She loved wearing Aunt Terri's big hoop earrings and makeup!  Always fun to have Aunt Terri around to share in the fun.

The Red Barn

We didn't miss our annual pumpkin patch trip!  Love the hay ride, picking out LARGE pumpkins, ice cream, donuts, and carmel apples.

Fall Snow

The first week of October we saw our first snow.  It snowed all morning.  Emmy wanted to go out back and build a snowman after school.  I was sure that it was too wet to stick together but a few minutes later she had rolled her first big ball of snow.  So dad went out and helped her finish.  Jake had just had his tonsils out but didn't want to be left out.  Meet "Steve" as Emily called her snow man.  So glad it didn't stay cold for long.

Tonsils

So after repeated strep throat that we just couldn't get rid of we decided to get Jake's tonsils out.  We tried to wait till the first of the year to maximize our deductible but he just couldn't wait.  So Wed., October 5th was the date. 

Mom was glad that he was in good hands with Dad and Craig there to take care of him!

It was actually his adenoids that were the big problem. Watching him come out of anesthesia was a little scary for me, normal for Devo.  Lots of crying and coughing and then Devo gave him some drugs so he slept while the rest wore off, much nicer.  Apparently most parents don't see that first part, now I know why.

We went straight to 7-11 for a Slurpee on way home.  Things went well, mornings were the toughest. Lots of otter pops so he could swallow pain meds.   By Monday I sent him to school.  I thought we were home free. Nope!  Tuesday night while Devon and Emmy were at the church he started bleeding.  I think I handled the whole thing pretty good no freaking out, on the outside anyways.  After about a half an hour we ended up in the ER.  They couldn't get the bleeding to stop so they had to take him back to the O.R. and cauterize the bleeder under the scab on the left side.  So it was like starting all over.  Poor Jake!  I think he has had enough Slurpee's, otter pops, and Popsicles to last a lifetime.