October 26, 2014

 Annie grew up overnight.  It seems that being 4 years old really suits her.  Overall her emotions have been better and she is really progressing with writing, speaking, drawing, and dancing.  Lily had a little accident with a neighbor boy.  He was fighting her for a toy and wouldn't let Lily up the stairs in our house.  He was holding the baby gate closed then suddenly opened it and it smacked Lily in the head.  She got a small cut on her forehead that was surrounded by a purple quarter-sized bruise.  We iced it immediately and the bleeding stopped.  Two days later, the bruise was gone and the scratch was hardly noticeable.

 On Wednesday Puna came to visit. The kids were so excited to have Puna here.  She treated us to a great lunch at Red Robin.  Tommy was only interested in the ranch dressing.  He would suck on his fries until they were soggy trying to get every last bit of ranch.  Totally reminds me of Annie at this age!

 On Thursday we had a neighborhood Halloween costume parade.  Since the girls wanted to dress as Anna and Elsa I thought it would be fun to make our bike trailer into a sleigh for them to ride in.  I made a cardboard sleigh wrap for the trailer and then got too busy to think about it until the day of the parade.  Yikes!  Puna to the rescue.  I had tried to paint the cardboard, but all the paint was just absorbed and made it look terrible.  Puna had an idea to cover the sled with white contact paper.  While she was out looking for the paper, she spotted tinsel (maybe it's a good thing Christmas stuff is already on sale) and snowflake decals that were the perfect finishing touch.

 Lily and Annie and some neighbor kids had fun putting all the stickers on.  Then Puna wrote Anna and Elsa on the sides of the sleigh.  It was a big project that took most of the day, but the girls were the belles of the ball that night and they knew it.

 They were all smiles and anticipation as we lined up and waited for the parade to start.  Uncle Brady was willing to drive the bike which we named Sven after the reindeer in Frozen.  We gave the girls some candy to throw to the spectators.  That was Annie's favorite part.  After the parade was over, she wanted to drive the route again to throw more candy.

 Tommy wasn't too sure about the parade.  He stayed close to Daddy the whole time.  Mommy was dressed as a witch.  Tommy didn't like my hat or dark lipstick.

 Our other favorite float in the parade was this one full of LEGO characters.  Each costume took 25-40 hours.  Each one!  They were impressive.

 Frozen was the obvious theme for the night.  There were at least 8 little girls dressed as Elsa.  Lily loved the fact that she stood out as the only Anna.  This is a picture of some of their best buddies.  From left to right: Alyssa Wells, Hailey Bezzant, Paisley Summers, Lily, Claire Christensen, and Annie.  Too much cuteness!

 I loved seeing Tommy in the monkey costume that both Lily and Annie wore at the same age.  Jeremy has a "man in the yellow hat" costume from the Curious George books, but he wasn't in the mood to dress up.  I was in charge of the treats table which I will not do again.  It left me feeling frantic and I wasn't able to hang out with the kids because I was always tending the table.  Next year I will just go and enjoy without signing up to help.....or trying to build a mini float shaped like a sleigh.  We had one day of down time that still somehow was busy thanks to Tommy getting into everything and Annie flooding the bathroom with the toilet.  I spent the whole day managing messes and disinfecting the master bathroom.  Papa arrived Friday morning too.  He and Puna went to school with Lily to assist her teacher.

 Friday night we went to see The Piano Guys in concert with Puna and Papa.  It was much more entertaining than we had expected it to be.  This is an actual picture from after the show with the audience in the background.  I heard they did three encores.  We had promised our sitter we'd be home by 10:00 so we left the concert at 10:10.  We had no idea it would be so funny and exciting.  We will try to see them again for sure.

Saturday morning came and we had a wonderful and emotional temple trip to do some family names.  It was a sweet experience, especially to share it with Brady's fiancee Madison.  It's not every day you get to witness the baptism of people you love. 

After the temple, we went into party mode.  Making the cake, decorating, cleaning, assembling the games, setting up tables and chairs, preparing food, shopping....it was a hectic day.

But look at those smiles!  Lily and Annie were so excited.

 Pin the nose on Olaf was a hit.  Annie totally missed the mark, but she loved it.

Throw marshmallows at the monster named Marshmallow was fun for the boys.

 We ordered this set of little dolls just for the cake.  I've been hiding them under my bed for over a month.  I wonder how much longer I can hide gifts under the bed.  We colored the cake batter blue and Puna willingly frosted and decorated the cake while Mommy was busy getting other things ready.  The girls loved it.

 Here's Annie and her buddy Ashley admiring the cake.....wanting to take the dolls off and play with them.

 We had a pinata.  It didn't hold up very well.  Only four kids got to hit it before it came apart.  We had some close calls where kids were almost hurt.  Mommy and Daddy were just happy when that part of the party was over.

 I'm pretty sure it was the Frozen party of the century.  We had ice cubes (blue Jell-O) and Olaf noses with snow (baby carrots and ranch).  We played freeze tag and musical chairs.  The children got to frost and decorate snowflake shaped cookies.  The girls received wonderful gifts from friends and family.  We pack so much fun into two hours, that our heads were spinning when it was done.  It was an amazing day.  It was an exhausting day.  Mommy's nerves can't handle that many kids.  We're definitely going to take things down a few notches for the next birthdays.

After all was said and done, the grown ups were tired.  Twelve kids against six adults - and the kids whooped us!  We decided to go out for pizza and relax.  Since we moved to this house we have heard about a place in Ririe called "Stoplight Pizza" that serves HUGE pizzas.  We decided to give it a try.  It was so delicious.  The crust is thin and perfectly crispy and chewy.  It is cooked in a brick oven so the edges come out a little charred.  One gigantic pizza was more than enough for six adults and three kids.  It was a great way to end the day.

Puna and Papa had to leave Sunday morning to get back home.  All the kids were a little out of sorts on Sunday after such an exciting week.  Plus it is always hard to say goodbye to our grandparents.  Thank you Puna for all your help and for making this year's Halloween parade and birthday party memories the girls will treasure.

Now I need a nap!