Christmas

These are my kids being silly in front of the tree on the 22nd of December.

You can tell Nana was trying to get good serious pictures but that didn't happen.

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Here is how the tree looked after Santa came.

And the stockings

And some of the snowflakes they made and hung on the wall.

We were mean and made them get ready for church before they could play with their gift from Santa. And then they couldn't touch anything else until we got back from Sacrament meeting.

Lawrence was chasing the Jeep. There is a video I posted on our YouTube channel but he wasn't as into it as he was before the video started recording. http://www.youtube.com/user/johnandlorina?ob=0&feature=results_main

Vivian with her new sewing machine. I was so excited to give this to her because she had really wanted one. But we never did figure out how to use it the right way. I'll probably end up teaching her how to use mine. (or maybe I'll get a new one and she can have mine... hehehe.)

Vivian wearing her new Princess footie pajamas and holder her new swim time barbie.

Michael giving Daddy a huge hug after opening a torpedo gun from him. We found out it only works under water though. 2 fail gifts.
Jenny brought over a ton of awesome stuff for us and in with some books was this one that Michael read to me. He is sooo good at ready it amazes me.

Theodore is excited for his new exercising Care Bear from Jenny. Vivian got one too but it doesn't dance it talks when you hug it.... and it's pink.

We had a wonderful Christmas and got some fun stuff. We also had fun with both sides of the Family.

Fairy Tale Town

The last time we went to Fairy Tale Town Theodore was about 4.5 months old. My sister moved to Sacramento in July and when she heard that they were having free admission for Christmas Eve she thought it would be a great opportunity to check it out. We met her there and my kids were so excited to see her kids. Michael was running around with Matthew. Vivian and Katie were holding hands most of the time and Rebecca had fun chasing Theodore around.

Don't worry, this wasn't as bad as it looks.

Vivian and Theodore were having a blast dancing on the stage. I have an awesome video of Vivian shaking and Theodore doing his funny looking walk but it doesn't look like it is going to upload. One of these days I will have to create a YouTube channel.

Theodore's 2nd Birthday

On December 3rd we celebrated Theodore turning 2. I had thought months before about having a car party but with all my fall deadlines and projects (all self inflicted) I had forgotten about it until like 2 weeks before. So I threw together a pretty awesome party in that short amount of time.

Here is the invitation. The taller one was my first design but I mass produced the smaller ones to save paper.

On the back it said: Zoom on over for Theodore's 2nd bithday and we'll have a beeping good time. Concessions Provided. (Plus all the personal information and date and time.)

These are the bean bags that I made for the goodie bags and for them to play with at the party. We also tried to play Red Light / Green Light but only the older kids played.

These were my goodie bags. One side was racing checks and the other was a Lightning McQueen pattern both found in the Remnants bin at Walmart. I had wanted to make a sewn car holder for each kid but decided I needed to use my time elsewhere so I went to a couple dollar stores and a party store and bought a few toys for the goody bags.

Here is my cake. I had a grand vision for this cake but it involved fondant which I have yet to work with and when I was doing this last minute and my brain already hurt I decided to go with normal frosting. It turned out alright I guess.

A different angle of the cake. I put saran wrap under the cars to protect the wheels from the frosting.

Here is the food spread. I wanted to go with a concession stand type theme so we had hot dogs and pretzels and red vines and a few other snacky things. With cheese sauce for dipping.

The back view of the counter.

Here is my Cereal Box Pinata. I just made 2 identical car sides and then cut the remaining poster board to cover the sides of the box. I used hot glue to attach it.

My black and white streamers. This is a horrible picture but you can tell how awesome they were.

I paid $6 for this tablecloth but it was worth having that extra touch. And since I forgot to create a way or place to hang the pinata this is how it ended up being displayed. I had some 4x4 inch black blocks from Halloween that I put under each wheel. When it came time to open it we had each kid choose what to do, they could drop it, kick it, drive it into the couch... pretty much whatever they wanted to do. Then there was a mad dash for the candy that was a little upsetting for the 2 year olds that couldn't get any even though the party was for them. I don't think I will have candy in any more of my pinatas.

This was the main activity for the party. I kind of figured with 2 year olds I didn't need to have very many structured games and this track on the floor was a big hit. As well as my color matching parking lots. There are endless possibilities with masking tape tracks.

Now it is cake time.

Blow out the candles.

And immediately take the cars off and start playing with them.

Then dig in.

Here he is opening the present I made for him.

It is a toy chest with roads all over it to store his cars in. I will have to get better pictures of it later and post it on my new craft blog.

It was a fun party and a lot of the ideas came from this post http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/2011/02/car-mats-shout-outs.html on a craft blog that I read. And because I stayed up all night the night before I was able to do a few last minute touches that I had wanted to do that would not have happened if I had gone to bed at 5 am when I finished the cake. I was really tired after the party and had a huge migraine but the sacrifice was sooo worth it.