Balloon Rocket Fun

For Andrew's birthday one of his friends gave him balloon rockets.  Basically, it is long balloons you blow up and then let go and they fly.  Last Sunday we tried them out and to say they were a hit would be an understatement.  I'm really not sure who had more fun, the kids or Brandon.  Here are some photos from the evening.

In case you can't tell, Brandon used a cake decorating tube to blow his up.

The girls had fun using the pump that came with the balloons

Andrew trying to blow the balloon up by himself like Dad did

The kids chasing the balloon.  Notice the balloon where the arrow is.

Had to include a cute photo of Spencer enjoying the evening outside.

Andrew has "Transformed" to 6

Yesterday was Andrew's 6th birthday.  I know, I can hardly believe it either, but he is.  Since he is obsessed with Transformers Animated we had a "Transformers Animated" party.  I wish I could take credit for the ideas, but I was very inspired by someone else's Transformer party  activities from birthdaypartyideas.com.  When they arrived I gave each of them an envelope each with a different picture of an autobot (good transformer) in his vehicle or dinobot form.  Then I told them that the "allspark" had been stolen by the decepticons (bad transformers) and they had to get it back.  First they needed to complete 4 missions to transform their transformer into the robot form (there were 4 puzzle pieces they got to put together of the robot form in the envelope) and then would get the instructions on how to find the allspark.  First they had to bomb Blitzwing (decepticon)

Basically taking black water balloons and throwing them at a laminated poster of blitzwing I made.

Notice the balloons all over the ground.  They had a blast!

Then we had to "ice" Megatron (leader of the decepticons).  They lined up and took turns filling a cup with ice from a large bowl

and then running it down to another bowl and dumping it on megatron

We kept telling them that Megatron was going to get loose and they had to hurry.  They were very concerned and started hurrying. 

Then they got "infected" and had to get some medicine.  Which, of course, was cake and ice cream.

 

Notice the broken purple "decepticon" side and the well built "autobot" side -- I got the figures from the grocery store bakery.

After eating cake they then had to get energy and draw a blue marble out of a bowl of soapy water.  Most of the marbles were white.  Then they got to put their puzzles together then go on a treasure hunt for the "allspark" (glow sticks).  Even though I absolutely had no time to plan this party with canning this week (peaches, pears, salsa, tomatoes, freezing peppers, attending a reception in Salt Lake, writing a talk for today, etc) it turned out so fun and the boys had such a blast. Most importantly Andrew had fun and loved it.

Award winning bar cookies

For those who read my food blog, no this is not a recipe, per say.  It is more a plug.  My cousin, Kim Naegle, entered the "Utah's Own Baking Contest" and they just announced she tied as the winner with these delicious "Chocolate, Almond, Toffee Squares with Carmel Sauce".

Don't they look divine!!!  

Coconut, chocolate chips, white chips, almonds, toffee, & caramel -- doesn't get better than that.  Anyway, if you want the recipe (the non-GF version -- the GF version is on my Creating From Scratch blog) then click here.  You won't be sorry, except maybe your waist, but it is worth it!

Reading Girl

 

The other day I was doing some RS stuff on the computer and when I got done  this is what I found.  My Mom got us this collection of Little Golden Books for Christmas.  It is her favorite.  She eventually fell asleep.  A fun day for all.

The Harvest

As I have mentioned before we have a plethora of vegetables in our garden that Brandon grew.  So what must you do with all the vegetables?  Take pictures right.  So here is a sampling of what we "harvested" this summer.

 

 

9!

 

I can hardly believe she is 9!  We found out that she is now technically a "tween," who knew?  For her birthday this year she got an mp3 player and Hannah Montana & Jonas Bro. CD's, let's just say Mom & Dad did good this year.  I'm not sure she has removed them from her ears voluntarily yet, other than when she is letting someone else listen.

For her party this year she wanted a Mary Poppins movie party.  This is the easiest party I have thrown.  When they (9 girls) arrived they drew chalk pictures like Burt's in Mary Poppins.  And then they opened presents (lets just say we are now well versed in "Webkins") and ate cake & ice cream.

Her umbrella Gluten-free cake, everyone got a piece.  Now to freeze the remaining in portion sizes for other birthday parties and lunches.

Then the girls went downstairs to watch the movie.  I have to admit they didn't watch too much of the movie.  They were too busy playing dress up and other such things.  I told the girls they couldn't change out of the dress ups until I got a picture.

 

Here they are trying to be cute.

Then I asked them to make funny faces:

Notice there isn't too much difference. 

The biggest surprise of the night was Karissa losing another tooth while eating Swedish Fish.

 

Not sure how she eats, I don't think she has many teeth left in her mouth.  I think 4 are currently growing in.

When it came time to go home they each got a "carpet bag" that I made from some upholstery samples I got years ago.

 

 Each item had a Mary Poppins related not.  The chalk: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"; the candy corn: "Feed the Birds, Two pence a bag.  Two Pence, Two Pence, Two Pence a bag"; and the pixie stix: "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

Even though I can hardly believe Karissa is 9, and that the party was a little crazy, I loved listening to her with her friends and how they all played so well and got along.  I remembered being their age and how much fun it was just to be a kid.

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend was my niece's baptism so we headed to Blackfoot for that and spent the whole weekend enjoying family and the Eastern Idaho State Fair that is in Blackfoot every year.  An added bonus was that my cousin Robin & her family came up for the baptism and the weekend.  It was a lot of fun.  Andrew especially loved it because there were boys his age since his one boy 1st cousin on my side wasn't there.

Saturday we went to the baptism and had a hot dog roast and then went to the fair.  Alexis especially loved the petting zoo.  Once she found she could pet the baby goats that just wander around she didn't let one go by without petting it.  She also had to pet everything else from the emu to the miniature horses.  Her highlight was all the puppies, unfortunate for her and lucky for me, we didn't come home with one.  We also failed to take the camera with us.  So we also don't have pictures of the farm animal races or the guy with his dogs that do tricks.  Nor do I have photos of the fabulous quilts or my other nieces 4-H entries.  And last but certainly not least, I don't have pictures of the fabulous ice cream that you get at the Idaho Dairy Council's barn booth that we have to get every year.  The one thing I regret is missing out on the "Tiger Ears," An enormous scone (about 14" in diameter) covered in cinnamon sugar from the Scout booth.

Sunday evening we went to my sisters where the kids decided to build a pyramid.

A pretty decent job.

But then everyone decided the Dad's needed to get involved.

 

Doing good

 

A good as it got.

Monday the men went fishing and caught some beautiful 4-5 lb trout we ate for dinner.  Meanwhile us girls took the kids to the park and visited while they played on the tanks at the park.  They even got to go in one.  But once again, no camera.

The World's Greatest School Fundraiser

I love our Elem School's PTA fundraiser!  It is a Carnival held the beginning of the school year.  It is a lot of fun fore the kids with games & activities, along with dinner (pizza & soda -- we bring Karissa's pizza).  It is great for the parent's (and everyone that knows us) because we don't have to deal with the expensive catalogs of things we don't want.  Anyway, this years was perhaps the best yet.  Here are a few of the highlights.

The inflatable slide was Alexis' favorite

Both Andrew & Karissa did the the rock climb.

Andrew struggled getting high, but did good coming down.

 

Karissa climbed all the way to the top.

 

Andrew especially loved the dunking booth.  As he waited in line he kept laughing hysterically when the person was dunked.  He was so excited to dunk someone.

Meanwhile, Spencer just hung out.

Stinkiness & Bad Words

Occasionally the kids say things that I find amusing.  Today was a double amusement day.

Alexis wanted  me to get her a snack right as I was getting in the shower.  I told her that I had to take a shower and would get her a snack afterwards.  She then asked "Why are you taking a shower?"  To which I responded, "Because I stink."  To which she said, "I don't smell your stink."

Lately Andrew has been all about saying "That's not fair!" way more than is necessary, which to me is at all, but especially not necessary to say it in response to everything I say that he doesn't like.  So today when he said "That's not fair!" I told him it was a bad word and we aren't allowed to say "That's not fair."  Later in the morning Andrew wanted to play with a friend and I told him he had to have his bed made, be dressed and have his room straightened (a 15 min job at most) and he said "That's not . . (pause) . . .good."  Isn't he such a good learner.