Pella's 2 Year Old Sheep Birthday Party!

Our little baby turned TWO!! Pella loves a little knitted lamb that my sister, Shmee, made for her before she was born. She loved it so much, it doesn't even look like a lamb anymore. She loves it anyway and calls it Baa Baa, and that's why I decided a good theme for this little girly would be "sheep". I had a lot of fun making cute sheep for this party. The cute little flock was made out of stuffing I rolled into a ball and glued little faces and legs onto. The big sheep are just those balls you make out of tissue paper with a sheep face and legs too.

Pella helped out making the sheep PB&J sandwiches (with store bought white bread!!!!) by putting on the raisin face and ears.

I made little sheep cupcakes and the kids helped by licking the bowl and spoons. Pella thought they were so cute and would scrunch her face all up and in a high voice say, "Baby Baa Baa".

She also helped Dada make the honey butter to go with the rolls and venison stew for the mamas and dadas!

Then she posed for pictures on the mantle before her guests came.

Cousins Emma and Marlee even dressed up as sheep! They know me too well. We didn't have a dress up theme this time, but they win anyway.

Pella's guests in our cozy little home in front of the fireplace, which was burning, so it really was cozy.

 We played "pin the fluff on the sheep" where the kids taped cotton balls to a sheep on the wall and "find the lost sheep" where Dada told the story from the Bible about the shepherd who left his 99 sheep to go find his one lost sheep while I hid the little sheep Opal made for the party.

 Happy Birthday Pella! You are so much fun to have in our family! We all can't wait to hold you every morning, get you up from nap every evening and beg you to kiss and hug us all the time. Your are a very loved little girl. You call yourself "Baby", and you know you are special. You love sheep, books and the color pink. (See how much pink we used for you!) You are quickly learning how to talk and repeat everything we say now, except "Thank you" for which you still use sign language. You play with all of your brothers and sisters very well. You love doing what they do, especially drawing. We love watching you grow into a beautiful, little girl and can't wait to see how God uses you. You are one of his precious sheep and he loves to watch over you even more than we do! We love you, Baby!

Jasper's Baptism

Jasper became a Christian when he was four years old and earlier this year he wanted to get baptized, but the next baptism service was held at Black Lake at the pool (where Kivi was baptized) and he had wanted to have his baptism in Lake City Community Church's baptistry. So he decided to wait. On November 16th Dada baptized him!

Nonnie and Poppie and Grandma and Grandpa were able to be there for his special moment!

Jasper you are an amazing man! You have such a servant's heart and you desire to please the Lord. We love you and that you've decided to obey God in your life.

The First Half of November

 Nov. 3 We were able to use our free Northwest Trek tickets that the kids earned from reading with the summer library program.  We showed up half and hour before the park opened so Eben, Kivi and Jasper perfected they're Heely skills in the parking lot. We were the first ones in, got to see all the animals (they're all awake and walking around in the morning!) and take the first tram of the morning and conquered the whole thing in two hours! I also brought along popcorn balls for a snack which was a huge hit.

Nov. 8 Dada surprised Eben with a keyboard! He's been wanting to learn piano for a long time and Peter decided it was time when he saw this for a good deal at Costco. A keyboard is going to have to work because there's no way a piano is going to fit in our house.

Nov. 9 Poppie and Nonnie stayed with us for a couple of weeks to work on a rental so of course we had to do the traditional "Basket of Presents" Hokie Pokie dance.

Nov. 15 Since it's fall we decided to have Hedgehog Day! We learned how to draw a hedgehog thanks to Jan Brett's wonderful website. I love her artwork. For lunch we made these cutie hedgehog open face sandwiches with peanut butter and honey. The kids decorated them with chocolate chips and made grass and flowers out of their green beans and cranberries.

Hedgehog Day Lunch

Narnians At The Harvest Carnival

We love family themed costumes! This year we all decided to dress up as characters from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. 

Our Narnia Costumes

Eben as Peter

Kivi as Susan

Jasper as Edmund

Opal as Lucy

We cut her hair for the event that night! She had been wanting it short and this was a good time to do it since it went with her character so well.

Berg as Mr. Tumnus

We had actually planned on Berg being Mr. Beaver, but he insisted that he be Mr. Tumnus. His idea was way better! Plus it was the second year that he had no shirt on for his costume.

Pella as Mrs. Beaver

Dada as Aslan and Mama as Jadis, the White Witch

They don't kiss in the movie just to be clear. Aslan is like the Jesus character and the White Witch is more like satan, so this is could be a very sacrilegious picture, but we're just kissing as Mama and Dada. I love how his lips come out of the lion's mouth. I made the cool icicle crown by twisting strips of plastic containers over a flame. It took a very long time and I messed up a lot,but I love how it turned out!

 After our family photo we went straight to playing the carnival games this year. 

Then we came home, had some Taco Bell tacos and divvied out the candy before bedtime.

Since we want the kids to be able to have a fun night of playing and dressing up that night, we served with them this year by setting up and taking down all the decorations for the event.

Free Pumpkins and Pumpkin Carving Day

Right after Eben's party we headed over to the Lakewood Fire department to see if they had any free pumpkins left. Their event ended a couple hours before, but you never know. Good thing we stopped to check it out, there were plenty of left over pumpkins! All the kids got to pick one out. 

So did Dodie and Mr. Steve!

A couple days later, after we decorated the church for Harvest Carnival, we carved them.

Our 10 Year Old Gets a Minecraft Birthday!

Our baby is a decade! Yep, Eben turned ten! It's still hard to believe we've had him for that long.

Some pre- birthday fun things he got to do:

Surprise kidnapping by ninjas, Dodie and Mr. Steve, along with Jasper for his birthday also, to build with Legos and lunch.

Dada finally gave him Harry Potter The Sorcerer's Stone, which he's been waiting until he turned 10 to read and had the whole thing read in a couple days.

Dada also gave him Heelys, which he had told him he was too big for and that they don't make them in his size so he was very surprised and has them mastered already.

 Eben's actual party was at Intel, thanks to Mr. Schock!! He was so excited. Intel is his dream job. He actually wanted a technology birthday party, but I was stumped with that one as far as a party theme goes so I asked if he would want a Minecraft party as a technology party and he said,"YES! I just thought you'd never let me have one!" I don't do commercial parties. But this actually seemed easier and he loves this crazy game.

When everyone first got there we let them roam free and check everything out, the huge sport court, the massage chairs and the video game room, which of course was Eben's favorite. Mr. Shock had pre loaded all the computers with what else...Minecraft!

 Then we gathered for the big Reality Minecraft Game!

Eben put everyone on teams represented by their Minecraft block and they all had to complete many different tasks to get a starburst stone from the treasure chest. Like 20 steps on the climbing wall, 5 jumping jacks, 3 holes of mini golf,...

make 3 baskets and spell Eben's name in Minecraft. 

The kids and adults played and had to protect their Minecraft block from me, the Creeper, who tried to steal it. If I got it I took a starburst from them and their team had to do an activity over again. They had a protector on their team with a sword, which I didn't think through very well and a couple of times got hit pretty hard by some very good protectors! I got pictures of all the teams but one, the grass block team.

But we did get a pic of the grass block cake! Peanut butter, Oreo cookie, mint, and chocolate rice crispy treats made up the dirt and different colors of green fondant became the grass. We had extra so Eben helped me make a Creeper too.

The "Kissing Picture" after the birthday song.

It was the easiest cake to serve, no knife, no plates, no forks - just grab and go!

I had to show the sweet hair bows that Eben made way in advance for all of his sisters to wear at his party. Grass block bows - what a great brother!

 Eben we love you so much! I really can't believe we've gotten to love you for 10 years! (Well, actually more like 11. We loved you when you were our Froggy too.) You are an amazing son and big brother. You have some huge responsibilities and you do them so well. You do a task as soon as you're asked without complaining (usually). You are gifted in so many ways, figuring things out, computers, all things technology related, musically, you are always humming or tapping or something (which sometimes drives us all nuts!), and you're great with babies! You make many people feel loved every day. We love to love you and watch your love for God and others grow! Happy 10th birthday!

Eben actually did an amazing job blogging his birthday.