Partying for Jessie's Birthday

Last weekend my parents were in town for General Conference and to just hang out with us... but also to celebrate JESSIE! We had a big crazy family birthday party for her on Sunday that was way too much fun.

We started off with some balloon volleyball.

Then we hung out and waited for Cat, Sophie & Scott to arrive. Andrew learned how to play checkers.

Mom made Jessie a super yummy cake. I used my polka dot serving plate that I made for the first time. I love it. It is perfect for birthday cakes.

Then we got ready for the games... first up Booty Bingo!

Everyone had to go around and say their favorite thing about Jessie. Everyone drew a picture on their bingo board for each thing that was said. We wound up with each board looking very different... but all telling about Jessie... and then we played BINGO! Apparently my family doesn't know how to play bingo though... there were a lot of laughs in this game... and a lot of kiddos sneaking M&Ms. It was perfect.

Next up we played a new game I invented. It is called "Where in the world is Jess?" I took photos from her instagram feed from the last year (plus a few FB photos) and printed them off. Then we gave everyone a band for their hand with a photo on it. It was kind of like Headbandz. You had to ask questions from everyone else to try and figure out which photo you had on your head and where Jessie was in the photo. 

World traveler Jessie had some great photos we got to use!

After a few games we watched a session of conference and then we continued the party afterwards with cake & ice cream!

After that we whacked the pinata for awhile... till we finally got it to break

The best part was when Jessie got whacked in the face by the pinata

Scott finally destroyed it

The last game we played was called "Dress like Jess." I had Jessie bring up some accessories from her house. Then we got into two teams and had a relay to see which team could dress like Jess the fastest. You had to put all the items on, pose for a picture, take them off... and then the next person in your group had to go... until everyone had a turn. It was so funny! Here come the blackmail pictures

Scott looks pretty good in heels

All in all the party was a blast and it was so fun to spend time with our family celebrating Jess!! We love her! 

Halloween Carnival 2013

Here are several photos from this year's Halloween carnival that Kevin & I hosted. It was awesome. We had about twenty families join us-- some whole families and some partial families that just brought their younger kids. It was open house style, so people came and went between 11am and 1:30pm. 

My two lovely assistants helped save the day and make my job as hostess much easier :) They ran the tattoo station and fishing game. 

The candy walk was the favorite once again. Kevin was in charge of this game and kept the kids moving. Catie was a pro and won probably 5 times in a row... sometimes legitimately... and sometimes she just ran to the spot that Kevin called. :)

We had two craft stations, candy walk, some ball games, two bounce houses (including a toddler one courtesy of the Heymans!), lots of food, the fishing game, and a tattoo station.

Many of the kids came in costume and were ADORABLE

Check out all of Catie's tattoos... she actually got more later. Eventually we had to cut her off.

So much yummy food!

Little miss was addicted to the tattoos... M was super patient with her :)

Such cute party helpers

This little walker was so adorable!

These two had fun being little buddies

My favorite photo... Catie knew I was distracted as the hostess and took the opportunity to eat any and all treats that she could get her hands on.

Kevin was my super party partner in crime. He is an excellent host, a talented decorator, and a very patient husband... especially when I started to freak out during the 30 minutes beforehand when the big bounce house and table I'd rented hadn't arrived yet.

It was seriously such a fun day! Our house was mostly cleaned up before we went to bed and we can't wait till next year! If only we could move into a new even bigger house between now and then so that we could invite even more of our friends!

Team Hope Walk for Huntington's Disease

Jessie and I are participating in the Team Hope Walk for Huntington's Disease on October 26th in San Francisco.

We are walking in honor of Eva Boren, a dear family friend, who died of Huntington's disease 11 years ago. You can read more about Eva and Huntington's on her daughter Jen Boren's page.

Jen is one of the organizers for the Boise Team Hope event, so if you live in Idaho and are free this Saturday (October 12th) you should sign up to participate.


If you live in the Bay area and are free on October 26th, Jessie & I would love you to come join our team. The details are below. Our whole family will be participating. If you feel like donating, you are welcome to do that too. We both really appreciate our friends who have already donated! You rock! We have raised about $240 so far and our goal is $1K. We have a ways to go.

Little Preschool {Pumpkins}

This month I get to be Catie's preschool teacher! She was so exited to have her three little friends come over this morning for school.

When kids arrived they got to put their photo pumpkin in the pumpkin patch (I was in a rush making this... and had a few spelling mistakes... hope the kids don't look too closely) :)

Once they were checked in we played with toys! I was positive it would be hard to tear them away from playing to come to our little circle time but they barely played and just wanted to hear story after story... so we moved into circle time after a little bit and did the calendar, checked the weather, sang the days of the week song. sang ABC songs, learned about the seasons and holidays this month, counted to 20, and then read two books. We focused on letter P for Pumpkin!

They loved sitting on their spooky carpet squares too. The kids were seriously adorable. I loved my new calendar that I got from Learning Resources as part of a blog partnership payment.

For our art project we did collage pumpkins. It was the perfect open-ended project- glue, sequins, googly eyes, and buttons... and a pumpkin! They all named their pumpkins and were very possessive of them. It was funny & darling.

We also had outdoor time and rode bikes and then we had snack and practiced asking/answering questions. I loved hearing the kids answer their friend's questions while they ate snack.

We ended the day with a pumpkin number hunt and a pumpkin ball toss before we moved back to our closing circle.

For our closing circle we did some movement songs with actions and then we sang a goodbye song and then we headed into our front room to play freeze dance till moms arrived. I was shocked how quickly 2 hours flew by! I had three other things prepared that we never got to do.

Since Ryan napped for the majority of preschool, Catie loved every moment of attention she could get from me. It was cute. She loved sitting on my lap while the kids played. The little group of friends was so well behaved and so kind that there weren't any problems and there weren't really any emotional outbursts... which surprised me!

I can't wait till next week! Hopefully I am more prepared than this week!

Scriptures & FHE

I need to do a better job at writing on this blog to document things we are doing & learning as a family.

We are constantly working to do a better job at having regular weekly family home evening. Often we have our lesson during dinner when everyone is sitting and busy eating because there is less running around and sheer craziness. I don't know why, but Monday evening always seems to surprise me and I never seem to take enough time to plan a lesson.

We've started focusing on single scripture verses or single articles of faith so that we keep the lesson short and simple... and there isn't any huge prep needed. This week we focused on Mosiah 4:30.

Earlier in the day we made a ghost for an alphabet game, so during FHE we used it as the "good ghost" to help us as we talked about good deeds, thoughts, words, and keeping the commandments.

The kids brainstormed good thoughts, deeds, words, and ways we could keep the commandments... and we wrote them down and fed them to our hungry ghost. It was such a silly & fun lesson. They wanted to feed the ghost again and again. After we fed the ghost, we tossed balls through it's mouth too.

Then we added Mosiah 4:30 to our scripture stash. These are the scriptures we keep in Andrew's room to read at bedtime. He picks one to read every night. I have been amazed at how quickly he has learned the words and memorized a few of the scriptures. We are focusing on the Book of Mormon Scripture Mastery scriptures right now. I love getting to memorize them together.

I still remember when I was learning to read as a kid that we would get a chance to read from the scriptures and I thought it was so cool (and hard) and I really felt like my reading was blessed as I read the scriptures.

When I lived in Spain one of the main ways that I learned new Spanish vocabulary words was through reading the scriptures. Each day I would pick a new Article of Faith to memorize in Spanish and then I would also just read at night. I definitely felt like my language skills were blessed as I studied the scriptures. 

I know that scripture reading is really important and I don't make enough time for it for myself personally or for our family. General Conference this past weekend really reminded me how important it is for me to be more diligent with doing the simple things like reading my scriptures, saying meaningful prayers, and have weekly family home evening. 

Rocking the Fun Run

Andrew's school PTA does a Fall Fun Run to raise money for the school. I am a big fan. I signed up to help out, but when no one else volunteered to lead it for our class, I ended up stepping in to be the class Fun Run lead instead of just a helper. I thought it would be a lot of work, but really it just ended up being a great way to get to know the teacher and all the other parents in the class. 

Each class had to pick an accessory to wear. I kept it simple and just bought yellow leis (the kinder class color was yellow). My committee was awesome and everyone did their jobs perfectly, so on the actual day I just got to show up, help the kids get dressed/accessorized, and then I got to help take them over for the run! It was totally low stress and a lot of fun. I even got to run with Andrew.

Andrew loved getting to see his other kindergarten and first grade buddies from other classes (like our little neighbor pictured below).

He ran about a mile and a half and was so proud of all of the money he earned for the school thanks to super star supporters in our families!

Afterwards I got to help tally up all of the laps for all of the kids and figure out how much each kid owed, etc... that was the only taxing part and it wasn't too bad. Thank goodness for calculators since my brain was zapped from no sleep the night before!

Such a great way to start off a morning!