Saturday, December 11, 2021

Happy Birthday, Maggie!

Our marvelous Maggie is 9 years old!  Time has flown!

9 years old!

Maggie continues to be a very kind and genuine person, loves to read, bake and do art projects (especially her comic books), is an awesome big sister and the family's pep-talker.  We love her and are so proud of the young lady she's become!

Since we moved in Maggie has been asking Jamie to paint her an Avengers mural on her wall, and she also complains that it's too hard to draw her comics in her room.  So we got her a desk for her birthday, and Jamie did some amazing art work for the room!

Maggie's favorite avenger, Scarlet Witch - started like this

Finished product! (and a psyched kid)

He added LED lights on the back... pretty sweet

Big Avengers canvas that Jamie plans to paint alongside Maggie

Maggie is always asking if she can sleep in our bed for the night, so we pretended like we were being extra nice and let her sleep with me the night before her birthday.  Jamie then proceeded to set up her room until like 3am... he's such a good Dad!

I delivered pancakes in bed as requested, and Evie and Ben got a kick of it too.  Maggie didn't have school on her birthday due to the Oxford shooting incident, and she was bummed.  Jamie stayed home with her and Evie and took her to see Ghostbusters which she loved!  Afterward we had a soccer game where her team sang to her, and then rushed home to start her sleepover with two new buddies from school.  I convinced her not to have a party now, but said we'll have a big pool party in the summer with all her friends to make up for it!

Breakfast in (my) bed...
there are strawberry stains on my sheets, sigh.
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Post game review

Evie got to have a friend sleepover as well (mostly to keep her out of Maggie's hair for the night)!  We did a "Nailed It" challenge since that's one of Maggie's favorite shows.  I gave them some monster cake examples to replicate... they had a really fun time working on them and were very proud of their results.  

Hard at work
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Evie and her friend were judges...
but I let them play with cupcakes and frosting too

This was the goal...
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Nailed it!

I love the lips

We went through like 5 cupcakes, but eventually
ended up with this masterpiece!

Maggie was extremely proud of her creation

Playing with her gift of kinetic sand

We had the grandparents over on Sunday for a special dinner with the birthday girl, where she was spoiled even more!

I asked Grandma to make Maggie's fave:
Carrot Cake!

Love that enthusiasm!

Ben was into the birthday song

Grandma made Maggie a beautiful rainbow blanket!


Jamie spent the weekend putting up our Christmas lights, and he did a fabulous job!  Second story lighting is perhaps the most terrifying thing ever...

This photo doesn't do it justice...
people really dig our Christmas Unicorn!

We finally got Ben's daycare photo...
2-1/2 years old, cute as ever!


Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Thankful

We got to see lots of family for Thanksgiving this year, which was so nice!  We went to Betsy's house for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and then had a festive taco night at my parents' house the day afterward.  I also got to see my see-star Jody and her family!!

Just the ladies

Jamie started our Thanksgiving day with
artsy pancakes! 

Impressive

Kids table!

We successfully got Evie and Ben to pet the dog... by the
end of the night, they were all friends!

Big sis

Grammer got gingerbread houses for the kids to work on!

Jody and Ed brought their adorable guinea pigs
(or hampster pigs as Evie calls them)

Cuddles with Chimi and Churri

Yay for family!!

Playing Jamie's intense game - Stair Ball

Grammer and Pops with their grandbabies!

Always flirting

Gorgeous nieces

We had our first real snow of the year, and the kids were thrilled to have an entire park's worth of snow to play with across the street!

Evie was into it!

Do you wanna build a snowman?

He thinks snowballs are hillarious

Best part of snow days

I also celebrated another year of life earlier this month.  I had a lovely day being spoiled by my family and a fancy shmancy dinner with my hubby.  Sadly I sprained my ankle pretty bad the week before, so I spent a lot of this month hobbling around.  Four weeks later and I still can't run/jog... frustrating!

Mom hooked me up with a delicious dinner and cake!

Singing our birthday ballad

Here's some other randoms:

My brownie helpers... cleaning the bowl

Ben loves to "drive" with Grandma

"Planking" is a thing again at Jamie's school, so he got a
cute picture of Ben to share

Firemen came to pump down the hydrant, so
Ben got a new hat!

Sleepover at our place!

Cuddle buddies

Easy Bake oven fun

Gobble gobble!

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Halloween!

It was a lovely, mild Halloween this year.  Everyone opted to be Avengers characters this year, so I very grudgingly agreed to be another Marvel character (Lady Loki).  

Our Marvel-ous family
Spiderman, Rescue, Scarlet Witch, Thor and Lady Loki

We carved pumpkins the Friday beforehand, and all three kids got their hands dirty.  The girls are both at an age where they did all their own carving - I was pretty impressed with Evie!  Ben "helped" us clean out the pumpkins, and then we all pretended to be done for the night so he could go to bed... then we carved the pumpkins without a 2-year old trying to grab a bunch of knives.

Pumpkin guts everywhere

Maggie's, Daddy's, Ben's (mostly Dad's)

Evie's

Mom's (not very inspired this year)

We were excited to have the Odglen's come over for trick-or-treating this year!  We totally did not plan it, but they also showed up as Marvel characters!  Grandma and Grandpa helped pass out candy while we took the kids out for the beginner round (Ben and Violet can only handle so much).  It was nice that Halloween was a Sunday this year, so we didn't have to rush home from work to get the kids ready... still a tired Monday morning for them though!  

Family!
(Aunt Amy and baby bump not pictured...
somehow she got out of wearing a costume!)
Adorable spider-kids

Fave photo:
Ben trying to figure out how to shoot spiderwebs like Spiderman

Iron Man and Rescue - looking tough!
Trying to get a good photo with Grandma...
turned out like it usually does!

Maggie and her trick-or-treating teammate

So hot

Swung by her friend's house at the very end!

Some others:

Expecting a very purple poop after this one...

Maggie's outdoor team, last practice for the season

Happy Birthday to Sarah!

Proud girl-dad

There's a baby polar bear at the zoo!!!

Ben continues to be great on the potty - 
also still wants to wear his Spiderman hat everyday

Got their first vaccine dose!! Woo hoo!

Love these faces