Another Birthday

This year marks an even birthday for Madi, which means she got to have a party. She says there wasnt a theme to the party, but I would feel safe calling it a Minute to Win it Party. If you've never seen the show "Minute to Win it", its a game show where contestants get one minute to complete random challenges increasing in difficulty. Heres a link to the list of games they do if you want to watch the video instructions. It explains them a lot better than I do. http://au.tv.yahoo.com/minute-to-win-it/games/

Madi chose about 5 of the games off their website to play. But Im getting ahead of myself. First of all, the decorations. I was busy preparing all day while they were at school. This is what she came home to...

And the paper mache disco ball we worked together to create. If were were mechanical, we would have figured out a way to actually make it spin. It was fun to make though.

When the guests arrived, we had this little craft for them to do. Its a jean pocket that they decorated and attached magnets to the back of to hang up in their new locker at school.

Here is Madi's finished product.

Then the games began. First was one called Candy Elevator. They had to pull two strings with pencils attached to them, over their ears up to their mouth and eat the candy off of them. It was pretty hard.

Side note: Its really sad when Madi's friends start getting as tall as I am! No fair!

Then we did one called Dizzy Mummy, where you have to spin around with a roll of toilet paper until it is all unrolled around you like a mummy. This was just fun.

After the 12 rolls of toilet paper are unrolled, what else would you think to do with it besides bury your friend in it?

This was one I got from our friend. They have a shoe box filled with marshmallows tied around their waist and they have to shake their booty to get all the marshmallows to fall out.

This one is Face the Cookie. They have to put an oreo on their forehead and use nothing but facial movements to get it down into their mouth. This was hard too, but fun! There is a video of it at the end, so as always, mute the music before playing it. Here it just looks like a weird type of meditation with a cookie on your head, so you have to watch it to get the idea. Although, if I was going to meditate, I would love to do it with a cookie.

This is the best part...watching everyone make weird faces and stick out their tongue to try to move the cookie!

There were a couple more games, like a puzzle one (breakfast scramble), and a soda can stacking one as well...cant remember the name, upside down something or other. The girls were all very loud and hyper during the games, so I think that means they were having fun, right?

Then we moved on to the presents. Here is a picture frame from Katelin and Brylee.

Then some matching peace mirrors for her wall from Alissa and Zack.

I think this was Madi's favorite...a giant ice cream sandwich pillow from her friend. After opening it, she said "Im gonna drool a whole lot in my sleep tonight!"

I guess when you get to a certain age, your friends just start buying you gift cards. She got like 75 dollars in gift cards after that, along with some mani/pedi stuff, a game, and a spinning art thingy.

I was pretty frustrated with the cake this year. I went all home made instead of buying the boxed stuff, and it turned out being so moist, and it stuck to the pan, so it just fell apart. It still tasted delish, but didnt look very pretty. Anyway, its a family favorite: Chocolate Reses Peanut Butter Cup cake.

Did I forget to mention that it was a slumber party? Well, maybe its because Im still exhausted! Some of the girls went home, but the 6 that stayed were up chatting and giggling until 1:30 in the morning! I had no idea the kind of boy talk that started this early.

Later the next night after everyone had a chance to wake up, we presented Madi with a new set of scriptures. After all, she is in Young Womens now.

A few days prior, she also got her own cell phone for babysitting for us so much (we have been taking full advantage of our new found independance). That about made us the best parents ever. But she is always willing to stay and watch the kids for us. She has also babysat for other people a couple times and she loves that (I think she loves earning her own money along with it!). We are thankful she is so responsible and trustworthy, and just an all around great kid! I can still say kid right? At least until she turns into a TEEN next year!

Heres the face the Cookie Vid:

First day of School

Back to school came really fast this year. Where did our summer go? Oh well, here we go again!

Alissa is in 1st grade this year

Katelin is in 4th

And Madi started Middle School as a 6th grader. She looks all grown up in her shaved legs and mascara. She was the saddest one for me to let go this year.

All together now! Zack jumped in just as I took the picture. He was excited to start pre-school, but I ended up not being able to get him in. Long story, but they changed the requirements with all this political school district stuff and lay-offs and hoopla, and they ended up not letting him in because the waiting list was too long and it wasnt his "home school". He even had his own Phineas and Ferb backpack ready to go (in the background)! Guess Ill be his pre-school teacher this year. Wish me luck!

Brylee wanted her picture taken too. I didnt have time to get her hair fixed after getting the others ready, so here she is with her morning look! She really wanted to go to school with her sisters. She was wearing her little backpack and thought she was all ready to go. I still have to go through the same thing every morning with her. It goes like:

Brylee "I want to go to school too!"

Me "But your not big enough yet"

Brylee "I AM big...see! I am big now!"

Me "Yes, but you have to be 5"

Brylee "I AM 5!"

Me"But you cant go, I will miss you!"

Brylee" But I WANT to go!"....

And it goes on and on, until I can find some way to distract her. If I drive Madi to school, then she wants to have her back pack on too, and wants to get out of the car and go with her. Wonder when that will wear off!

Bye!

Off to start new school year adventures!

One last Hurrah

We've been wanting to check out Chicago's free zoo since we moved here, so the week before school started we grabbed some friends, put on our brave faces, took on the Chicago drivers and headed down. While the zoo is free, the parking is not, but it still makes it cheaper than paying admission for 6 plus the parking at the other zoo's. I would have to say, that it is a pretty good zoo...if you live in Chicago. Its kind of incorporated into this huge park, so people can just walk in and out during their afternoon strolls. I dont know that for us, if it was worth the drive, but it would be awesome if you were in walking distance and needed something fun to do. Unfortunately for us, the majority of the animals were either asleep or mysteriously missing from the exhibit. Maybe it was just an off day.

Anyway, because of that most the pictures were of my own little animals. They're cuter anyway...on most days. (: Here we are along with Katelins friend who came along, actually upon departure as we were rushing to get to our cars before we got charged an extra 12 bucks for parking. Have to get a picture in front of the entrance!
I dont know where it came from, but Madi loves snakes. One of the zoo workers actually came up to us and invited us into a little snake demo where the kids got to pet this boa afterwards.
I was surprised Zack even pet it... (love the tongue :) )
and Brylee as well, even though the camera delayed and got the shot right after she touched it.
Outside the snake room we came across the naked mole rats. My kids loved it because we had recently been reading the book "Naked Mole Rat gets Dressed" at home. Just as a side note, its by one of my favorite childrens books authors, Mo Willems. If you get a chance to read any of his books, do it. I find them very cute, and highly entertaining. But, I prefer childrens books over adult books, so maybe thats just me. Anywho....here is Brylee looking at the baby naked mole rats.

The gorillas were one of the animals actually on display. I think this was the best part of the zoo. Madi comparing hand sizes.

My little modern day ape.

Hanging out with his fellow monkeys.

Oh look, there's an animal!...oh wait its another brass one. Oh well, hop on!

I love this next picture, because they all look like friends. So happy! Actually, this is one of the only times Brylee was being happy. At the start of our zoo experience, she stood up in her stroller while I was still pushing it, and I of course ran her over and she fell and skinned her knee. The majority of the time she was crying with blood gushing out of it and wanting me to carry her. It wasnt until she saw the fish, near the end, that she decided to walk again and be happy.

Zack felt left out.

The kids entertained themselves by climbing on or up everything they could.

Pretending to be a train.

At the end, we went into the kids zoo section where they all climbed through this hanging climbing obstacle course thing.

Brylee watched them go through and kept crying to go in with them, but I knew with her hurt knee, and being the size she is, she would just get stuck, or hurt again. Against my better judgement I caved and let her go in with Katelin the second time around. After Katelin struggled to lift her up the first step, she decided she wouldnt go any further. I had to send Madi in to rescue her, since Katelin couldnt get her down. All the poor kids waiting their turn in line, had to wait a little longer. Sigh ...

At that point we realized we had to get back to our cars before our time went into another hour of charged parking. For anyone wanting to go to this zoo, I would recommend starting where we ended. The kids didnt want to leave after we got there, and we wish we had more time in the fun area. Honestly, next time, I think Ill pay the extra and go to a zoo where we can actually see animals on display. It wasnt bad, just a one time is good experience. There are so many better things to see in Chicago.