Birthdays!!

Saturday Nov. 14th

For my birthday (my 40th--aahh, I'm so old!!) I wanted to go to the beach for the weekend with Garrett.  Since we weren't coming back from Great Wolf Lodge till Friday night, we left Saturday morning for Lincoln City.  Garrett had booked us a room at a hotel that was right on the beach.  It was so cool! We stayed at the Inn at Spanish Head.  

We ate lunch at a really good Mexican restaurant in Lincoln City before we got to the hotel.  I wish I could remember the name of it so we can go back another time, it was really good!

 This was the main room and they had a bedroom also.  

 This was the view from our room.  

 After checking in and getting settled, we went down to the beach for a walk.  It was pretty windy, but it was nice.  

 After our walk, we headed out to see a the new James Bond movie, "Spectre'.  When we got back, we ate our leftovers from lunch and then read our books in the peace and quiet.  It was heavenly.  

 It was really windy and rainy outside and it was fun to listen to the surf and the wind and watch the storm outside.  

 The next morning, we slept in and then went to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  This was our view as we ate.  It was so beautiful.  We had to check out, but we didn't want to head back home.  It was a Sunday, so we couldn't really go and do anything.  So we found a place to park near a beach so we could watch the waves and we both read for awhile.  I'm sure that sounds boring to many of you, but I love to read and don't find a lot of time to read except at night, when I'm tired.  So to have long stretches of time to read was perfect for me.  Plus, I had great company and a beautiful view.  It was a pretty awesome weekend!

Thursday Nov. 19th

 Lydia turned 13 on the 19th so I officially have two teenagers now.  She had a friend party last year, so it was just a family party this year.  I had a stake training meeting that night, so we didn't get to go to dinner that night, and she didn't get to open her presents until I got home around 9.  

 Getting her favorite candy bar with one of her presents.  

 Getting some basketball shorts--she's been wanting these for awhile.  She also got a nice hoodie/leather jacket.  

 Garrett also surprised her with a year's worth of guitar lessons from a really cool guy in our ward, who also happens to be the seminary teacher at Glencoe.  She got a guitar last year for her birthday, but hasn't done much with it.  She was a little nervous about starting lessons, but she is doing so well and picking it up really fast.  

Ready to blow out the candles and eat her favorite cake--Texas Sheet Cake--she requests it every year!!  Happy Birthday Lydia!!

Lydia's Annual Questionaire

Favorite color:  green

Favorite dessert:  Texas sheet cake with vanilla ice cream

Favorite thing for dinner:  teriyaki chicken and rice

Favorite book: Percy Jackson

Best friends:  Kali Noel, Elise Squire, and Taylor Knight

What do you love about yourself?  my hair (pixie cuts rock!)

What is your favorite thing about school?  almost everything except science

What is your favorite thing to do with your mom?  taking pictures

What is your favorite thing to do with your dad?  playing pranks and jokes

If you had a day alone with mom and dad, what would you do?  go to the beach

What is the best thing you've learned this year?  Middle school's not bad. :)

What makes you most proud?  friends

What makes you happy?  family

Where would you like to go on vacation this year?  Alaska

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Just like my mom and dad

What do you like about  being in Young women's?  the leaders

Who is your favorite apostle?  President Uchtdorf

Most of November

Monday Nov. 2nd

The deer liked to come and eat what was left of our tomato plants.  

Thursday Nov. 5th

Relief Society Craft Night-- we made a simple wooden nativity that was really cute.

Friday Nov. 6th

Jim and Garrett flew to California to see a BYU game with Josh.  The game was Friday night and they stayed with Josh and Tanya, then came back Saturday night.  It was a short trip, but they had a fun time.

Saturday Nov. 7th

I had Paige babysit while I took Maggie and Lydia to see the new church movie, "Once I was a Beehive."  It was a cute movie!

Hanging out with the California McKibben's for the day!  

Garrett and Josh

They went to a Monarch Butterfly preserve that looked pretty cool.

Garrett, Josh, Caleb, Hannah and Luke

Garrett said that Jim struck up a conversation with one of the guides and talked and talked about wildlife and stuff.  

Sunday Nov. 8th

We went over to the grandparents' house for dinner and Grandma was teaching Noah how to play Angry Birds (I think) on her ipad.  

Thursday Nov. 12th

The kids didn't have school on Wed, Thurs or Friday, so we booked a trip to Great Wolf Lodge for Thursday and Friday.  We probably got there around 3 or 4, got checked in and then hit the pool.  

We ate pizza for dinner and then the kids got started on their MagiQuests.

It was so busy that we had to wait in line to use the wands in some places.  

Pixie Hollow

Noah howling like a wolf.  He has a thing for wolves.  He's too funny!

Friday Nov. 13th

Great Wolf Lodge is not the place I would pick to spend my birthday, but it was still fun.  My birthday trip would come the next day...more on that in the next post.  

We had to be out of our rooms by 11, so we hung out in the lobby for a bit while the kids were on their magiQuests.  Noah was eating leftover pizza for a snack.  

Then he got his energy back and started howling like a wolf again!  

Eating lunch a bit later before getting into the pool again.

Bella in the wave pool

with Maggie and Lydia.  The wave pool is everyone's favorite.

Paige and Noah slurping some slurpees.

We left around 7:30 and drove home in the dark in a down pour the whole way home.  The kids had a fun time!!  They'd love to come back every year, but I'm good with the every 2-3 years schedule we've got going on.  

Friday Nov. 20th

Bella was student of the month, so I came to take pictures of her.

Waiting for her turn

Mrs. Sheller saying all sorts of nice things about Bella.

Her two teachers, Mrs. Sheller and Mrs. Gutierrez

This is what they said about her. 

"Long about midnight, the ghosts and banshees, they get together for their nightly jamboree..."

Games

Ichabod Crane Trivia

The first game we played was a trivia game and bean bag toss all in one. 

Whenever it was their turn, they would toss the bean bag onto the mat and whichever square they landed on, that was how many points they got when they answered the question correctly.  (As soon as we got to grandma's house, we had them watch the show while we finished setting up a few things.  That way the show was fresh in their minds.)

I found a few questions on line, but mostly made them up.  They were all fairly easy.

Here's a few examples:

"What color is Katrina's parasol?"

"What are Ichabod's feet compared to?"

"What are two things that Ichabod usually carries with him?"

"What is the last line of the movie?"

I love movie trivia, so that was probably my favorite part.  

answering his question

Punch a Pumpkin

 The second game was just a simple get a prize game.  They had to punch their hand (fingers worked best) through the tissue paper and then got to pull out the prize inside.  Most of the prizes were candy, but there were some socks and little cheap toys and some small packages of Cheetos.  

They each got to do it about 4-5 times.

"Are they shovels or are they feet?"

Racing in Ichabod's Shoes

I was so happy to have found this next game because I thought it went perfectly with the line from the movie (above).  He does have such big feet!

I didn't get a good picture of the shoes and cups of popcorn, but I guess you can see from the pictures of the kids racing.  

Pretty much this was a relay race using shoes that are too big for you.  I gathered up some of Garrett's shoes for the older kids and some of mine for the younger ones.  I had attached some plastic cups to the shoes with rubber bands and filled the cups up with popcorn.  They had to put the shoes on, and race to one side of the barn and back and the person with the most popcorn still in their cup, wins!

 Trying to get their cups on their shoes and the shoes on their feet.

 Bella and Noah were the first to race

 Noah's shoes

 Ready to race

 Maggie and Paige ready to race.

Trying not to spill their popcorn

Lydia was moving pretty slow on her turn. It was a pretty funny game.  

"The Headless Horseman needs a head..."

"Heads will Roll Game"

This game was just a race with mini pumpkins--meant to be heads--although I don't think I ever told the little kids that.  It was really simple, but the little kids loved it.  They wanted to play over and over.  I just found a big piece of wood in Jim's barn, set it up so it was leaning against a chair and then we just raced pumpkins by seeing which would roll the farthest and fastest.  

I apologize about the quality of the pictures...the lighting in the barn was so awful and the pictures were full of shadows and bright lights.  I tried to edit them and they look somewhat better, but not great.  

"They say he's tired of his flaming top..."

"Beat the Pumpkin Pinata"

This was your typical hitting the pinata game.  Of course it wouldn't be complete if Garrett wasn't messing with the string and pulling the pinata away from the kids when they were about to hit it.   

 Getting ready to whack the pumpkin

 Paige being a clown!

 Noah was up first

 Garrett working the string

 Paige's turn

 Lydia

 Jim and Savann hung the pinata for me and they actually hung it up with a bungee type rope.  So at one point, Garrett sent the pinata flying at Maggie.  

 It just barely missed her head.  :)

After this, I actually had one more game lined up and ready to go, but I forgot about it.  It was a memory game.  

This was before our last activity.  I had bought a colonial hat, kind of like what Ichabod wears, just for a decoration.  Lydia wanted to try it on.  

"For once you cross that bridge my friends, the ghost is through. His power ends!"

"Wagon Ride through Sleepy Hollow"

I was so excited when I had decided on the theme and that it would be at my in-laws house because after the party, I knew we could go on a tractor ride in the dark and have Garrett scare the kids!!

The only crappy thing was that it was raining the night of the party.  We still went on the ride and Garrett did scare them, but it was cold and wet.  Oh well.  It was still fun!

and that was the end of the party.  

I had so many other game ideas but they wouldn't work inside the cramped barn.  My ideas were more for outside where the kids could run and spread out.  I'll keep them though in case there's a next time!