Cousins in the Snow - January 2014

The winter of 2014 was super fun with an above average amount of snow for Kentucky. It makes me realize I should really live further north! :) Heidi and Holden came to play in the snow with us one day they had off school and as you can see a pretty good time was had by all! :)

 Trying to walk back up the ice on the driveway

 The boys had at least as much fun (if not more) shoveling with these child size snow shovels from Aunt Arla vs sledding.

 This is probably my favorite picture of the day - what two cute cousins! :) 

 The girls trying their hand at snowboarding with our wonderful neighbors

I had to include this one sweet picture of McKinley all dressed up and ready to head outside to enjoy her first snow. This was actually a different day (our first snow was in November), but it was just too sweet not to include somewhere! Poor baby was all tuckered out from getting all dressed out and never actually managed to make it outside to enjoy the snow. lol :)

I also wanted to include this video Grand-Dad took of another fun snow day in January:

http://youtu.be/FB20jMTqTAo

Sure hope next winter we get as much wonderful snow to play in as we did this year! :)

December 2013 Videos of my Munchkins

This post is primarily for me and probably of little interest to anyone else. Grand-Dad took several vidoes upon my request in December and I'm posting my favorite videos so they are easier for me to locate. :) . Some of them are a bit long, but as a mom I just love to listen to these sweet little voices. It's amazing to me how much older they already sound 8 months later! I sure am glad we have the ability to capture these sweet little voices! :)

~

McKinley and Grand-Dad checking out the Cuckoo Clock - this has been there thing for a long time and it amazes me that she never gets tired of Grand-Dad showing it to her. :)

http://youtu.be/WtSCVqb6mg0

 

McKinley singing and cooing - such a precious baby voice :)

http://youtu.be/JBnDTBPFAC4

 

Here is Jackson singing his ABCs - after a few false starts...

http://youtu.be/dEP116qKiCQ

 

I love this little munchkin voice and all her antics reciting part of "The Night Before Christmas"

http://youtu.be/iGbU6qLxJHA

 

Reagan playing "Away in the Manger" duet with her violin instructor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxaVZHIuGE

Fall 2013 Visit from Aunt Arla and Uncle Scott

The primary reason Aunt Arla and Uncle Scott came to visit us last fall was for the girl's violin recital. Reagan and Kennedy did a great job and I think this is such a nice picture of them with their violin teacher, Ms. Bethany Watt. Thank you to Grammy for accompanying both girls on their recital pieces.

 Reagan (6 1/2 yrs old), Fall Violin Recital, "The Two Grenadiers" by R. Schumann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmgCFcCmz6g

   Kennedy (almost 5 years old), 2013 Fall Violin Recital, "Allegro" by Suzuki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tiUf0dMi9E

 Reagan and Aunt Arla before the violin recital

 Grammy, Kennedy, Reagan and Uncle Scott hard at work making bird seed ornaments for Great Grandma's seasonal Christmas tree.

 Aunt Arla and Uncle Scott gave Kennedy a very special Pandora bracelet with turtle charm for her 5th birthday. Thank you so much! :)

 Everyone LOVEs Luci! :)

We also enjoy and appreciate all the Packer gear Aunt Arla and Uncle Scott gave us for pre-Christmas celebration with them.

 One day we visited the Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Planetarium with Aunt Arla and one of our homeschool co-ops. It was so much fun and we will definitely be headed back there again! 

 We also enjoyed a little leaf jumping with Aunt Arla :)

Thank you for coming to visit! We had a fabulous time and appreciate your coming to see us so much! We can't wait until your next visit! :)

The Gettysburg Address

Today is the 150th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Grand-Dad suggested some time ago that I should have the girls memorize it this year for that reason. Since they have good memories it seemed like a fun challenge. Kennedy's performance is actually a bit toned down from what it was at one point. You can kind of tell she's driving Reagan crazy as her reaction is not to make a single facial expression during the recitation. In anycase, especially during this month where we give thanks I'm extremely grateful for the tremendous leadership our country has had. I have read several books on Lincoln, my favorite being "With Malice Towards None," and he was quite the remarkable individual. Wish we had a few more politicians and leaders of his caliber around today! With no further adieu here are Reagan (6) and Kennedy (4) reciting Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX7izu7z3wA&feature=youtu.be

Jackson's 3rd Birthday - September 2013

We celebrated Jackson's 3rd birthday with friends and family the second weekend in September. Jackson chose a Knight theme and I found this super cute dragon cake on Pinterest that I thought I could handle making. Thank you to everyone who helped make Jackson's day special! :)

 Grammy made "dragon" sugar cookies and I found castle/knight Pepperidge farm cookies to match our theme as well.

 To compliment our Medieval theme we had all finger food. We had baked cheesy dragon legs (chicken legs), dragon eggs (specially died deviled eggs) and watermelon among some other less creative food. :)

Jackson requested red dragon juice (fruit punch) to match his red dragon cake

 Grammy sorting gems for our princesses to decorate their crowns with

 The girls decorated princess crowns as well as bags for collecting goodies on Sir Jackson's Quest

The boys decorated shields in order to become knights. Here is "Mr. Frank" with Uncle Dan.

 Jackson decided he didn't want to participate in the craft activities and opted for playing with the new Imaginext (http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=900002&e=storeproduct&pid=67057) toys he had received from us and Grammy & Grand-Dad earlier in the day.

 After all the kids arrived and had an opportunity to finish decorating their crowns, shields and bags we began "Sir Jackson's Quest." Tim spent quite a bit of time (I was so impressed with him!) coming up with the clever clues (included below) and this was a super fun activity! We began with finding a chest of swords and scepters to help our knights and princesses on their way.  

 The big girls took turns reading the clues

 And away our fearless crew goes to find the next clue!

 Tim did a great job of getting the kids to look all over the house and yard including Ring Pops in the mailbox.

While we had multiple clues we ended with the "Dragon's Hoard" (obviously guarded by a fierce dragon) where the kids found dragon eggs with money, jewelry and other fun goodies to fill their bags with.

The poor dragon's lair was thoroughly raided!

Next our knights and fair ladies took part in a "Jousting" event where they took turns participating or cheering from their respective castle (we had a blue and red team) for their hero or heroine.

  The object was to hit the red star with the sword while galloping on your horse towards your opponent

  We finished our activities with a "Water Balloon Seige" of the castles. I was definitely channeling my inner Aunt Jolene and Aunt Arla by the time I decided it was necessary to sort through 1500 water balloons to pull out the reds for the Red Castle and blues for the Blue Castle. You can see a video clip of our siege thanks to Grand-Dad at the following link on YouTube: http://youtu.be/fTDwPmao-XI or just enjoy a few more birthday pictures of our battle. :)

 The brave Red team ready for battle!

 The ferocious Blues were ready to go too! :)

 The kids loved this and it turned out better than we even thought as they truly used the castles (made of boxes and then painted) as a base and place to regroup. We may have had a little confusion and couple of defectors but fun was most definitely had by all! :)

 Jackson was a little uncertain about getting in the thick of things to begin with but decided it looked like too good a time to be left out for long! :)

 Miss McKinley hung out with her birthday buddy, Lauren, during the festivities :) 

After the games and dinner (which I just realized I posted in reverse order of which they occurred) we were ready to sing "Happy Birthday" and enjoy Sir Jackson's b-day cake! :) Thanks again to Grand-Dad for the video which can also be viewed on YouTube: http://youtu.be/HTJ5X64qa3Q

 Missy K was very hungry for cake and ice cream!

 We didn't manage to get through the gifts before our guests had to leave but we did get to a couple. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Dan gave Jackson an awesome indoor castle sandbox he can play with while we do school work. He has been loving this and I will include pics in a future post. The Veloudis' gave Jackson a Dragon Slayer outfit along with knight toys which Jackson also loves!

 The Hesslers gave Jackson a super fun bathtub toy for Hot Wheel Cars. We are all about cars here so I told Amy the only problem with this gift was we didn't have 3 of them to avoid fights in the bathtub! lol :) We have more pics of fabulous birthday gifts that I will do my best to post soon. Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts and for making Jackson's day so special!

 Jackson ran out of steam pretty quickly into the gift wrapping and just fell asleep on Daddy's shoulder. It is hard work turning 3 and being a Birthday Knight!!! :) 

Thank you to everyone (especially Grammy and Grand-Dad who helped get everything together and ready for the party) for such a fun 3rd birthday for Jackson! :)
~
For those of you who might be interested, here were our Quest clues. Tim made sure to match the clues up with whatever treasure they were finding at the next stop. To show his cleverness, I've added the treasures in parentheses at the end of each clue but they obviously weren't there for the kids to read. Thank you so much to my amazing husband!
~

Sir Jackson’s Quest

 

(1)       Before the group can start its quest, first find the weapons that suits you best -- look in Jackson’s chest! (swords and scepters outside Jackson's bedroom)

 

(2)      Weapons alone won’t win the day, you’ll need brains to find the way – go to the room where music plays!   The place you sit is where the party, will find a treat to make you a smarty !  (Smarties candy by the piano)

 

(3)       Now that you are thinking better, search the box where you would get a letter.  It doesn’t matter which one you pick, just make sure you do it quick -- its magic protects you from the dragon’s trick! (Ring Pops in the mailbox)     

(4)       You truly are a royal bunch, but miss a clue and you are dragon lunch!  You must dig beneath the sand, if you want to save the land.  (pencils in the sandbox)

(5)       With these things you can make a map and avoid the dragon’s trap.  Seek out the garden - behind the wire, eating this potion is like breathing fire! (Pop Rocks hidden in the garden)

(6)       You are powered up and near his lair, but that dragon does not play fair!  You will need a crystal ball to beat the dragon for once and all.  Seek it out where you jump high and give the final riddle one last try. (balls that light up when bounced on the trampoline)

(7)      Bounce the ball to make it light, the dragon’s cave is as dark as night.  If you’re ready to find his lair, look behind the nearby rocking chair! (M&M's behind our glider/rocker) 

(8)      Grab a treat quickly, you’ll have to race, to find the dragon’s hiding place.  Climb the ladder or the slide and you might find where the dragon hides! (miscellaneous things hidden on the swing set under the inflatable dragon)