Thursday, March 04, 2010

Wing ski day at Bogus Basin

Once again we went to the wing ski day this year. It was Feb. 5th. Justin took the boys up on the bus that left at 7:00. They skiied all day and then met up with the rest of us to go tubing at 4:00. This year everyone was tall enough to go, but Michelle just refused. Each kid has to be in their own tube. She might have gone if she could have been in my tube, but she was not into it. Nathan went though. He had a lot of fun. Justin and I took turns walking around with Michelle. After sledding we went out to eat at Applebees. As we were pulling in I heard Joey mumble from the back seat. " I guess we could eat at Craplebees." It made me laugh really hard, because it was a direct quote from Uncle Danny. What a bad influence! J/K. Joey's never eaten there before, and we consider it a "nice" restuarant. Especially to go to with all of the kids. It was a really fun family day, and I think Joey wants to go back to "crapplebees" again. (Not that I endorse that kind of language. ) Michelle making faces. She did not want to go down the hill.

NAthan throwing snowballs. I think he thought that was more fun than actually tubing.

Joey and John getting ready to go backwars spinning down the hill.

Family picture at the top of the hill. It was a fun day.



Birthdays!

I'm still in catch up mode. We are almost finished with birthday season at my house. YAY! Joey's was in November and John and Samantha both have February birthdays. Joey had a football party, John a lego star wars one, and Samantha had a high school musical one. I love throwing parties, but have to admit they wear me and my budget out. Each year I keep trying to downsize, but my kids and hubby love the fun so we get caught up again.

I'll start with Samantha's party because hers was the most recent. She wanted a high school musical theme. It's so funny because she is so girly. She insisted on making her own invites. They were really cute. We made little backstage passes with all the info for her party on them and hand delivered them to all of her friends. I made her limit it to 12 and only invite girls. That was hard for her. It was a total girl party. We brought out all of the girl costumes and I borrowed a few from my friend Connie. When the girls arrived they got to pick out a beautiful dress and then came in for hair and makeup. They got to wear makeup and put some temporary streaks in their hair. (which they loved). THen we made picture frames out of foam and took a picture of each girl on the red carpet. Then we hooked up the karaoke machine (thanks again Connie) and sang through the high school musical sound track. Most of the girls sang and danced, but a few ran off to play. It's funny to see all the different personalities in kids. After the singing we ate pizza and corn on the cob, then had a bling hunt and did cake, ice cream and presents. It was actually a pretty low key party (especially compared to John's party a few week s before. Girls just behave so much better than boys). Nathan sporting a blonde wig, purple cape and glasses plays with the high school musical tent and dance pad that one of my friends lent me. Thanks Amber! It was a hit!

Making picture frames. I happened to have a bunch of foam in my craft closet. This was a great project to get rid of a lot of it.
The birthday cake. Samantha had very specific instructions on what it should look like. She really wanted red and purple, but pink was the best I could do. I'm actually very proud of this cake. My decorating jobs usually don't turn out so great, so I was really pleased with this one.
Next, I'll describe John's party. I couldn't find my camera at the time so you'll just have to use your imagination. He had a lego star wars birthday party. We put out our huge pile of legos and gave the kids 15 minutes to build a star cruiser/ racing pod. I set up our folding table to be a ramp so they could race. That was a bad idea because Michelle kept usig it as a slide and broke a part of it. I think it still works, but it's a little less stable than it used to be. The kids made some pretty neat things. Once again, it's always so interesting to see which kids really love that kind of thing and which ones are ready to move on to the next activity after 5 minutes. After the pod racing we made light labers. Each kid got a 3 ft piece of insulating foam for pipes, it looks kind of like a swimming noodle only a little skinnier. They then got to choose red or blue duct tape to cover their light saber with to make it a light saber. I also had metalic or black duct tape for the handle. THose that really got into it made little buttons to put on it as well. They turned out really cool, however anyone who knows 9 year old boys, should know better than to give light sabers to 8 boys and expect them not to hit each other. I expected them to hit each other, but not to hurt each other. I let them run outside and fantasy play, but ended up having to run out and stop and take everyone's light saber away as one of the kids was getting hurt and obviously not having fun anymore. For the next game, Justin dressed up as Darth Vader (thanks again Connie for the costume). Each Jedi was supposed to take a turn being blind folded and trying to hit Darth Vader with his light saber as he ran around and taunted them. Justin was a really good sport. He got hit a lot. I had to hold onto the sabers except the kid whose turn it was, Even so, it seemed like every time I turned around some group of kids had managed to get their light sabers back and were hitting each other with them. Finally we just put them all up high and ate padawan pizza and gungan grapes, kenobi carrots and yoda soda. I made a cool cake that looked like a light saber. I was really proud of it. We ate cake and ice cream did presents, and the boys played football outside until their parents got there. Boys are so rowdy. But, they had a great time. Grandma and Grandpa Stoker had come up for the weekend, so they helped with the party too.
Next we have Joey's party. He had a football/sports party. It was an excellent fit for that group of boys. THey have so much energy. As they came in they each made a jersey with permanent markers and cheap walmart t shirts. Then they played all sorts of different sport games. They did an obstacle course, the dizzy dash, chicken wrestling and shooting bottles with nerf guns. The best was chicken wrestling. We put duct tape on the carpet in the living room to make a ring that everyone had to stay in. Then each person had to grab onto their ankles with their hands and try to knock people over or butt them out of the circle. It was pretty funny and not very violent because you couldn't use your hands or feet. They asked to play that over and over. After food and cake the kids went outside and played football. I bought flags at the dollar store for them to use, but of couse they wouldn't. They are all about playing tackle. I don't allow it, but it seems they are always playing it whenever I turn my back. There's a big field behind my house so there is often a group of boys out there playing football.




Here's my football cake. Yes I'm proud of it! I know all of you cake masters could do better, but I'm happy with it.





Here's a little clip of Samantha's birthday party. Notice the girl in brown who looks like she's being forced to be there. It cracks me up. She is much more of a tom boy and this party wasn't really her thing, but Samantha loved it. It was exactly what she wanted.

sledding with the young women

Today I'm playing catch up. I use this blog as my journal/scrapbook. I just don't have enough time to do a traditional one and eventually I plan on making a book of this blog. So, here are some photos from our YM/YW combined activity for January. We went sledding up in the mountains towards Fairfield. It was only about 45 minutes away which is amazing because there was absolutely no snow in Mt. Home on this day. We actually really lucked out. The weather in Mt. Home was awful, cold and windy and threatening to rain. I almost cancelled, but luckily the mountains sheilded us from the wind and for the 3 hours we were there, there was no precipitation. It did start snowing just as we left, but that was it.

In addition to the sledding we had chili and hot chocolate thanks to the huge stove the ym brought. They also chopped wood and made a fire for us. It was great. The day was really perfect! I think everyone had a lot of fun.






Joseph, John and Dallin Brown. I konw, they're not ym or yw, but my first counselors husband is deployed so she had to bring her son, and mine just begged to go. I'm glad I took them. They probably had more fun than anyone else there.


Brother Powell tending the fire. As you can tell, we just set up right on the side of the road. We were at Little Camas, a public area for hunting etc. Our ym leaders are avid hunters/outdoorsmen. It's so handy having them around because they know the area and are great fire builders.
A few of the young women eating chili and hot chocolate. MMMM! It was a great day!