Monday, November 22, 2010

Happy Birthday Joseph!

Joey is 11 today! I can't believe how old he is. He is becoming a nice young man. I'm able to depend on him to help with the other kids which is really nice.

For his birthday this year he asked me if I would just take him and 3 friends to the new Harry Potter movie instead of having a birthday party. I agreed, but then somehow we ended up having a party anyway. I guess I just like to party too much. He ended up having 5 friends over for pizza. Then Justin took them to the movie and they came back and 2 of the boys spent the night. They didn't sleep at all, but they did play a whole bunch of wii. The poor boys had basketball practice the next day. So after no sleep they had to run around a gym and didn't fall asleep until later Saturday afternoon. Here they are completely crashed out on the couch.
I know this is a lousy picture, but it's the only one I have of the party. (of course I couldn't find my camera when we were singing happy birthday). I made each of the boys a stenciled Harry Potter t-shirt for the movie. They were super excited and had a really fun time running around the house.

Fall in Connecticut

I have been busy this fall. Many times I have composed entries in my head but never quite had enough time to upload pictures and sit down and write all about everything that has been happening here. Today will be a monster post, sort of a photo essay of our fall here in Connecticut. This is a picture of the joy school kids that Michelle does joy school with. It was my turn to teach last week and we went on a scavenger hunt to find leaves and acorns to glue onto our turkeys. This is the wall in our back yard. Kids are lt to rt: Michelle, Elijah Larsen, Gabriel Palmer, Amelia, and Jack Dynes.


John buried in the leaves. Our fall was definately full of leaves!



Alexa (neighbor) and John playing in the leaves.



Samantha.



Samantha on Halloween. Since it was Sunday we didn't go trick or treating, but some friends of ours, the Larsens came over for dinner and good times. It was alot of fun. Heather made these cool broomstick candy sacks for all of the kids. She's so crafty and fun.





Close up of the cool broomstick sacks. I'll have to make these some time.







Heather also brought cupcakes for the kids to decorate. We had a lot of fun building different monsters.







Here's Kate's halloween costume. She was a flower. As you can imagine, she didn't enjoy wearing it, but I thought it was really cute.








Nathan's halloween party at school. His class had a little performance and then snacks for the parents and kids. He was a pirate.









Little orange jack o lanterns I made for Nathan's party. They were filled with fruit salad. I got the idea from familyfun.com. I love that website.












Michelle. She decided to cut her hair this month. Right up front. I would have tried to fix it, but nothing would really work short of shaving her head, so she just looks ridiculus. She also has become fixated on wearing rainbow pants every where she goes, so she is definately one of those crazy dressed 3 year olds. She also thinks that rainbows match rainbows and constantly fights with me about how she should be allowed to wear striped pants with a striped shirt and is sure that it matches better than stripes and solids. Gotta love her. She also is able to take her shoes off in 2 seconds flat. She hates shoes and the minute we get inside anywhere, be it a store, church, school, her shoes come right off (as does her coat). She is so stubborn. We have lots of fights about clothes. I guess it's just the age, got to love 3 year olds. I do have to admit though, she is hilarious and adorable in her own crazy way!