Breakfast with Santa

We look forward to this annual tradition. Our ward hosts a Christmas party of some kind. This year, we had breakfast with Santa, in our jammies. My favorite part of the morning(besides staying in my jammies), is checking out the decorations. Mindy Cabana always does a fabulous job. They are always so fun and so festive. She did not disappoint this year.














We enjoyed breakfast, musical #'s from the Primary children and some of our favorite adults. We loved that our friends, the Titlon's joined us again this year.























The most anticipated part of the morning is the arrival of the big guy, himself.



















Everyone got a turn to sit on his lap.







We are so thankful friends who worked so hard to put on such a wonderful breakfast with Santa. It was such a fun way to kick off our December.

Labor Day 2011

We decided that there would be no Labor going on at our house today. It was a nice relaxing day. We enjoyed a yummy Labor Day BBQ with fun friends. There were 5 families with 13 children between the 5 families. 11 boys. 2 girls. Lots of splashing. Lots of laughter and squeals. Lots of food. Lots of new memories were created that will last a lifetime.




















Thank you to the Roberts Family for hosting a fun afternoon/evening.

Aloha

Brody and I attended Garrett's super fun kinder party today. There will be an end of the school year party at the park, next week. The room mom went above and beyond and planned an Aloha party too. The party was complete with pineapple bowling, fruit kabobs, goldfish and Hawaiian punch, a funny picture station, a sea creature scavenger hunt, and centers where the children decorated their own hats and picture frames. They were asked to come to school sporting their Luau get up. For the life of me, I could not find their Hawaiian shirts...so leis and a grass skirt from the dollar store had to work.





















Once again, I am grateful for the parents, teachers, and friends who make school such a wonderful place for my boys to be! I appreciate the time and love that goes into the whole "it takes a village to raise a child" concept...so thankful to be part of a wonderful school community.

tis the season...

for parties galore! I have had the opportunity to be the room Mom, aka party planner for Tanner's class this year. This years Christmas party was a ton of fun. His teacher had thrown this party the year before, so we repeated it. The children built gingerbread tents,














enjoyed a lively book exchange, played the Driedel game, enjoyed cookies & juice & many of them tried Latkes for the first time. It was a fun, sugar filled afternoon.

I feel like I am constantly saying "what a great way to kick off our December". I can honestly say that every activity & tradition we have experienced so far has really helped kick off our season & add to the holiday spirit in our home. Tonight was the Christmas party at church. I am happy to report that I did not have to plan the party this year. Oh happy days :-)! We enjoyed a yummy dinner, friends, Christmas lights, & lots of wonderful holiday music.










































We can't forget the visit from Santa Claus either. Last year, Brody cried (total under statement)every time we saw Santa. I have three different sets of photos to prove it. He did not like Santa last year. This year, Santa walked into the party & Brody started yelling, "Santa! Santa! Hi Santa". He then followed Santa all the way up to the front of the room & was ready to climb up on his lap. What a difference a year makes :-).

Harvest Party

Today was Tanner's Fall Harvest party, formally known as a Halloween Party. We have to be so PC now that we can't call these things what they really are. I am the party planner (aka room Mom) for Tanner's 5th grade class this year.



























We decorated sugar cookies. We made crafts. They had their choice of a bat, mummy or pumpkin. I found the pattern for the bat online but needed something that was so not Halloweenish, but more Fall to stay with in the PC guidelines. My super talented friend, Mer, created a pumpkin template for me. Thanks Mer! They wrapped either their mummy, bat, or pumpkin around a full sized Hershey bar. I had to a make a deal with them though. The deal was that they would not eat the candy bar at school since they had had sugar cookies, juice & doughnuts :-).















The kids enjoyed a doughnut eating contest. They had to kneel on the ground, with their hands behind their back & get the doughnut off the string & into their mouth w/out it falling onto the ground. It is harder that it sounds. Only 4 kids were able to accomplish this task...Tanner being one of them. I am still waiting for those photos. They also had a chance to guess how many candy corn were in the jars.

We had a great time. Several kids told the teacher that is was the BEST party they had ever had at school. That made all of the time & prep work that was put into the 40 minute party, all worth it.