Happy Birthday Nate!

Our wonderful son Nathan turned 10 this month! I can't believe he's that old, but he is. He had a hard time deciding what to do for his birthday this year, being at the age when theme parties are not as exciting. So we decided to have a surprise party for him! We just picked up pizza and went to my mom's house. They have two TVs in their family room, plus an air hockey/ping-ping table, and we had it all set up with multi-player games. Nate was completely surprised and everyone had a good time playing video games and being boys (my husband included!) The cake has little guys from Pikmin, a video game. I molded them out of airheads, which worked pretty well but they are way more sticky than play-dough!

Gorgeous Free Christmas cards!

This is an amazing deal! I just ordered 50 beautiful 5x7 photo Christmas cards for FREE! So I just had to share the good deal...

You can order 50 free 4x8 or 5x7 photo cards including free shipping using the coupon code freebies4mom-1109 at SeeHere by Fujifilm

It was quick and easy. Go to SeeHere.com and pick a style, upload your photo, add a little text and when you go to the checkout, enter the promo code "freebies4mom-1109". It's good until Nov. 30, but they are a bit backed up, so the sooner the better.


BTW - Thanks Anna for passing on the info! :o)

Family Christmas Wish Lists

I'm posting this because my mom asked for some gift ideas, and also because I thought their requests were so entertaining.

Nathan's Birthday/Christmas List

ream of copy paper

cardboard boxes

box of crayons

scissors

Legos

karate lessons

science experiment kit

a bike

a stapler

pencil leads (for mechanical pencils)

Pikmin

a microscope

a shovel (not the flimsy ones)

Spectacular Spiderman episodes

Charlie Brown movies

a toy hammer

MP3 player

Brandon's Christmas List

Comics

Pikmin

Spiderman Laptop

paper

a turtle (real)

construction paper

Charlie Brown movies

MP3 player

Nightmare Before Christmas

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late

Hypnosis Kit

A warm, warm Blankie

Sadie's Christmas List

Littlest Pet-shops

Doll house people

Shoes

Earstickers (fake earrings)
Headbands

A Tinkerbell phone

Peter Pan movie

Chapstick

New Family Portraits

Here are the family pictures we had taken a few weeks ago. I think they turned out pretty well. The kids, at least, look fabulous. (I still can't stand pictures of myself, but oh well.) It will be nice to have more recent pictures up in our home. The kids are all getting so big!!! I can't believe Nathan will be turning 10 this month. If anyone would like an actual copy of any pictures, please let me know! I always get too many. :o)

Explorers!

We've been having a great time learning all about the Vikings, Christopher Columbus, parts of a ship, map-making and globes, continents, landforms, and many other explorers. Most of our papers will go in a lapbook, which I'll post when it's done.

We still have so much more to do: Lewis and Clark, the Spanish Conquistadors and I'm hoping to finish up with the pilgrims around Thanksgiving. (I know, I know, they weren't exactly explorers, but they did sail in ships to a new land.) I'd also love any book suggestions for a historical fiction about sailing and exploring that the boys might enjoy reading. I'm also looking for a model boat (not too complicated) but haven't found any great ones yet.

These pictures are water color paintings the boys did of a sunset on the ocean. For the water, we painted a paper with blues, then tore it into strips and glued it onto the sunset paper. The ship, of course, is just a simple printout that they colored and glued on. There is a small white tab attached to the ship so it will sail across the sea when you pull it.

This is Halloween!!!

We had a very fun, eventful and busy Halloween this year. We began with a ward activity, followed by a special Halloween activity at Grandma Krammer's, a Trunk-or-Treat at the grocery store and plenty of Trick-or-Treating! We pretty much have candy and sugar coming out our ears!

The kids and I had a great time decorating the house. We made hanging bats and hung up some spiders on "webs" and also made ghost suckers, which are now spread all over the house. It was fun to make them and they look awesome. We'll leave them up for a few days more, I think.

Costumes this year were so fun! Nathan decided to be an Alien, but altered his costume when our ward activity instructed no masks. He became a person being abducted by an alien. (Basically we stuffed his costume and had the alien hanging over his back with the arms around him.) Unfortunately it was heavier than expected and Nate ended up with his costume being 'a kid giving a piggy-back to a narcoleptic alien.' I wish I had pictures of this, but it didn't last very long. For other activities, Nathan made a fabulous regular alien.

Brandon was a Ninja Turtle (Leonardo, I think). We used an old costume that my mom made for my brothers when we were young. Sadie was a lady bug, as she has been announcing to anyone she meets for the last month or so. They all looked great and had a blast.

Nick and I didn't dress up this year, though he's decided to be Doctor Octopus next year and is anxious to get started on his costume...