Thursday, June 30, 2011

The Party

Time for the Indiana Jones party to begin!





While we were waiting for everyone to arrive the kiddos calmly colored an Indiana Jones picture!


Then they headed into the kitchen to eat dinner.

Christian was so excited! He had been counting down to this big event for weeks.






Natalie and McKenna are so cute. There is a huge age difference between them and yet they are such sweet friends! Natalie helped McKenna and watched out for her all night.

It was extra special to have Abby and Emma there to celebrate Christian's birthday with us.

The whole gang.

Everyone headed into the living room after dinner to hear the instructions for the treasure hunt.

We kicked things off with the "mummy wrap." There was a clue hidden inside one of the rolls of toilet paper and the kids had to wrap the mummy until they found the clue.
Christian got totally covered so.....

Emma became the second mummy!

Finally Wyatt found the clue and Christian busted out of his mummy wrap to head off to the archaeological dig.







Everyone had to find two gold coins and one clue!
Time to find some more gold coins and rescue the trapped paratroopers from the tree. Abby took this station pretty seriously.


Back to the house in search of the banquet hall.

When they found it they were pretty disturbed to find out that the banquet hall was serving up Eye ball soup (grapes in water), Money Brain Salad (cold spagetti noodles with vegetable oil on them) and Snake Guts (jello). Each friend had to find a gold coin in each bowl. It was slimmy and gross! Perfect for this six year old.

Monkey brains...yuck!
It was just a little messy!

Off to crocodile lake to find some more clues!














Then it was time to shoot those snakes in the snake pit (with their water guns)and search for the next clue.




They finally discovered a gold box in the airport hangar (the garage) and inside it contained the treasure....cupcakes for everyone!

Cupcakes!


McKenna enjoyed her cupcake and Abby thought it was pretty funny.


Then it was present time!


Christian is totally into Lego and Cars 2. We was so excited about each of his gifts!



Then we headed outside to play!

It was a beautiful night!

To my complete horror, Christian's buddy Josh even discovered this uninvited guest at the party. Yup. That's a skunk. And what you can see is that her tiny little babies are huddled behind her. She was hiding in the corner of one of our playhouses and Josh discovered her just as he was about to dive thru the window. We were discussing and researching our extermination options, but thankfully she took of on her own.


I think this might have been one of the best nights of Christian's life. He loved his party and his special time with friends.






It's going to be a great year with this six year old!

And did you notice what happened to him on the morning of the party??



He lost his other top front tooth. What a cutie!





Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Prayers for our "B-Beth"



(Hannah, Elizabeth, Abby)


Would you please pray for my cutie pie niece, Elizabeth, this morning??? She's the one in the middle (I think. ha! It's so hard to tell in pictures....so much easier in real life). She had a seizure this morning. It's the longest one she's ever had (she's had them before). She's my brother Tim's little girl. They have taken her to the hospital. I know that Tim and Erin really need wisdom right now. And of course we are once again asking Jesus to bring complete healing to B-beth so that she will never have to go through this again.


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She got checked out and she's home now and doing fine. Thanks for praying!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Father's Day 2011

This Father's Day was an especially special day for two of the guys in my life!! Will was dedicated to the Lord and Ryan celebrated his first Father's Day as the daddy of 3 precious kiddos!
Aren't they so handsome!



We did our best to get a nice family picture after Will's dedication. This one was by far the best. You should see the other outtakes!


The boys in our family! I'm so thankful that Will gets to grow up in a family with a Daddy who works hard, loves the Lord and who is a man of integrity. And I'm thankful too that Will has a big brother who loves him to pieces and who loves Jesus too!





Monday, June 27, 2011

The Fashionista!





McKenna is quite the fashionista! She has been known to tell us that something is "too boring" to wear. She pretty much refuses to wear anything that is plain or without some kind of design. She changes her clothes all day long. And she comes up with some very creative combinations. One day I'm just going to have to chronicle all her outfit changes. But today I saw her running past me with ....yes that's Will's binkie in her mouth....grr......anyway she came running past me and I had to do a double take. She had on her baby dolls pants! I think that girl needs to eat more! Oh and clearly she was not too excited about that fact that I was taking her picture.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Older and Wiser

(Notice anything different about Christian??)


Yesterday we celebrated Christian with an Indiana Jones party with a few of his friends.

I've been a mom for 6 years now. Motherhood has literally given me gray hair, but I'm also so much wiser than I was just five years ago when I did Christian's first b-day party. At his first birthday party I tried to dye white icing red with regular food coloring. Ever tried that? Nonsense I tell you! I didn't have a clue. Anyway...

You see, yesterday we partied. Today we cleaned.

Did you read that???
I didn't clean before the party.
I cleaned after the party.

We straightened up things before the party and as all the mommies dropped off their kids, my house looked clean. Today I broke out the clorox wipes, the vacuum, the swiffer, the windex, etc. And yes, I'm totally tooting my own horn because I'm so proud of myself (this is a big deal for me) that I didn't waste all my time and energy cleaning in vain yesterday. I recently read the book The Reluctant Entertainer and one thing she wrote stuck with me: "Excellence is working toward an attainable goal that benefits everyone, while perfection comes from a place of great need - usually the need to avoid criticism and gain praise and approval from others." Holy cow I needed to hear that!!! Anybody else need to be set free from the curse of perfectionism?? Now granted...my kids have pretty much broken me and my house of anything close to perfect but I still would get stressed out about trying to make things perfect even if I could never attain it. So yesterday was a small victory for me :) And we all had a good time despite the fact that the kitchen floor was pretty gross!


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Dear Daddy! From, Christian

We sure do miss you, but we got the best surprise this week! Monday afternoon PopPop came over to help mommy with some things and Emma was with him! We had no idea she was coming over!! We were all so excited!!!
We've been having lots of fun while you're gone.....going on walks!



.... Playing with Nathan!


...Swimming with Emma!


....Hanging out with Abby!



....being crazy in the pool!


And Will's been getting lots of love!


I've been doing some crazy tricks in the water!



And Will's been getting lots of love!



Nathan is my best buddy!


Did I mention that everyone loves Will?



Ummm...yeah....everyone loves Will!


We've been hanging out at Grandmom and PopPop's house.



And I had a great t-ball game tonight!


I'm having a sleepover with Nate and the girls are having a sleepover too!


Don't worry about Will....everyone loves him!


We miss you daddy and hope you come home soon!


Love,

"Chrish Fish"