Little One's Baptism! - February 9, 2013

Who knew that I'd have both of my kids getting baptized just over a year apart.  What a whirlwind it is, getting ready for such an event.  For the most part it was really nice.  What is hard about things like this though, is that there are so many things going on that I don't tend to get very many pictures.

A few days before the baptism I had the other two kids that were also getting baptized come over and do some pictures to put on the program.  We had fun with them. :)

She really wanted Mom to make her a pink dress.  She picked out the pattern, fabric and everything.  It turned out gorgeous!

This is the one we put on the program.

This one turned out adorable!  Mikey was such a good sport. :)

She insisted on having a dress to be baptized in even though she had to make sure she stuck it between her legs so it didn't float up on her.  That's my girly-girl!

Little One and I in her white dress.

Joey, Allie and Little One.  They are our dear friends.  Their little brother, Daniel, was busy eating cookies. :)

Lexi, Little One and Ashley.  They are all within 3 months of each other and are such good friends!

And wouldn't you know it?  I spaced getting a picture of her with Draney's!  Here they all are (minus Ben) playing Just Dance Disney after we came home and had dinner though.

Congratulations, Little One!  I'm so proud of you and your decision to be baptized!  XOXO

Another Game of Catch-up

I really need to get things to the point where I do this WHEN things happen instead of batches of months at a time.  Hopefully I can do that soon. *crosses fingers*  Here are a few miscellaneous things since I last posted.

First off are some of Little One's Polly Pocket things she had set up along the edge of the stairs.  The dolls were even in little beds she'd made for them.  So cute!  Things like this is what I will miss when she passes through this stage of things.  Toys all over the place bug me, but this, this is different. :)

Next is our end-of-phonics party!  Little One has worked so hard for 2 1/2 years to get through a pretty hefty phonics program.  She's been learning tons of things and has really progressed.  In February we did a little party after her last day of phonics.  She wanted to use some of her Spa Science kit that she got for Christmas and so us girls did facials.  It was rather messy, but fun and she had a blast.  I now know where the term "cool as a cucumber" came from.  Those cucumbers really felt somewhat cold.  After our spa night we watched a movie on the projector.  With popcorn. :)

Ira was gracious enough to let me take a picture of her getting her treatment done. :)

 And lastly, Ira was out doing her magic with sidewalk chalk.  She is really talented.

Traveling the Silk Road

In history a few weeks ago we were studying about travels along the Silk Road.  We did out own version of it in the house.  Little One really enjoyed it!

First we started off in the Taklamakan Desert, hence the sunglasses.

The oasis settlement of Tun-huang-shih where we ate a snack of carrot sticks and green and red peppers.

The Gobi Desert where we had an oasis to drink water.

Loyang-shih where we had another snack.

Here we paddled down the Yellow River...

...where we arrived in Peking (Beijing.)  Inside the palace we found gold, ivory, silk and exotic animals. :)

A couple of other fun things we've done.  Here, Little One is making a canon like the Ottoman Turks used to crack the walls of Constantinople.

We made fog as we were learning about weather.  Our clouds didn't work as well as the fog did, but it was fun!

Ice Storm

January 25th brought the area an unusual ice storm.  I'm used to a version of these from my Michigan days, but this was worse.  About 1/4 in. of ice covered EVERYTHING.  People and cars were sliding around all over the place.  Thank goodness for a pile of snow by our mailbox or my brother would have taken it out with his car.  My neighbor slid into her snowbank too and when she tried to get out of the car she fell.  She had to crawl across her driveway in order to get to the ice-covered snow before she could make it into her house.  I stayed inside that day.  Except for a couple of pictures, of course. ;)

My brother's car only got this close to getting to the driveway.

He's trying to walk on it.  The wet looking part is actually completely frozen.

This was a chunk that he picked up as he and Dad were trying to chop away at it.

His old car.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  It had a layer of ice all over it.

Little One's Birthday

January always brings us to Little One's birthday.  This one being her 8th I wanted to do something special.  First though, we had our usual family get together on her actual birthday.

Cute Justin

Our sweet Lexi and Nathan

Opening Epic Mickey for her DS

Cinderella is her favorite!

Karate legos!

She was getting tired of smiling for me.

Patrice, a rare Terry sighting (so glad he wasn't working that night!), and Ben.

I don't really do friend parties much, but being her 8th birthday we did a little princess party.  She wanted to watch Tangled on the big screen downstairs so we did a Rapunzel theme.  We found some cute ideas online.

Mom did laundry bags for the girls to bring their pillows and blankets in.  They turned out SO cute!

These invites were so fun!  I loved the hair hanging out of the window.

Pascal party blowers

This took forever to make but turned out awesome!

Here is a little video of us braiding this thing.

Frying pan necklaces for the girls to make.

Making pizza for dinner.

Introductions for the two girls that didn't know everybody.

We played "Pin the Flynn" with frying pans, of course.

Cute Maddie

They loved dancing after the movie!

Such adorable girls!  Little One is so blessed to have such amazing friends!