Nerf Battle 2012 and Ethan's 10th Birthday

Our Ethan turned double digits this summer and with it the biggest birthday party yet! This battle/party had been in the works for months! James and Ethan are very much into Nerf and were begging to have a bunch of kids over for a full blown Nerf battle. So we decided to go ahead with it for Ethan's birthday party. We had four teams each with an adult leader. Each team started out by going to one of four stations; face paint, get your gear, rules, and creating a team flag. Once trough the stations the teams headed to the woods for 30 minutes to build their forts. Once all teams were back to base camp the battle began! The rules were a capture the flag/treasure hunt type theme, the first team to find the "golden tiki man" and be back to base camp with all members and their flag wins. 

Let the battle begin...

Here is Ethan the warrior!

Going over the rules with the teams.

James' team with their flag.

A little bit of team strategy.

Whenever you were "hit" you had to come to base camp for 1 minute. I was able to get lots of good shots of the kids while there.

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Mimi and Papa were brought water balloons to add to the fun! 

 And in the blink of an eye...

a little water fun can turn into... WATER FIGHT!!!

After the battle was over we all gathered around for cake!

Ethan got lots of awesome gifts! Thanks goes out  to everyone who made his 10th birthday the best one yet!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

We love you!!!

Mollie Turns 4

Our baby girl turned 4 this spring! Here are some pic's from her big day:

 We decided to feed her healthy love of sweeping with her very own Mollie sized broom.

 The Cupcakes!

Our little ballerina also received a new dancing dress.

Happy Birthday Mollie!

We love you!!!

Emmalie's Birthday #5

Our little girl turned 5 the other day! How grown up she is! Loosing teeth, riding bikes, and just wanting to hang with the big kids all the time some days makes her seem even older! If anyone has a recipe to make kids stop growing up so fast please let me know!!!

Emmy was blessed by Nana and Bumpa with a special sleepover for her and her sis at the campground where they spend the summer. She was even was able to catch some fireworks in town! The next day we had a little party and she was blessed with some nice clothes, toys and a bike (that came a few weeks ago).

Emmy (along with her Mimi) really like hello kitty and got this cute little shirt which is now her favorite.

Mollie's favorite gift...

Happy 5th Birthday Emmy! We Love YOU!!

Ethan Turns 9!

Our little Ethan turned 9! It's hard to believe he can possibly be that old!! He has grown and changed so much, becoming more and more responsible and always adding some silliness to our days! The day of his birthday was busy with church and working on our families garden project but we took a special afternoon break for some ice cream cake!

It's too funny that two years ago Ethan also requested an ice cream cake and ended up with the same one. It's Auntie Sarah's specialty. HERE is the post from his 7th birthday and the directions on how to make one.

Here is Ethan getting ready to blow out the candles, he used an interesting technique of blowing each candle out separately and not all at once!

Ethan is really in to Star Wars this year. Here he is thanking Papa for some Legos!

This is a little blury but I loved his excited face when he saw the double bladed light saber!!

The day ended with the last gift, a roof for our first greenhouse!

Mollie is 3!

Our baby is 3!!
Time has flown by so fast since this little one came into our lives! Here is a pic of her at her 1st birthday:

And here she is now enjoying her froggy cupcake on her birthday at home! What a difference!!

Here she is getting ready to devour that pile of frosting! Miss Mollie has a MAJOR sweet tooth! If she is crying and unwilling to stop she is easily bribed into stopping with candy or some other sweet treat!

She also can be oh so sweet in nature too! Here she is with her little chick (fluffy 2), who is the same kind as the one we lost in a dog attack last summer!

Oh Miss Mollie how you have grown! We love you so much and are so glad you are in our family!!

Ethan Turns 8!!

Our little Ethan (who is not so little anymore) turned 8 on Saturday! I tried to find an old pic of him to post but in every one he is making a crazy face or doing something crazy! That's just how he is, the family jokester, always turning everything into FUN! This pic is of him just after becoming a big brother for the first time, he had just turned 4! He looks so happy and proud to finally be bigger than someone!

I couldn't leave out one of the silly pics! This is Ethan at 6, trying on uncle Phil's fireman helmet at a field trip we did to the fire station.

He has grown so much! More responsible but still always looking for some way to turn everything into fun! We had a very small birthday for him this year. He picked two friends to sleep over and enjoy the day with him. He got a bunch of new water and beach toy's.

This is the one he has been enjoying the most! A super water blaster! It shoots up to 20 or 30 feet (I can't remember exactly)! He also got some hot wheels and a new fishing pole from Nana and Bumpa!

The big surprise of the day was this:

Thanks to Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack it was set up with water in it when the kids arrived. They took the kids to their house to play Wii while Daddy worked hard to get it set up! When they arrived Ethan just kept saying "What! What! What!?"Unfortunately setting up didn't quite go as planned. Daddy had a great idea of filling the pool from the brook (instead of draining our well) and rented a pump to get the job done. After setting it all up and lugging the pump down the steep embankment to the brook he realized it was too small to pump the water all the way up the hill! So everything had to come back up the hill and back to the rental place to exchange it for a bigger one! This time it worked! Only the pool was not level so we had to drain it and called in a favor for a load of sand. We worked along with Papa, Mimi, Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack into the night to get the sand spread and the pool in position.
In the morning it was ready to fill! But we woke to a crazy thunder and lightning storm!! It finally stopped and then the pool was filled! The kids were so anxious to get in that they went for a quick dip before we added any chemicals. And I do mean quick! The water was only a little over 50 degrees! I think they were shivering and blue before they even got in!

We don't have any kids in the pool pics yet but I will post some soon!

It was a birthday adventure!
Happy Birthday to our littlest boy! We love YOU!!