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.

aa

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!!!

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!

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!!

I Heart Faces - "Yellow"

This weeks I Heart Faces photo challenge is "Yellow". I knew I wanted to enter a pic from the dandelion field, but which one???
This one of Ethan is one of our favorites! It shows his playful nature so well!

Check out the other yellow photo's at I Heart Faces!

Ethan and Emmy's B-Day Party

Okay, so this really happened way back in July and I've been meaning to post it on our blog but sometimes life just seems to get away from you! So enough of the excuses and on to the party! Ethan and Emmy had a combined birthday party this year so that the Everitts could be a part of it while they were visiting NH.

Ethan wanted a space shuttle cake, it came out so great thanks to Muria who did pretty much all the decorating! Ethan and his cake:

Emmy wanted the princess castle cake! It also came out great!! Thanks again to Muria and my mom for helping too!

Next we hung a pinata from the swing set, here is James giving it his best swing:

Auntie Sarah helped Mollie with her turn!

Emmy sizing up the situation:

Go Ethan!

Here is Ethan opening a gift, obviously a good one!

They also got two new swings and a recycled tire horse for the swing set!

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful gifts and for coming and spending the afternoon with us!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

We had a small family get together Friday night for Ethan's B-day here are some pics:

Blowing out the candles. Smile Ethan!!!

This monstrosity of a cake is a homemade ice cream cake that my sister taught me to do. Ethan named this one the "Zebra Cake" direction are below:

Easy Homemade Ice Cream Cake

You need:

1 9x13 cake baked and cooled completely (your choice of flavor)

1 carton of ice cream (also your choice)

1 12oz. cool whip or whip up your own whipped cream

All you do is cut the cake in half through the middle so you now have two layers. Place the bottom layer on your serving plate. Cut open the carton of ice cream so you now have the whole block sitting in front of you. Slice the ice cream in about 1 to 1 1/2 inch layers and lay them on the cake to cover the whole bottom layer. You should use the whole carton of ice cream. Spread the ice cream a little to fill in any holes or cracks. Place the top layer of the cake on the ice cream layer and plaster the whole thing with cool whip. You can now place it in the freezer or serve immediately. We drizzled ours with chocolate syrup and jimmies.

Back to Ethan:
Playmobile Dragon set from James to go with their knight and castle set.

Hot wheels track from Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack.
Thank you Auntie and Zacky!

This was the last gift waiting in the corner, Ethan had been itching to open it as soon as he saw it but we made him wait until last! Guesses for this one were a broom, a rocket, and of course a gun...

Ethan was so happy about these gifts from my Dad and Mom. Both the boys love playing "Civil War" with their good friend Caleb! We know the vest doesn't really go but Ethan had to wear it!!

This was the "thank-you-Papa-I-love-it" hug!

The next thing we knew Emmy had found the gun!

Watch out Annie Oakley here comes Emmy-lou!

She looks super innocent doesn't she??

James was thrilled when he realized they got him the same thing only one of them has the Confederate hat and one the Yankee! Thanks Papa and Mimi!!

Happy 7th Birthday Ethan!

We Love You!!