Sunday, December 19, 2010

Christmas Sunday 12-19-10

Birthday Night Out with Friends

Birthday Night out with Friends

We went out to dinner to celebrate birthday's in December. Mine is 12/22 and my sweet friend Kerry's is 12/21. We ate at McGill's and it was yummy. We had the best time talking and catching up. December birthday parties are very hard to work in, so I was grateful to get sometime to celebrate. Our great hubby's escorted us to dinner

Me with my handsome guy.


Good friends/neighbors: Kerry & JohnBirthday girls

Birthday Party for Jesus




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Birthday Party for Jesus
12-17-10

ARK Community at Asbury

Every year one of our favorite Christmas Traditions is to attend a birthday party for Jesus. I really try to emphasize w/ my kids that it is Jesus's birthday and that is why we celebrate. Our Sunday School class starting have a birthday party to honor Jesus's birthday (cake and all) a few years ago and we LOVE going. This year the party was in the gym at Asbury and we had inflatables, pizza, and cake. The Christmas story was read for the kids to hear. Our kids had a ball playing with friends!
Laken enjoys CAKE

Friends: Katie, Kristen, Christina, and Aimee


Andrew, Landon, Ryan


Ella, Lauren, Abby


Erin & Lauren



Ella and Lauren dance as Abby plays piano



Serious Twirling

Friday, December 17, 2010

Christmas Season 2010

advent

Christmas P.J's

Christmas PJ's I just love to get the kiddos matching (or coordinating pj's) for Christmas and they love to wear them. I have tried to hold them off wearing them until Christmas Eve but they get so much joy out of their new pj's that I just let them bust them out in late November. And really, it is funnier to wear them before Christmas. This year I wanted to get a shot of the kids by the tree and Laken actually held still (for about 8 seconds) and said "cheeeeeeze".

Love my babies







Big BRO & lil bro

GOG Christmas Party 12-16-10

x

LAUREN TURNS SIX!!! (12-15-10)

Lauren turns SIX!!

We celebrated Lauren's birthday with friends (12/11/10), with her cousin Aidan (whose bday is 12/21) an family (12/12/10) and with just her family (12/15/10) so I would say this December Birthday was NOT overlooked!

Guest included: PaPa and Grandma Gomez, Grammy & PaPaw Bookout, MeMaw & Pa Lynn, Uncle Adam and Aunt Michelle, cousins Aidan and Gavin, Uncle Matt, Mommy, Daddy, Landon, and Laken

Present Highlights:New PINK coat from grammy and papaw
Matching outfit for Lauren and her American Girl doll (She wore to school the next day and received "tons" of compliements)

The easy bake oven she begged Aunt Michelle for (since Mommy did not want to mess with it or store it at our house). Aunt Chell gave in!
This is what the new ones look like (mine was yellow back in the olden days)


The beautiful things you can make...........
Lauren talked grandma gomez into busting out the easy back before her party was even over. I walked into the kitchen to find a big mess...........



Cousin Aidan

I made him this cool cape with an "A" over a lightning bolt and he immediately put it on and went into SUPER HERO mode with hands on hips and then flying through the living room. I think he loved it!

Lauren's Tea Party for 6th Bday 12/11/10



Lauren's Shabby Chic Tea Party




Lauren had a tea party for her 6th birthday party and it was so fun. I wanted to throw her a party where she and her friends would feel fancy.

We started by doing a few detailed crafts.
I had the supplies separated by the different items we were going to decorate and put them in clear glass bowls for display on the craft table. The girls used all the items on all the crafts and so there ended up being no designation for each embellishment. I thought that was very creative for them and made it even more fun.
We decorated garden/straw hats, canvas bags (each had a fabric initial) and made ribbon bracelets.

















The Girls were ready for the Tea Party now
Tyler, Kirsten, Ella, Gentry, Lauren, Addyson, Macy, Courtney, Izzy



Happy Birthday Banner



Table set

Flower Pot Ice Cream


Perfect Pettifours



"tea bag" party favors

Monday, December 13, 2010

Cookie Exchange Hosted by landon & lauren

Landon and Lauren's Cookie Exchange Party

I have a good friend that host an amazing party each Christmas and at the end, we have a cookie exchange and I come home with tons o
f yummy cookies (all different from each other and what I brought). Landon always looks forward to this party and has asked me if we could host a similar party for his friends one day. Well............. this was the year to do it!

Kendall, Lauren, Macy, Tyler, Addyson, Kirsten, Jack, Barrick, Noah, Preston, Landon, Jacob


Landon and Lauren each got to invite 5 friends so that we would have an even 12 kids (1 dozen). We had a girls' table and a boys' table. The kids started by making Christmas cards w/ stickers, paper, markers at their tables. We then made 2 crafts (ornament and christmas jar). We played a few rounds of Christmas bingo (for prizes) and then the fun started.......

Landon, Lauren, and mostly mommy made big plain sugar and gingerbread cookies and got the island ready w/ the cookies and tons of toppings (icings, sprinkles, candy,etc...). The girls went first and decorated their masterpiece cookies. The boys could not wait to get their hands into the stuff and each had TWO! I think the boys enjoyed the decorating the most, they were fun to watch. I think they enjoyed the endless freedom to pile on the toppings just the way they liked.
We topped the cookies off w/ some nice hot chocolate (
with marshmallows of course).







Each child brought 1 dozen cookies and
1 ornament for exchange. They had fun exchanging the ornaments (we passed around like hot potato game while listening to Christmas music).

Then, the moment they had all been waiting for.............. THE COOKIE EXCHANGE!!! Each child received an empty red plate and go to go down the cookie buffet line and get one cookie form each guest that came.

I will say the party was relatively controlled and easy until all the planned activities were over and then they all raced upstairs like buffalo. Of course, this is when the parents showed up to pick up their children. I am not sure if any of them believed what a nice and controlled party it had been.


I think it was wonderful for my kids to get to host their very own party and to focus on friendship and
laughter this holiday season.