Baptism Day

Bucko was baptized yesterday.  He has been so excited for this day to arrive, and he was so happy.  We had aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents in attendance, so it was really nice.  When Bucko's cousin his age arrived, Goofy starts yelling to Bucko, calling his name. I tried to quiet him, so he starts yelling his name in a whisper voice. When he finally turns, Goofy says, "Your friend is here!" and points to his cousin. It was really cute. 
Another funny thing Goofy did that morning:  As I was putting on his shirt, I noticed that the edge was curling up and since PC was already ironing a shirt, I took it off of him and said I would do iron it for him so it would lay flat.  He looks up at me and says, "So I can be Iron Man?"  I smiled and responded in the affirmative.  What a cute kid!
Here we are right before the baptism:

Blue and Gold Banquet

Bucko received his Bobcat badge at the Blue and Gold Banquet last night.  We had a potluck dinner and then played a few games afterwards.  I got a pin too for my mom's ribbon, which I guess I'll get one for all the things he gets in Cubs and Boy Scouts.  The crowd counted while he pinned the Bobcat pin on to me, and then the number they stopped at--10, he is supposed to do that many good deeds.
The kids' favorite game was to go through the "maze." One of them would be blindfolded while the other would lead them through it.  We ended with cake and cookies. 

Long Weekend

The kids had Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off school.  (And today ended up being cancelled because of the weather--snow and high winds.)  So by Monday, when our original plans were cancelled, we called up PC's brother's fam and asked if we could come up and hang out.  They were excited about the prospect, so we packed up clothes, sleeping bags, and air mattresses and headed up to their house. It's a bit over a two-hour drive, but not bad at all.  They had pizza waiting for us and we had fun hanging out. We tried to figure out what to do on Tuesday and finally decided to just stay at their house and play games.  We had a blast!  First we played Disney Scene It, then the dads took the kids to the park while we fixed lunch.

Bucko had been asking for more chocolate cake all morning, so finally his aunt convinced us that he should have at least a small piece.  Her daughter had to have one as well. Can you see the joy on her face? And then Bucko is super exasperated because "Ah man, a small piece!"  It was so funny!After lunch, we had set up a scavenger hunt around the house. The clues led them all over and ended up finding the "treasure" in the kitchen. (They each got a little package of Hershey Kisses.)

After the scavenger hunt, we split into boys and girls teams and did a photo scavenger hunt.

 Here we had to find things that started with H-U-N-T.  The girls did "house," "under" the table, "nails," and "toes taped together."  The boys did "horse," "umbrella," "Nintendo DS," and "temple." 

We also had to spell out a word. The girls spelled "hit" and the boys "hi."  We had to take a picture of the oldest person on our team on a kiddie toy, and everyone on the team in the tub.  Some of the boys pictures didn't turn out so great, but these capture the fun and essense of it all.  It was fun. And we left soon after so we could get back home.  It was a fun time. I'm so glad we live near family and can get together on these days off!

Boys' Birthdays at home

We had to celebrate the boys' birthdays on their actual days as well.  Bucko got his scriptures from Nana and Papa. (They get every grandchild their own set when they turn 8, which is realy nice!)  We just used the leftover cupcakes from the day before.

For Goofy, I had saved his Darth Vader mask for a present and we made cookies out of the funfetti cake mix as we were all tired of cupcakes by then.  I just stacked two together and stuck his candles in them. Worked like a charm! 

And there is Minnie with the two Chuck E. balloons. They have played with them nonstop!

On Wednesday night, I was invited to Activity Days with Tink for a Mother/Daughter night.  We decorated cupcakes and played fun games.  It was a lot of fun to spend some time with this sweet girl.  I realized I need to do more Mommy and Me times with each of the kids. 

Wednesday afternoon, Minnie came home and said they were doing a costume party at school the next day. She didn't have a note or anything from the teacher, so I wasn't sure and my thought was, "We don't have any costumes anyway since all our stuff is in storage!"  But Thursday morning, we received a phone call to remind us that they were indeed having a costume party.  So we came up with a Minnie Mouse costume.  She wore her polka dot church dress, wore her red scarf, and then we took the ears from her Disney Headbanz game and pinned them to her hair.  We added some blush to her cheeks and she looked so cute!  I was glad they called and glad we were able to come up with a costume!

Happy, Happy Birthday!

We celebrated the boys' birthdays yesterday at Chuck E. Cheese's!  The only one of us who had ever been was PC.  We had taken the kids to Mr. Gatti's in TX, which is basically the same thing, but we'd never been to Chuck E. Cheese's.  We had planned on going somewhere different, but as we looked at prices and realized the other place was really geared more towards bigger "kids," we decided Chuck E. Cheese's was the best deal.  We took Bucko's friend with us and also had cousins there.  They all had a blast!!  The two birthday boys got a huge Chuck E. balloon each, a birthday crown with more tokens in them, and a medallion. They loved it!  They also got a turn in the Ticket Blaster, which was fun for them as well.  We ordered the party online so we ended up with even more tokens. Plus, I had a coupon so we ordered a pizza for the adults and got more tokens.  We ended up with over 320 tokens!! And we used every last one of them! We were there for about 3 hours though!  We all did the sketchbook, so have pictures to keep.  They loved the roller coaster type rides a lot.  Tink kept trying to get more tickets, so she would do those games.  We would race the MarioKart game with each other and PC and I even competed in a basketball shooting game.  The little ones liked the small rides and play area.  There was plenty to keep everyone busy and happy!  And the food was good too!

I had shown Bucko these cupcakes on Pinterest that look like the Minions from Despicable Me.  He loved them, so I made those and also did some with some Lego Star Wars cupcake printables for Goofy.  Our hostess loved the Minions and said they were the coolest cupcakes she'd ever seen, so we shared since we still had a bunch left over.  Bucko got a new DS game, I Spy Universe.  He also received a gift card from his friend and some money from Grandma, so he went today and bought another DS game, Pokemon Soul Silver. 

Goofy was so excited when he opened his present. We had gone to Wal-Mart the day before and he had found this Bumblee costume from Transformers. He wanted it so bad and we kept telling him that maybe we'd come back and get it for his birthday. (We really bought it right then, but tried to keep that from him.)  He cried for almost an hour afterwards, which wore him out so much he took a nap!  He hasn't napped for a loooong time.  So when he opened that present, well, you can see the expression on his face.  As soon as we got home, he put it on and slept in it too.  (Tink helped him open the package and accidentally cut off the strap for the mask. She thought it was part of the packaging holding it in the box.  She felt so bad she started crying. Of course we were able to tie it all back together and it was fine.  I told her I've done things like that all the time and she didn't need to feel too bad.  Not that that really helps, but it's the truth. We all make mistakes.) 

They all redeemed their tickets at the end for prizes.  We ended up with 3 slinkys!  And then a bunch of other smaller prizes.  All in all, it was a fun time.  We were worn out at the end though!

Pinterest Fun

A couple of my sister-in-laws introduced me to Pinterest over the holidays and I have had some fun things come from that.  Minnie let me do her hair from something I found on there.  It's a heart braid. I thought it turned out quite cute.

Then for Valentine's Day, we found some cute Valentine's boxes geared more toward boys. So we made one for Bucko to take to school for his valentines. It is a tissue box converted to a Valentine's monster! Cute and SO easy to do. The eyes are from an egg carton.

There have been many other things we have found on pinterest to keep us busy. It is a fun site and we've had some fun experimenting!



Snow! and other Happenings this Week

The kids were only scheduled for a half day of school on Friday, but the snow started coming down Thursday afternoon.  They ended up cancelling school altogether for Friday.  It was a pretty snow, with big flakes. Apparently, the snow here in CO isn't always that pretty.  They get a lot of the tiny, more icy kind of snow.  PC went out with the kids yesterday and made a tunnel.  He and Tink both got a bit sunburned from being outside for hours!  PC was out the longest, as he spent the morning shovelling snow and the afternoon building a fort/tunnel with the kids.  He is sore today from it all.

Bucko started Cub Scouts this week.  He looked so cute in his shirt.  He lost ANOTHER tooth and informed me last night that he is working on another wiggly one. At this rate, the tooth fairy will be broke and he won't be able to eat much.  It is pretty cute, though, with all the gaps in his mouth!

For Family Home Evening this week, I had the activity and chose Musical Chairs! We had so much fun playing it!  Papa was in charge of starting and stopping the music.  Each of the three older kids won at least once.