Christian's 8th birthday that seemed to never ended

My baby turned 8 this year, which does not seem possible!  It also doesn't seem possible to have so many birthday cakes and celebrations for one little boy.  It was a memorable one.

A week before his birthday we had a little celebration just for the 4 of use at home.  He got out of school early and we went skating and then he got his present of Skylander Giants.

We set off on a Spring Break vacation to Texas and Oklahoma the day before his birthday.  We got in late to a hotel and woke up the next morning, which was his actual birthday, and made it off to church to see some of our wonderful friends and so he could spend time with his best friends, Nevin and Mason Harwood.  We planned to have a picnic after church, but it was too cold so we had chicken on the bone from Kroger, strawberries and a cookie cake at the Harwoods and then off to Oklahoma to see the fam for a few days!

 

We got to Oklahoma and met as many of the family that could come at Mazzios to celebrate our 8 year old!  We also finally got to meet Lyla Enoch's for the first time since she was born in September.  Yes, Grandma Fran made a batch of brownies to celebrate.  So Nana and Papa, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Christie, Wyatt, Lyla, Grandma Fran, Uncle Chase, Brandy, Big Wyatt, Zane, and Riley came to celebrate.

 

We spent a few days at Grandma Fran's house and you can read more about that on the Spring Break post and then headed off to Nana and Papa's new house.  We had dinner with Chase and Brandy and family and Uncle Justin and his new girlfriend and her kids.  Yes, Nana made he famous chocolate cake!

The next day we headed back to Texas to spend a few more days there.  My parents came to Texas to see my aunt and uncle and see Christian for his birthday so we ate at Rosas and he didn't have a cake, but got presents

I think my dad and Christian have the same face here.

 

He got lots of money from family and decided to buy a Kindle Fire with his birthday money and a little money he had saved.

 

 

So you can read more about our Spring Break adventures on that post. 

 

We made it back to Virginia and had a small party with a few friends here.  They came over and played basketball, climbed trees, watched a movie, made legos and had a dance party. 

 

These birthday celebration almost spanded a month worth of time.  I think he had a great 8th birthday!  Happy Birthday to my baby!

 

 

 

 

 

The Master Bathroom

I painted the cabinets in the master bathroom too and they turned out so good!  When I don't have a job I look for ways to improve my house-I think Brian is ready for me to be in school or work.

                        After



Before-I forgot to take a good before picture

Skating all by themselves

The skating rink we went to a few weeks ago has a program called Kids Skate Free and you can take your kids at certain times and they get in free.  Christian wanted to go skating again for his birthday and so we did after school on a Friday.  I got the kids the bars to help them and about 30 minutes in I told them to try without the bars.  Christian of course did first and fell a few times, but got right back up and got pretty good. He skated straight for an hour and half and loved it and slept really good that night.  Piper being my cautious one waited awhile and wanted to stay next to the wall, but after getting up the courage she did it!  I think we might need to buy them some skates so we can really go free!

How are they getting so big?

I was going to bed the other night and just looked in on my kids to see them sleeping and so many thoughts started to go through my head, but the main one was- How did they get so big?  I feel like it was yesterday they were still both in their cribs and they were so little.  Now Piper is up to my shoulders and Christian is up to my chest.  Christian will be 8 in 2 weeks and it just doesn't seem possible that it has been 8 years.  I love seeing the people they are growing into, but sometimes I wish time would stop a little!

 Piper at 3 months

Piper at pumpkin patch this fall

 Christian at 5 months

Christian at pumpkin patch Fall 2012

Skating

I forgot that we went skating in February!  I wanted to do something different and found a place for skating and looked fun so after church one day we decided to try it.  We got there right when it opened and got our skates.  They have these great things for the kids to skate with to keep them up because we tried at first and it was so hard to keep them up.  Christian got really frustrated, but near the end he was a speed demon.  He probably couldn't do it with our the support, but Piper got really good.  Being cautious she didn't want to try without the support for every long.  The kids have asked a lot to go back so I think we will definitely be going back.

Snow Day!!

We have not had a real official snow day this year.  The storm was going to hit and we were expected to get about 12 inches.  We ended up with about 7 or 8 I would say, but anyway it works out that we got a snow day.  We got to sleep in!  We started off the day with cinnamon roll pancakes and were super easy and delicious.
You make your regular pancake mix.
You make a mixture of
4 Tbls. of melted butter
6 Tbls. of brown sugar
1/2 tsp. of cinnamon
put this mixture into a ziploc bag

Put the pancake mix on the griddle and when they are starting to bubble you pipe the brown sugar mixture in a swirl shape onto the pancake and when ready flip the pancake.  It makes little grooves like a cinnamon roll in the pancake and instead of syrup you top with a glaze.

Glaze is:
4 Tbls. butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 ounces of cream cheese
1/s tsp. of vanilla

It tastes like a cinnamon roll without all the waiting for rising!

So it was good thing to start off the day.  We watched Inspector Gadget 2 and had chicken noodle soup for lunch.  After lunch we made an Inspector Gadget outfit for Christian and Piper made a 3D snowflake-which is here http://classymommy.com/how-to-make-3d-snowflakes/

After lunch we decided to make snow ice cream.  Piper went and got some snow and we mixed it with some sweetened condensed milk and we had snow ice cream.  First time I had made it!

                                                After

                      Before

We then ventured outside!  We made 2 snowmen-mainly Piper made 2 snowmen.  Christian and I were having a snowball fight.  One of Christian's friends came over and they decided to make forts while Piper and I shoveled.  Piper did a lot of the shoveling so she earned some money.

Brian had suggested for me to get sleds and I couldn't find any the day before and we have a big credit on amazon so I ordered them and had them overnighted for only a few buck, but free with our credit.  So about 4:30 Brian got free from work and we went over to a local elementary school and went sledding for the first time and the kids had so much fun.  Piper got really good at steering, but Christian has his mom's skills and just baled out.

We ended our evening with warm baths and tacos!!  What a great day!

Harlem Globtrotters

Christian's cub scout troop is awesome and planned a special family night out to the Harlem Globetrotters   The cub scouts got a special rate too which made it even better.  We got to even go down on the floor at halftime to form a tunnel for the Globetrotters to run through.  It was fun seeing the kids just laugh and laugh especially Christian.  It also was kind of funny because with the 80 music and the colors at the University we were gold and green-I felt like I was in high school again.  We had such a fun time as a family!