We had a great Easter with our friends. We did eggs with the same gang we have for years and then we did our joint hunt that Easter morning with the Renfroe family next door. We are really lucky to live in a neighborhood with friends we love! We worked in the yard some, went to a lacrosse game.
I love this photo of Mason and Hayley, 2010:
Especially compared to them years ago:
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We had our 5th Gingerbread Demo Derby after Christmas – we had more friends involved than ever in the creation and destruction. Christmas Eve we had family and friends over for Chinese food and the construction of the Gingerbread House, which was one big deluxe house, one small house and one little leftover kit so it was more of a Gingerbread Country Estate. I simply don’t care how they look, what I care about is having fun and the kids being silly (ok the adults too).
If you don’t know the background, we discovered that no one actually liked gingerbread despite making houses yearly. My brother-in-law and I came up with the idea to smash them with remote controlled cars and we’ve been doing it each year ever since! So once the gifts are opened and the Christmas food consumed, we drag the Gingerbread house to the cul-de-sac, the kids get 30 seconds to grab candy they want and then we rev up the cars to smash it up. Oh and anything left standing, the kids get to jump up and down on.
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And yes I’ll get back to posting photos soon. I’m still taking them, just haven’t felt like posting them. Nothing is wrong, just busy with life. Yes I’m about three months behind.
Hayley and her friend next door Mason went to the Children’s Etiquette Luncheon at the Carolina Inn today, which is just lovely during the holidays. So the two little princesses got all dressed up and had just a fabulous time. Five course luncheon at a four star hotel for kids 8 to 12 years old to learn from an etiquette expert, so adorable! They felt like it was princess school and raved about it. They wandered all over the Inn looking at their 12 days of Christmas exhibits – even two live turtle doves in the lobby. Then I took them to the grounds at Gimghoul Castle to run around because all princesses have to visit the castle right?
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I didn’t take many photos at Halloween or Thanksgiving. Between having a party for Halloween with Jen for the street and having the usual gang for Thanksgiving, I just didn’t pick up the camera much. A neighbor has more Halloween ones of the kids and I’ll those when I get them.
Hayley went as Nancy Drew:
Grubbing
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Back by popular demand, the Xmas list for the family. Anything with a link is just a suggestion for information… you can get the item anywhere you want.
Please let me know if you get something for Hayley on this list so we can mark it off (which means that things with the strike through them are already taken).
HAYLEY
Fashion/dress up game for the Nintendo DS
iPod Touch
Mountain Bike
iTunes cards – especially since she is getting a new iTouch
Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo Wii
Rock band and/or Rock band 2 for Nintendo Wii – just the game, don’t need instruments
Video game note: Hayley loves video games so if you want to get her something not on the list, that’s fine too. She has a Nintendo DS, XBox 360, Playstation 2 and Wii. If it is a single player game, go Nintendo DS or Playstation 2, if it is multi-player go with Wii or XBox 360.
Clothes note: She is a size 10/12 but she’s very fickle about clothes.
I’ll post more photos later but Hayley went as Nancy Drew for Halloween. I didn’t really take many photos as we had a party in the cul-de-sac and was really having too much fun to take pix.
We had a long day – Hayley came home from my folks, went to a birthday party, headed to our neighborhood Fall/Halloween Festival and then watched Twilight outside at the Lanes’ house on their huge projector screen. Cold but much fun!
I was helping during the festival so I didn’t take many photos.
For our 11th wedding anniversary, we went to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner – The Melting Pot. It was amazingly good and we were stuffed! Someone went a bit chocolate crazy at the end…
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Video: She said she wasn’t taping but I knew out she was. I thought she’d deleted it but of course she didn’t.
and ps Jeff, I love you more today than I did when I said I do 11 years ago or even when we started dating 13 years ago. Thank you for a wonderful life, for always believing in me and supporting me. I have no idea how I got this lucky!
Jeff turned the big 4-0 on Thursday and he wished for a nice quiet night and dinner at home. So we made his favorite dinner and even made one of his favorite desserts creme brulee for dessert – I do love my culinary torch after all. I took Hayley to swim team practice so he even got some video game time.
We gave him several presents he wanted of books, games and movies but the big gift was a real ‘old man’ gift – a really cool pillow from the Sleep Number store. I suppose I shouldn’t tease him too much since I’m only 15 months behind him.
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