Birthday

Taylor turned 4 this year. When I asked her if she would like to have a friend party she was so excited. I don't know many 4 year olds who would pass up an opportunity to have her friends over and play games. Taylor is my social butterfly. So this was a definate yes for her. I put together some invitations and some games. She said she wanted a lady bug cake. I am so not a very good cake decorator but will always give it my best shot. Once again she was pleased.

One of the games I did was a ladybug bean bag toss. Here is Taylor giving it her best shot. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it.

Taylor and her friend Holly waiting in line for her turn.

Holly and Gabe ready to attempt the bean bag toss. I love that Taylor is just sitting on the back of the futon in the back ground. Her she is gathering all of her bean bags she threw.

Her attempt at the pin the head on the lady bug. Can you tell she was trying to peek?? I wonder where she learned that from. I also got the lady bug pinned to the wall and realized that I didn't pay to much attention in biology because I put the wrong number of legs. Thank goodness Jaman was not there to make fun of me and the 4 year olds didn't catch on.

Taylor waiting to see Delannie's reaction.

After the party I asked the kids which game was their favorite and this got the most votes. It was pass the present. I had 6 different dollar store gifts wrapped and they passed them around to music. When the music stopped whoever had the present got to keep it. Of course it is always great when you can make sure every kid gets a present and the kids just think it is lucky it landed on them.

I love how kids are so excited and anxious to see what is inside. I always want to see in their little heads and see what they are thinking.

Taylor playing bingo.

Since the party was during lunch time I fed all the kids lunch. All is all is was a fun time. I am sure the kids had a lot of fun. I was very worn out after the party. I decided it is a lot of work keeping 6 four year olds entertained.

Painting Pumpkins

I had decided that for pre-school for the letter P we would paint pumpkins. It was messy but it was fun. I love to be able to watch my kids get really into something. I love to watch them get so deeply concentrated. Bridger loves pre-school just as much as the other kids.

My big helper

Bridger is such a great helper. I know Taylor will hate to read this some day but when it comes to being the best helper around the house Bridger definately wins this award. He always wants to be there with me and help anyway he can. If he hears the washer or dryer beep and sees me going into the laundry room he always beats me. His famous words " I can do it by myself." He is great to unload and reload. He will always pick up toys when asked. I just had to give a shout out to a great helper. Hopefully his big sister can follow his example just a little bit better.

Pumpkin Carving

One part that I sure do love about Halloween is pumpking carving. It is always a lot of fun to do with the kids. Taylor did a lot of her own pumpkin. She poked all the dots on her pattern, cleaned it out, and did some of the carving. Of course she wanted to do a cat. She has grown a love for cats after we got our two kittens. Sadly a few months ago they both came up missing so this past weekend we got two more. Hopefully they will stick around a lot better. It took Bridger a long time to want to reach inside the pumpkin. He is a little bit more of a clean freak. More like his mom and he was not going to get his hands dirty but after seeing his sister diggin in he thought it would be ok. He wanted washed right away when he was done. It is great to be able to take time and do these things with the kids.

Halloween 2010

I am needing to get caught up on this blog. My whole purpose for this blog is for a journal for our family. Jaman has been on me to get it printed off so I am going to do just that at the end of December. Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. On the other hand Jaman really loves Halloween. I should do better at decorating for it more but I slacked off. This year Taylor wanted to be a cat. Bridger was a giraffe. He is almost impossible to get a picture of these days. He seems to be always on the move. We enjoyed taking the kids trick or treating. They really enjoyed it. We skipped out on our ward party and ended up taking them into our old neighborhood. Grandpa Skillings had passed away a few days before so we wanted to go in and see the family that was still in town. Below is Taylor and a few of the kids we do preschool with. It has been so much fun switching days with the neighbor and doing preschool with them. It has really helped me take time and teach Taylor better than if I wouldn't have done this.