Polka Dot Party

Annabelle turned FIVE in October and so we decided that we should throw a real birthday party for her. This was our first 'friends' party. Annabelle was fairly involved in planning the theme, games and so on.

She chose the polka dot theme, helped make polka dot invitations and of course dressed for the occasion in ALL poka dots! We kicked off the party with a wild and extended game of Twister.

We also played 'Pin the Curl on Annabelle', Musical Pillows (safer than chairs, right?), Hot Potato and a Carnival styled ball toss game. In the end the 5 games and refreshments that I had planned went rather quickly and we were left with a good 45 minutes left of the party! Luckily the kids entertained themselves by re-playing their favorites and eventually playing a rather silly game of hide-and-go-seek.

The kids seemed to all have fun and get into the games. I learned how competitive musical pillows can get. It was hilarious to see these 4-6 year olds develop their own strategies.

The food went over well. We let the kids pick flowers from our rice crispy treat planters and pull some grass if they wanted.

While I was tending to the crowd control of refilling drinks and popcorn . . .

. . . I turned to find Asa sitting on top of the table with a rice crispy treat in each hand and a trough full of green licorice at his disposal.
Yeah, he thought he was pretty clever!
After the party was over and cleaned up Annabelle decided to look through all her silly bandz and silly rings. She looked at the shape, wether or not they glow in the dark and so on. Then she proceeded to wear ALL of them for a good portion of the next several days!

Asa on the other hand was EXHAUSTED! He had gone the entire day without a nap and was falling asleep on the counter as I was trying to feed him some oatmeal (you know, to combat all the sugar).

ZNP

About a month ago we met up with Mike's older (but much younger looking) brother Sam and his sweet family at Zion National Park. This was our second time camping in Zion. The weather was beautiful. The company even better and the kids slept under the Watchmen Tower like rocks.

Sam shares the Sherwood trait of loving photography

{his Zion pictures can be seen here and here}

and the love of being outdoors but he has a special love of taking pictures of people taking pictures.

{as seen here}

In a way he makes up for me not ever remembering to take pictures of Mike. Thanks Sam!

My favorite hike this time around, was to the mouth of the narrows. Last time the water was too high and the temperatures too low for us to enjoy it much. This time my sis, Kristin, and I supervised the cousins playing in the water for about an hour and eventually had to defend our territory against some fairly aggressive squirrels that had noticed Asa's tendency to drop his popcorn as he ate it. Don't worry - Sam showed up just in time to save us by chasing them off with a stick!

Annabelle and her cousin Isaac are pretty close in age and get along really well. Isaac supplied their conversations and games with plenty of ideas as he has one of the best imaginations and Annabelle of course gave direction to their activities with her sass and 'nurturing' side :D

This is Isaac in front of the rock formation that is also named Isaac.

Asa loved all the time outside, he was frequently dirty and almost as frequently in search of dogs. He couldn't quite figure out how to communicate "squirrel" so those became dogs as well.

I loved chatting with Kristin and watching the kids play. One of my favorite places to go camping!

You can check out Mike's picture from the trip here if you are interested.