The Party's Over

Thank goodness the weekend is over - we are partied out! We had fun, though.

On Saturday, Jenna had 6 friends over for an "ocean" party. Mystic Aquarium came and did an ocean locomotion puppet show and brought lots of touch-tank sea creatures for the kids to touch. It was so cool. The girls loved holding sea-stars (its no longer p.c. to call them starfish!), 5 different kinds of crabs, including a huge horseshoe crab, sea-snails and even a lobster! Then, we had octopus cookies and a mermaid cake and opened presents. I think they all had a great time. By the way, Jenna is wearing one of the "prettiest dresses in the whole world", her pink dress from The Little Mermaid, that my mom made for her. She was hot to trot!

Then on Sunday, we had our family party. Jenna wanted to have a princess castle cake (pink - of course!), so we did a princess theme for that one. Since I made the cakes and cookies, Sam's Club provided the rest of the food. I have learned over the past 7 years that for my sanity (and the rest of my family's sanity, as well, that I can't do it all). Its stressful enough trying to get the house ready! We had fun visiting with all the people we don't see on a regular basis.

And since 2/3's of our couples fantasy football league was there, we also enjoyed a healthy dose of trash-talking! Kyle won his match-up for the week and I lost (but not by much!) since the Colts had a bye week. Luckily, UT won against Mississippi St, but there were many upsets in college football this weekend. Can you believe Kentucky this year!?!

Saturday night after the friend birthday party we went over to my friend Sheri's house for her annual Family Potluck Party. Its always a lot of fun. There were 8 families there and between us there were 21 kids! Chaos, I tell you.

By Sunday night, I was exhausted. We caught up on Friday Night Lights and then went to bed.

However, there is no rest for the weary. I volunteered in Jenna's Kindergarten class (which is so much fun to get to be a fly on the wall for the day!) on Monday morning. They are learning about the letter A and have been doing lots of projects with apples. I helped the kids make apple dolls (a peeled apple on a stick that the kids poked holes into for eyes, nose and mouth) that they observed in a book and will continue observing over a few weeks to see what changes about the apple. I love how they learn so many things (writing, the alphabet, science) all by playing and doing something they think is fun.

Then it was off to pick Riley up from my friend's house and to take Jenna to her pediatrician for her 5 year check-up. I am proud to say she is a completely healthy little girl!

Kellen had soccer last night, so after getting off the bus, having a snack and doing homework off we went! It is really starting to get dark here pretty early, so even though they moved practice up a half hour, practice still ended 15 minutes early because it was just too dark! It was 6:30 and it was pitch black out! Just preparing us for those 4:30 winter sunsets to come!

Today has also been pretty busy because Riley finally got to go on her hayride. What fun! We rode the John Deere (even Yankee farms use the best!) tractor out to the turnip field to pick turnips to feed to the cows. Riley thought that was the most fun! Then off to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin. As soon as we were getting ready ride back to the county store, Riley chucked her pumpkin over the side of the trailer and the hayride had to stop for us. How embarrassing. She's got a good arm, though! Then we got to go have apple cider and a maple cookie. Yummy. I'll try to add pictures from the hayride and family party later.

Now, we're just hanging out at home until Kellen gets home. Tonight we get to go to a bedtime music show. The girls will wear their pj's and listen to a kids concert and have a bedtime snack and hopefully come home and crawl into bed! Then maybe Kyle and I will have some quiet relaxing time to catch up on shows! My dvr is 95% full and that's after I deleted about 12 Days of Our Lives last week! I don't know how we will ever watch that many hours of TV! It's a challenge I think I'm up for, though.

Relaxation, here I come!