8. wow. wow.

8 years old

That deserves a wow, wow.

How did this boy turn 8 years old already?! 

This boy who is almost finished with 2nd grade and going to be starting 3rd grade, probably any day now by the way time flies!  THIRD grade...that's crazy...I taught 3rd graders way back a lifetime ago and those kids were like old and could actually read & comprehend & could be trusted using the restroom alone....well sometimes ;). 

This 8 year old loves...

Pokemon cards (his latest obsession),

minecraft, 

watching minecraft videos on YouTube (he would do this all day long if he was allowed),

his brother (he really does most days except when Evan INSISTS on sleeping in the same bed with him every single night...most days he's okay with this, but some days he just wants his own bed...I don't blame him ;),

his sister (always a great big brother),

 soccer,

everything about soccer (KC Sporting, Leo Messi, soccer books...)

baseball,

rooting on the Royals,

the color green (always & forever),

reptiles,
science experiments,
P.E.,

his mom & dad (well most days :).

Happy 8th birthday buddy!

His presents included what he loves:  Pokemon, minecraft, soccer, & Skylanders

A pink cake, yes, but only because he LOVES strawberry icing!

A little look at this boy's weekend:

hanging with some sweet little friends...he's great at playing with the little kiddos!

Soccer playing/watering the garden.

Trampoline running & jumping with those other two.

And begging dad to get you wet with the sprinkler since the weather was finally warm!

I hope you have a blessed 8th year buddy!

a first & some sledding

We accomplished a first around here.......and it was a big success!!  What was it, you ask?  Our kids' first friends sleepover!  

Yep we did it :)!  

I think the keys to success were to invite family friends, to keep it super small, and to keep them busy.

I even see more sleepovers in our future!

This was actually Avery's sleepover to help celebrate his 8th birthday, that is tomorrow.  Wow, the big 8, but more on that in another post.  Avery invited 2 close friends to join us for some games at Chuck E. Cheese (games only because their pizza is not good), then we picked up some pizza & a movie on the way home.  The boys spent the rest of the night eating pizza, wrestling, opening presents, sword combat, ice cream sundaes, cowboy shooting, movie watching, and more wrestling.  Yeah I think a girl sleepover may go a little different than this, but we do love our boys around here!  The movie was over at 10 and some boys may have been caught up until midnight having long discussions....over what I couldn't tell you, but they finally fell asleep and all stayed asleep until 7.  I call 7 hours of sleep a success :).

See they all survived the morning after!

This weekend we also enjoyed probably one of our last snows for the season with a little walk at the dog park with Bella for her birthday and some sledding!

Crazy, happy dog...you can see how Bella was running circles around us...

Happy 2nd birthday Bella!

Some crazy sledding by the boys!

day 9-14 of {love} 2015

Let's finish off our 14 days of {love}...

Day 9:

"We have chemistry"

Perform some conversation heart experiments.

We had fun doing one experiment where we put conversation hearts into Sprite and watched them dance around from the top to the bottom.  Then the kiddos had fun just eating their hearts :).

Day 10:

"BFFs"

Give Valentine's to friends today!

Today was a CRAZY busy day between MOPS, Evan's Valentine party, Avery's Valentine party, and Evan's music & movement program...so today meant that the kiddos just passed out their Valentine's they had made for their friends.  In their mailbox they simply found a leftover Valentine card that I wrote out to each of them.  Here's a little look at our day...

Day 11:

"You are so silly!"

Make a red solo cup man.

We didn't get to this craft on that day so we just did it the next day and did two crafts at once.  We kept or cup man pretty simple and mainly just worked on how to fold the legs and arms accordion style back and forth.

Day 12:

"I have 5 reasons I love you so!"

Make cards with hand prints and list 5 reasons you love someone.

I let each kiddo choose who they wanted to make theirs far and Avery chose Grandmommy & Ellie chose Granddaddy....perfect...and Evan chose.....Bella....of course. Evan said he had to do two hand prints so I said he had to come up with 10 reasons then.  We also had a fun playdate with friends today and decorated some Valentine cookies too!

Day 13:

"My heart jumps for you!"

Make a frog from hear shapes.

Sadly, we just didn't get to this craft.  Between another fun playdate since the boys had off school, packing for the grandparents' house, gymnastics, and driving to the grandparents we didn't have time for it.  Oh well, we will do it next year!

  

Day 14:

"Happy Valentine's Day!"

day 5-8 of {love} 2015

Here's a look at what has been happening the last 4 days with our 14 days of {love}...

Day 5 of {love}:

"Family near and far love you" - 

Make a phone call to tell family you love them

I have done this one in the past and its a super easy one to include, however there aren't really any "supplies" that you can put in the mailbox for this one.  The previous two years I think I stuck in a piece of candy with the note, but this year I just wrote the note to see if they would be okay with just doing something for someone else without getting anything themselves.  Surprisingly I didn't hear any complaints!  

The kiddos called G&G and told them Happy Anniversary because today is also their anniversary...yes it was the reason I planned this activity for today!

Day 6 of {love}:

"Your love is no joke" - 

Unscramble Valentine jokes

For this one I found a Valentine joke printable found here.  I also printed off some coloring and matching pages found on that link.  Avery was the only one that wanted to do the jokes, but the other two had fun simply coloring!

Day 7 of {love}:

"Love Birds" - 

Make fruit loop bird feeders

This was a super easy craft.  We just took some pipe cleaners and threaded fruit loops on.  We then shaped them like hearts and hung them on our bird feeder...so far the birds haven't touched them.  Do they even like fruit loops??  Well, at least my kiddos enjoyed eating them...

Day 8 of {love}:

"You are so sweet!" - 

Chocolate Fondue at home!

I think this one will be one of the kiddos favorites...what's not fun about dipping stuff in chocolate??  All I included in their mailbox was some chocolate chips that they could "taste test" before we melted them.

day 1-4 of {love} 2015

We have been busy at work on our 14 days of {love}. These activities really take very little of our time most days, but are still fun to be able to do together.  I think Evan is the most excited by the mailboxes this year...it might be because he's always hoping their will be candy inside :).  Each day there's a little card with the saying on it and some part of whatever we will do.

Here's a look at our first 4 days.

Day 1 of {love}:

"Your love is 'key' to my heart!"

We worked on making Minecraft key chains together.

Look at these cute kiddos in their church clothes!

Here's what supplies each kid had in their mailbox.

It was a little bit of a family project while watching the Super Bowl.  Oh the mess of those little beads.

Our finished product:  a creeper, a pig {yeah somehow the eyes got switched around on the left side}, and a wolf

Day 2 of {love}:

"A kiss might be 'mice'"

We made Hershey kisses mice.  With of course a few extra kisses to eat.  Bella was trying to help out on the eating part...

Our cute little mouse!

Her chocolate covered face gives her away ;).

Day 3 of {love}:

"I love you to pieces"

They were supposed to puff up tissue paper on a heart.  We started that way, but then they decided it would be easier to glue on the tissue paper pieces flat down...oh well...they were still being crafty, right?

Day 4 of {love}:

"Your love warms my heart"

We made strawberry hot chocolate {I just added strawberry syrup to normal hot chocolate}.  It was a busy day so it was nice to have something easy to do at the end of the day.  It was extra great because we got a little bit of snow today.

I put some containers of Keurig hot chocolate in their mailboxes and they thought they were super special!

To be continued...