Mining Camp

Early in January the kids and I went with my parents and the Willmans to the mining camp restaurant out near Apache Junction

A couple pictures of the kids playing outside:

And one of the whole group inside waiting to get our food

Picnic Dinner

One nice day in January we decided to eat dinner and play at the park near our house and here are two pics from the evening:

Miss Terra drinking a smoothie

Daddy playing with the big kids

New Years Eve

For New Years Eve we met up with the Willmans at my parents house and counted down to the new year, which conveniently happened at 7pm.

Most of the activities had terrible pictures (if any at all) So I'll just be linking to some videos on Youtube

We popped a balloon each hour and did an activity that was listed in the balloon.

One balloon said to have a dance party- which basically involved me dancing around like an idiot trying to encourage 6 preschoolers to dance with me (without any luck) Fortunately for you there is no video of this part of the evening.

We also had treat bags and the kids enjoyed their snack and I have a video of them snacking and my niece thinking she is drinking Elmo

Katie had printed out some sheets for asking the kids questions about the year and I decided to film my kids answering the questions, just for fun.

Here's:
Parker
Aria
Terra

One activity was based on some Japanese New Years tradition, like pin the tail on the donkey, except it's pin the features on the face, I guess.

And the biggest hit of the night (other than the junk food) was wrapping Grandpa Murphy up with streamers and then having him break out

Then the countdown

We went home and slept most of the night (except when our neighbors were shooting off fireworks at midnight) so we could be ready for our busy day the next day.
 New Years morning we had family pictures with my family, traditional "Hillbilly Special" brunch at my aunts and then a birthday party for my nephew, who just so happens to have been born on New Years Day.

Parker turns 5

Parker turned 5 at the end of December and we started the day with our traditional "birthday child chooses WHATEVER they want for breakfast". 

Parker found Cookie Crisp cereal and was blown away by the idea of eating lots of cookies for breakfast so that's what he had picked out.

So excited to eat cookies for breakfast

He loves reading the box, including nutritional info... He tried to convince me that they weren't unhealthy because of all the added vitamins (Nice try buddy)

He spent more than a month looking forward to his 'Space Party' because he was so in love with all thing space.

And it was hard for him to understand why we would wait until the day AFTER his birthday but eventually the day came and he was so excited. We decorated with a few decorations and the piles of space stuff he already owned from our homeschool unit and Christmas presents.

Space stickers

Start balloons, streamers, and not one, but TWO solar system models

Part of the 'decor' was also this chart that Parker and I made together, so that Parker could find out what the favorite planet is:

We have to wake Aria up at 4pm each day so we know she'll sleep at night, and she didn't feel like partying, she wouldn't change out of her pajamas, leave her blanket or move from that chair

Parker also helped me make a planet pinata and he decided to paint it like the Earth

Terra, trying to break the pinata

Ryder, with a bit more gusto

Parker's turn

Just a goofy picture of Parker

Opening presents

A couple days later, Parker made me a card that said "I love you and I appreciate your present for me" (though appreciate was a bit hard to translate from his spelling.) 

We had gotten him a book and a telescope.

I had a coupon, so I just got a store bought cake, and I made the cake pops to look like our Solar System

And here is a video of us singing Happy Birthday