Happy 9th Birthday!! - We survived!

Yesterday we celebrated Jocelyn's 9th birthday with 7 of her friends.  Three were from Mom's Club and 4 from school.  And this time, she even invited 4 boys!!

The theme, as I mentioned previously, (and no surprise) was Minecraft.  There was so much preparation to this party!  Lots of little signs and decorations, balloons, Pin the Pickaxe on Steve, and even a Chicken pinata!!

It was crazy and loud and exhausting, but so much fun!

We started off with some fusion bead projects.  We had patterns for Minecraft characters and swords.  You would think this peaceful scene was a sign of things to come, but don't be fooled!

We then moved on to Pin the Pickaxe on Steve.  The photo speaks for itself.

Then they beat the Chicken to death.  After that, they hunted the house for Creepers.  I'm beginning to sense a theme here...

Everyone was happy for snacks and cake, and maybe a little tired by this point.  Except that guy smiling in the back.  That's Drew.  The rest of the crowd was Jocelyn of course, Lily, Ayaka, Parker, Ryan, smiling Drew, Colin and Kate.  

Here's a photo of the Minecraft Ocelot cake before we dug into it.

Time to sing and blow out the candle!

Unfortunately we remembered the group photo right after Drew left, but here's the rest of the crew.

Thanks to Auntie for the very appropriate Minecraft shirts!   We look pretty good considering how exhausted we were!  It was a great day and a very fun party...  or "AWESOME!!" as Jocelyn said!

Birthday Preparations

Jocelyn requested a Minecraft themed birthday party this year.  I had no idea what I was getting into!  There are a thousand creations out there on the web for Minecraft parties.  Here's just a sampling of what I have going on around here right now....

The invitations have gone out.
No turning back now!
She is SO excited!!!

We survived Christmas!

It's hard to believe another Christmas has gone by and we are into 2017.   I am happy to report that we all managed to stay healthy through the holidays this year - thankfully.  The school break was only a week long, but we managed to get in some fun times!

We started the season with our annual trip right after Thanksgiving, to the Festival of Trees.  Jocelyn asked Santa to "Surprise" her this year!

Jocelyn's Girl Scout troop was busy!  They watched the Nutcracker on Ice, went to see the play Mary Poppins, and sang Christmas carols at a local nursing home.

We decorated the tree and topped it with Grandma's special angel.  Santa sent Jocelyn her Christmas letter.  This year she read the whole thing on her own!

Last year we were so disappointed to miss out on baking Christmas cookie with our friends, but this year we were able to make it happen.  The cookies were very yummy, but our friends are very messy bakers.

On Christmas Eve we made our usual preparations.  We put out the snacks for the reindeer - exactly 9 peanut butter balls, 9 baby carrots and some oats.  And Santa got yummy cookies and milk!  Christmas morning included lots of Minecraft, but that's no surprise (stay tuned for birthday preparations!).

The rest of our winter break was focused on fun times with friends.  The kids had a pajama and pancakes party at Ms. Nicki's house on Wednesday...

And we celebrated an early kid friendly New Years Eve with the Millers and the Haas Families, complete with games and play time and ringing in the new year at 8:00pm!

These families have been our dear friends for many years now.  We met in the MOMs club and have continued to share special times together.  We're so lucky to have them in our lives.  Happy New Year Everyone!!

Busy Fall

I'm not sure how we got to the first week in December.  Time has flown since school started and I'm honestly not sure where it went!

So I guess we'll just play catch up with a few random photos of the last couple months!

Some of my favorite moments with Jocelyn and her Daddy.














Halloween!  As always, we had fun picking out and carving pumpkins.  Jocelyn wanted to be a Minecraft Ocelot for Halloween this year.  Of course there is no such costume, so I made this one for her and she loved it!  I started out with a white sweatsuit, dyed it yellow and then painted about 50 squares on it.  Anything for my girl!
We trick or treated with friends this year.  Colin and Lily and Jocelyn have been buddies for most of their lives.  I love that they are growing up together!  They had so much fun trick or treating and then handing out candy!

Girl Scouts is becoming a big thing in Jocelyn's life lately, and mine!  I am now co-leader of her Brownie troop.  Maybe that's where some of my time has gone...

The girls went to Scouting Day at the Days End Rescue Horse Farm.  It was a lot of fun!  And Officer Barnie got really spoiled with all that loving!  He is a retired Police horse from Baltimore City.  He is huge, but so sweet!

Once a year there is a GSs Uniform Day and the girls get a patch for wearing their uniform to school.  This is Jocelyn with her 3rd grade homeroom teacher, Mrs. Incavido.

This was one of my favorite moments of the Fall.  Jocelyn's school started the Hero of the Day program.  I loved being the Hero and Jocelyn loved having Mommy around!  Can't wait to do it again!

Part of the last couple months has been dealing with my own issue in life.  Early in October I injured my knee.  Walking down the hallway at school - that's it!  Walking! - I tore the meniscus in my left knee.  It took a few weeks of testing and limping to figure out what was wrong, but eventually I had surgery on November 10th.  I'm doing much better.  I'm still hobbling a little, especially after those brutal PT appointments!  But I'm happy to be well on my way to having a normal knee again!  Hubby has had to step up a lot to take care of everything around here, so shout out to him for being amazing!

For a final wrap up, here is my goofy kiddo.  I love how she makes me laugh.  We're getting ready for Christmas!  Let's hope it's much less eventful - and much more fun - than last year!

First Day of 3rd Grade

The time has quickly come to send my little one off to school again.  I can't believe she's in 3rd grade.  We are two weeks into the new school year and still working on our routine.  But I have no doubt she will do well as always.  These are photos from the first day of school August 29, 2016.

Jocelyn has Mrs. Incavido this year.  She seems to really like her.  There are lots of changes in 3rd grade and more responsibilities.  It's going to be different.  

Jocelyn has a different technology teacher for the first time since Kindergarten, so I'm thinking I'll focus on volunteering in her homeroom class more this year.  I'm also co-leader in her Brownie Girl Scout troop, so I'll be doing that on top of the things I do at school.  Lots of changes for both of us, I guess.  

Welcome to 3rd grade!!

Off she goes again