Silly Brinly

This girl makes me laugh. 

Not just a slight smile-laugh

or a little chuckle...

But like loud laughter!

the other night at dinner, we were all just eating and talking, like normal, and then Brinly says 

"Mommy! Mommy! Yook at me!"

I look over, and she's cross eyed! After I calmed down, we had to duplicate the moment, which required the assistance of Chelsea's finger. 

Brinly LOVES Dora. She knows  most of the songs, and plays Dora and Boots with any two figures she can find (Duck and cow, baby doll and car, etc. )


On the potty: "Mommy, You big!" 
 "Yes, and Daddy is bigger. Who's the biggest?"
"Big Tall Mountain!"








Dan has always done this "growly-bear" thing, where he will growl at the kids. It would usually scare Chelsea and Michael, but not Brinly. She just puts up her hand and says "Swiper, NO swiping! Swiper, NO swiping! Swiper, NOOOOOO swiping!"






Dan gave her a horsey ride to bed last night. When he got to her bed and dropped her off, she said
"Gracias, Horsey!" That is the first time we've heard any spanish from her. At least she's learning something, from Dora, right?

Then after she had been put to bed, kissed, sung too, drink of water, kissed again, lights out, I went downstairs. Then I heard her voice calling me, again.

When I got to her room she says "Mommy, I need to cry." 
"You need to cry?!"
"Uh huh."
"okay...." so I walk over to her bed "Okay, I'm here, you can cry now."
Then she proceeded to whine-cry whimper. After a couple seconds she stopped.
"I done now. Night mommy!"
and she went to sleep.


And I went to bed with a huge smile and happy dreams of my cute kids.

Minute to win-it

During the holidays, we played a fun game called "Minute to win-it."   It's from the game-show on NBC. I had never seen it, but heard the name quite often and decided to take a peak.

If you haven't played this, DO IT. It's a great date game, family game, and even for a kids' birthday party.

You can go here to find a HUGE list of games, and even some video demonstrations.

We were having so much fun, I didn't take too many pictures.

A Hillarious one is "bobblehead"

You attach a pedometer to two oposing contestant's heads. We just clipped them on to one of the girls stretch head bands. Then they have to shake their head as fast and hard as they can to get the most counters. 

This is the "Holiday Hustle"

Contestants on the same team attach yard-sticks to their waste. They have one minute to unravel ribbon from one stick to the next, without using their hands. (Ahem! Michael!)

Another really funny one was

Jingle in the Trunk

You attach an empty tissue box with about 20 Jingle bells to two oposing contestants, on their backsides. Then they have to wiggle their "trunk" to get the bells out. The first to complete the task in under 1 minute, wins!

Hanky Panky

You would want to play this before the above game. two contestants compete to see who can empty a tissue box first by removing each individual tissue sheets with one hand.

I forget what this one was called, but you had to stack the cups in a pyramid and then take down so only a single stack of cups remain. I can't remember if it was only one handed or two. 

our favorite was "Face the Gingerbread man" or in our case, 

the Vanilla wafer.

Contestants must stay sitting. A cookie is placed on the forehead. Using only facial muscles (no hands) the contestant must move the cookie down to his mouth and eat it. 

It's a LOT harder than it sounds. Trust me.

And just because my face doesn't grace this blog enough, here are some more for your viewing pleasure.

 An up-the-nose shot!

 This is one reason why I don't drink....

We played several others, but this post is getting long. I'm trying not to get burned out with blogging again, and to post more. So, that's it for now. GO PLAY it! It's soo fun. Just designate someone to be a photographer because it's a memory-maker for sure!

Michael turns 6! (about 3 months ago...)

Yeah, I know,  it's about time.

Let's just not talk about it and move on...

Michael turned 6 back in November. Here he is about to run through the barrier that is officially keeping him from actually being 6. His last moments as a five year old (sniff....sniff)

Chelsea helped me make these cute robots (thank you pinterest) for his class birthday treat. 

We wanted to take things easy on ourselves (me). We splurged and had his party hosted at a local gymnastics center. It. Was. AWESOME!

They had three huge rooms that the kids could run around and play in. A giant bounce house,

 zipline, 

jump-track,  and a center for littler kids.

  After getting a few things set up, I realized the kids were being quiet, so I went to track them down. 

When I found them, I laughed and just watched. They played in this little wooden bus for about 10-15 minutes! With all the awesome, Active things to do, they chose to play pretend in a school bus.

I didn't have to do a thing for this party. They had two hosts their who led the kids in activities and games. Of course, one being the parachute.

They made a giant tent for Michael and he did some serious dance moves for us in the middle.

Then we tried to wrap him up in the chute, and then pull fast to make him spin....but it didn't really work. 

Then they had a nerf-gun war. They turned off all the lights, and had a disco ball shining and the kids went crazy. 

Michael wanted a Bey-blade cake, or a pokemon cake, and while I've done some pretty awesome (ahem) cakes in the past, this was way past my level of frosting. I can frost with different colors and add sprinkles, but artwork? Nah...

So, I made cupcakes in ice-cream cones. He loved it. (Phew!)

He got some really cool stuff from his friends,

We made him wait to open his family presents until Dan got home from work, so he got to stare at them all. day. long. :) 

He was most excited about this...

And a lot less excited about this:

(but isn't he sooo handsome in it?!)

Here's his mini cake from the left-over batter and frosting from the cupcakes. Just enough for all of us to get one piece. 

Happy Birthday Potatoe!

They're BAAAAAaaaaaaack! Part 1

 December 1st:

Our favorite elves, Jingle and Belle arrived! Like last year, they brought gifts of Pajamas.  But this time, the WHOLE family gets them, AANNDD..... they MATCH! (Oh yes, pictures will follow....)

The kids love these elves and take them everywhere. They wake up each morning and say "What did Jingle Belle do?" In Brinly's case: "Where Jingle-Belle?!"

They also love pampering these elves with lush, soft beds and plenty of crackers and water. 

December 2nd:

The elves drew on the kids' portraits with....SHARPEE! dun dun DUN. The kids were shocked that they would write with a sharpee! I'm so glad they know that is a SERIOUS NO-NO in our house.

December 3rd: 

They found great hiding spots in the candle pillars

December 4th:

They hung the unmentionables on the TREE!

December 5th:

The elves have a toilet paper fight.

 December 6th:

The elves take pictures of the kids in their sleep. We found them sitting on Michael's dresser with the camera. 

December 7th:

The elves go fishing!

 December 8th:

They have a tough game of "Guess who"

December 7th: 

Mmmmm....Nothing like a hot class of chocolate milk and marshmallows!

December 8th:

They snuck off and went on Dad's hunting trip with Grandpa.

(Love this picture. Grandpa's expression is priceless...)

December 11th: Jingle painted their noses to look like Rudolph

(This was Sunday morning. I was playing a musical number at church and had to be there by 8:00 AM. Dan was already gone to meetings, so it was a rush to get them ready and out the door. I didn't have time to scrub off Brinly's nose, so she went to church as Rudolph...until I could get to her nose. )

December 12th:

Belle makes a chair fort from the folding chairs set up for that evening's piano recital.

December 13th:

Much to my dismay, Jingle and Belle snooped around the house and found these stockings hidden in my sock drawer. They decided to help by hanging them up.

I thought I had been taking pictures every day, but I'm not sure where the 9th and 10th went. OH well! As you can see, we're having lots of fun and look forward to the next 12 days!