Frozen Birthday Celebration!

We celebrated Jocelyn's 5th birthday with an awesome indoor pool party.  If Elsa can bring winter to summertime, lets bring some summer fun to the wintertime.  And so that's what we did - with beach umbrella and sand bucket decor.  Of course, there was snow flakes and icicles too.  Jocelyn had a great time swimming with her friends.  Then they enjoyed some sandwiches, chocolate fondue (aka pudding), shared some treats from Sven (aka mini carrots), ate handfuls of Olaf noses (aka Cheetos), and frozen hearts (aka strawberries).  Some even shoved some chocolates in their face - Hershey kisses and hugs.

Tis the Season

It's that time of year again!  The decorations are up in and on the house, presents are wrapped under the tree and our schedules are filled with things from parties to Christmas programs and everything in between.  We have already done the Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens and Jocelyn was an adorable barn animal in the Christmas program at church.

We have had one epic fail already though.  John and I took the kids to see Santa at Bass Pro Shop where there is never a line and they have the area decorated so nicely - plus you get a free picture.   Well, we took a ton of pictures of our own on our camera but realized when we got back in the van that we didn't have the memory card in the camera.  Ouch.  We haven't been back to redo the pictures and we probably won't.  Liam and Lizzie wanted nothing to do with Santa and I held them both (yes - 60 pounds between the two of them) while standing next to Santa.  Jocelyn really enjoyed it this year and even told Santa that she loved him. 

This past weekend we did the Christmas Festival for Friendswood with Mom, Jennifer, Kenny and all the kids.  This was a pretty cool event and there was lots to do for the kids.  They got to slide down a snow hill (after waiting in a very long line), meet Anna and Elsa, ride in a cute little train and do an obstacle course bouncy house.  Liam and Lizzie didn't get out of their strollers for those couple of hours because it was pretty crowded but they did get to eat a gigantic corn dog - each ate a foot long corn dog!

Last night (a Tuesday) we went to see the Zoo Lights and it was really neat.  Mom, John and the babies picked up Jocelyn from school at 3:30 and headed to the zoo.  They got to walk around for about an hour before the zoo closed at 5pm.  Then at 6pm it would reopen for Zoo Lights.  We used our membership (which was a gift from John's mom and will be put to good use) to get discount tickets.  The lights were really great and Mom and I enjoyed a grown-up hot chocolate. 

Murder at the Deadwood Saloon

The 4th Annual Wallace Murder Mystery party was this past weekend on November 15th and it was awesome.  This year the mystery was "Murder at the Deadwood Saloon" and we went all out western.  I had so much fun putting together the decorations for the party.  I used a lot of items I already had, borrowed from a few places, made a wagon wheel chandelier and used my cricut to do some cut outs.

Mom and I did "wanted" posters for each party guest with their picture on it.  I looked for goofy pictures off of facebook - but some of people do not have goofy going on in their online photos.

The party guests all did an awesome job with their costumes and really got into character.  I think it gets easier for everyone each year.

The photo booth was great too.  I added lots of props for people to use and be as fun and goofy as they wanted.

I have so much fun putting these parties together, even though at times it seems stressful and a lot of work.  Totally worth it!