Katelyn's Family Birthday

The birthday traditions continue. Katelyn had a great family birthday day. We started with her choice of breakfast, which was pancake men. No surprise there. They love pancake men, especially since we are reading the little house series again. After breakfast Daddy headed off to work and we headed off for a morning of fun. According to Katelyn's choice we...went to the lagoon and fed the fish, went to Claires at the mall, visited the new fun factory at the mall, and went to the humane society to play with the puppies and kitties. We finished just in time to get Katelyn to Daddy's work for an afternoon there. They went to lunch at Keoki's. Then Russ had to go to the store in Koloa for something so Katelyn went with him. When they were done with the errand they went into the soap store, just for fun. Once they got back to the jobsite they went on a ride in the rhino. Then Katelyn ate candy while she drew pictures and played on Rusty's computer while he worked, or tried to work. When she got home we had her party all ready. She wanted pizza for dinner. We had made her a doghouse cake with a little Katelyn dog sitting by the door. I had made big bone shaped sugar cookies that went around the cake. We had dinner with cake and ice cream and opened her gifts. Kyleigh had bought her a bubble gum machine, which she has wanted forever, so that was fun. All her other gifts were so nice. We had a great party and our little Katelyn is officially five and very proud of it.

Murder Mystery Party

Disclaimer: this is a very old post that I never posted. We wanted to put it in our blog book, so here it is.

Fall, 2010, we had our first murder mystery party. In 2008 I ordered a murder mystery kit. It was 6 months after we had moved to Hawaii. We were just back from Christmas at home and I got home sick/island fever. It was the only time that I've really felt island fever. I decided I needed something to look forward to so I found what I wanted on Amazon. Timing never worked out and the kit sat in my closet for 2 1/2 years. Finally I bit the bullet and called up the Giles and the Petersons. We set up a date a month out and made it official in pen on the calendar. Everyone had a character and suggestions for dress. We went all out on a four course meal. One course after each scene. First we had chips and dip, second a taco salad with lime cilantro ranch dressing, then baked chicken taquitos. After we finished the murder mystery we had a chocolate fountain fondue. Wendi, the unassuming secretary, was the murderer. We discovered where the Peterson boys get their acting talent. John went all out and wore a tux. Come to think of it I think John secretly likes wearing tuxes. Holly got to play the part of promiscuous. Rusty was Big Bill Bradford, an oil tycoon and I was his eccentric wife. I even got to meditate. We had so much fun. I would love to do it again, especially with the same group. Sigh..

It's Paw-ty Time

Katelyn turned five and in the Cook house that means she was of age for a friend birthday party. She decided that she wanted her theme to be a puppy party. We had a great time coming up with ideas for this theme. We started with a super cute invitation. When the kids arrived they went straight to the table to decorate the felt puppy ears that were attached to headbands. I had a bunch of felt scraps that they cut out in shapes and glued on their ears. During the same time Holly was using the dremel tool I ordered to make dog collars for the kids. She put their first name on one side and the nickname of their choice on the other side. Some of the nicknames included Birthday Girl 5 (I bet you can guess who chose that one), Princess, Barbie, Bell, Ninja, the Fridge, and Robin (as in Batman and Robin, but his older brother is Batman). After they were all dogged up we played pin the nose on the puppy. Then we had a best in breed dog show. Each puppy had to jump over some blocks, run up a slide, and jump through a hoop. The other puppies had to applaud by barking. We played dog trainer says. I got a good picture of all the puppies rolling over. My personal favorite and the favorite of all the puppies was our puppy chow contest. Each puppy got a bowl full of puppy chow (cocoa puffs cereal). The winner was the puppy who finished their bowl first. We then made puppy cupcakes, which turned out "special," but the kids had fun making them. We had "pup pops" with our cupcakes. I found the coolest things...plastic push pop molds. You put the ice cream of your choice in the mold, put the lid on, and pop them in the freezer. When you are ready for them, just pull them out and you have a push pop. In this case, though, they were pup pops. The gift bags were a plastic cup with puppies all over it and a little wrapped dog house with sugar cookie bones inside. Katelyn blew out a candle on her cupcake and opened all of her presents. Everyone had fun, most importantly Katelyn. Happy birthday to her!

Flowers

For no reason at all, the girls went outside and cut some flowers. Then they came in and asked for a vase and arranged them. They presented them to me as a gift. What a fabulous gift! And I may be a little biased but I think some of GG's talent is coming through the gene pool.

BSU Game

We watched the BSU game last weekend. Even though the ending stunk, the decorations were top notch. Kyleigh found some blue and orange fabric to cut her own streamers. Then she cut B-S-U out in bubble letters and taped them on the wall. I think the letters make the TV look even bigger than it is.

Ridge's Favorite things

Ridger Man is 21 months old. He is all boy with some funny quirks that make him so unique. Here is a list of what makes this sweet little boy our Ridger Man.

• picking oranges. Ridge LOVES to pick oranges. He watches the tree in the backyard daily and as soon as one starts to turn orange he starts pointing and jumping. When Rusty gets home Ridge pulls him by the finger to the back door. He points and grunts at the tree. Rusty grabs the fruit picking pole, pulls the orange off the tree, and Ridge takes it out of the little basket and is as proud as he can be.



• Checking the barometric pressure. I have no idea why this thrills Ridge. Every day he points to a little decorative weather instrument that we have hanging on the wall. We lift him up and tell him the current temperature, barometric pressure and % humidity. We also point out the deer that is on it. He smiles and wiggles to be put back down and goes on his merry way.



• Playing the piano. He loves to play the piano, but it just so happens that the only time he wants to do this is when Kyleigh is practicing. She loves it some days and other days it drives her crazy.



• Mr. Pig. Neither of the girls were ever attached to anything. Early on Mr. Pig became Ridge's favorite stuffed animal. Now the poor thing has a nasty, dirty tail that Ridge is either using as a handle or sucking on. Some tree sap is stuck to it's back and it stuffing is awkwardly distributed. Note: I do wash Mr. Pig regularly.



• Changing seats at mealtime. It is not a meal at our house if Ridge doesn't pick up his plate, silverware, and cup and move to another seat at the dinner table. Usually it happens more than once.



• Throwing everything. It isn't just balls that this boy likes to throw.



• Books. Ridge really loves books. He will let you read anything with pictures to him but his favorites are the books with animals. Even the nursery leader commented on how excited he got when he found a book with animal pictures.



• Hanging on the hang board. Rusty has a hang board, which is kind of like a pull up bar but has different "holds" on it. It is used to practice pull ups in an imperfect situation, as happens when rock climbing. Another favorite thing for Ridge to do when Rusty gets home is stand under the hang board with his hands in the air until Rusty lifts him up to hang for a few seconds.



• The moon and stars. Ridge always has an eye on the sky. Even when the moon is out in the middle of the day and partly covered with clouds he can spot it. He yells out, oooo, oooo, and we know he has spotted the moon. When we come home at night he throws himself out of the car with his finger pointed to the sky looking for the moon and stars. In the middle of the night he wakes up and points to the window asking to look for the moon. When we can't see it I tell him the moon's Mommy tucked him in behind his cloud blanket, and that Ridge's Mommy has to tuck him in, too. He usually accepts that and goes back to sleep.

It's hard to remember life before Ridge. We love him so, so much!

Halloween Night

Halloween Night the kids were jumping out of their skin. We had Halloween Pizza for dinner. Kyleigh arranged to leave the same time as our neighbor boy Riley, and Mike and Holly and the girls came with us also. Riley had some friends with him, too, so we had quite the crew. We have never gone trick or treating in our own neighborhood. When we moved here we were told that the neighborhood Mike and Holly lived in was the place to go, so we went there for a few years. We went with the Giles in their neighborhood last year, and this year we finally decided to stay put. And guess what, our neighborhood was every bit as good or better than the others we have been to. Trick or treating is a little different here than on the mainland, mostly because it is warm. Because of that people set up in their driveways or on their porches. They decorate and put things up for the kids to walk through. You don't have to wear gloves and pants and coats that mess up your costumes, and you can cover a lot more ground before your kids start crying because it is cold. You also have to be careful with your candy. Anything that is hard like a sucker or soft like a starburst has to be put in an airtight container or in the fridge so it doesn't turn mush. I have to say that I prefer Halloween in Hawaii. You can't beat the temperature.

Costumes

We all dressed up for our ward's trunk or treat. We had a bee, a beekeeper, a bike rider, a Roman princess and Spiderman.. Rusty's costume was a backwards t-shirt and a laundry hamper bag (that I so very kindly washed before we put it over his head.) My costume was electrical tape over a black shirt, 2 yards of puffy fabric tied to a piece of elastic that was safety pinned around my waste, more electric tape over a headband with some pipe cleaners and a borrowed pair of black tights. Kyleigh's costume was built around a silver leaf looking headband we found at Claire's on clearance. She wore a white slip that is in their dress up bin with our popcorn sheet draped around her and safety pinned. It looked really fancy draped behind her, especially for a sheet. We did two headband braids going opposite ways with the actual headband in the middle. She also got to wear makeup, which she was pretty excited about. Katelyn wanted to be a bikerider, so we put her gear on and away she went. We brought her bike to the church for the costume parade and she marched around the gym with her bike at her side. Ridge was easy enough. We just grabbed a costume from the dress up bin and he was as happy as a clam. I love the picture of him below. It looks like he is running so fast his arms are blurred. Hats off to trunk or treat. It's like a warm-up sugar high that increases everyone's sugar tolerance for the big show.

Carving Pumpkins

It's not Halloween if you don't carve pumpkins. Here's how our pumpkin carving went...

Katelyn wanted to know how big her head was compared to the pumpkin.
Kyleigh wanted to play with the pumpkin guts (she has always loved that).
Ridge wanted to eat candy. Then more candy, then more candy...

The girls each got to chose a pattern and Daddy cut them out of the pumpkin, with some help before interest waned. Katelyn chose a witch riding her broom and Kyleigh chose a cat. The cat didn't get finished until the next day.

I was so excited to make pumpkin pie milkshakes. I have been craving them for a year now. This year I decided to try the frozen yogurt variety. I bought the yogurt and put it in my handy dandy iceless ice cream maker. It thickened into frozen yogurt and I added the spices and pumpkin. I think I got a little carried away with the spices. The cups sure looked pretty, but the result was extremely gross. We ended throwing 90% of it away.

The pumpkins looked really cute on the porch for about 3 days. Then black mold started growing all inside the pumpkin and spilling out the cuts. Within 5 days they collapsed and Rusty had to scrape them off the deck.

Fun while it lasted.