Polar Express Day and Field Trip

 Every year after the Christmas Program, the kids get to have a Polar Express Day.  They basically reenact the movie while watching it.  They get tickets to the train...

They even get hot chocolate. (Not really, it's chocolate milk.  There's no way they work that out with a bunch of little ones.  Disaster for sure.)

They bring blankets from home and cuddle up for movies.  It's pretty cute.  Look at the three besties (Charlotte is in pink in the middle, of course).

 Now that it's been renovated, they had quite the viewing area.  How fun.

 While Charlotte's class was doing that, I went with Tommy on his field trip.

When kids need entertaining, it's best to do selfies.  :)

 We took a LOT of selfies.  We had to get gas.  It was a LONG time on the bus.  Craziness.

 The first stop on the field trip was a nursing home so they could perform their songs from the Christmas show.  The audience loved it.  Well the ones that weren't asleep anyway.  The people who worked there cheered pretty loud though. :)

 The next stop was the union to see the giant Christmas tree.

 Someone that worked there gave us a quick overview of how they got the tree in there.  It took 25 people to pull it in with ropes.

 That's a HUGE tree.

 The kids also got to walk through a giant gingerbread house.

 Tommy found an ornament on the ground and was all excited he got to put it back on the tree.  :)

Nice placement, Tommy! :)

 Class picture in front of the tree!

 Tommy had to dab in front the tree, of course.  It was LIT.  Haha.  Eh, I tried.

Our third stop on the field trip was lunch at Arni's.  The moms all sat with the kids and the teachers sat at a corner table (they were the smart ones!).  The food took forever and we were struggling to keep them from going nuts.  One mom found a pen and a highlighter in her purse.  I got out my reward cards and passed them around to trace with the two writing utensils we found.  Ha! We did pretty well, I thought!

I LOVE going on these field trips with the kids.  It is so fun to get to know the kiddos and see a day in their lives.  I was very lucky to be able to go with such short notice.  It was a really fun trip.

Tommy's Many 6th Birthday Parties

 Tommy was excited for weeks about ALL his birthday parties.  He knew he would have one at school.  He would also have one with his family and another one with his friends.  He basically thinks his birthday is a week long. :)

For his school party, he didn't want cookies or cupcakes as his treat.  I looked on pinterest and found something he got really excited about: Treat Robots! He thought these were super cool and it involved me purchasing a hot glue gun so now I was excited. ;)

 The kids loved their treat robots at school! Their teacher always talks about how they shouldn't have too much sugar and she really likes to give them slightly healthier snacks.  So these were pretty perfect.

 As a birthday treat, she has the kids make birthday cards for the birthday kid.  The one on the top left is from his best friend Bode.  Can you tell what he drew for him? (Psst... it's Captain America.  I love it!) But what a neat idea.  I love what each kid contributed.

 The morning of his family party, Andrew went to the store for me and got party supplies.  I was NOT prepared for this party at all.  As I was making his cake, I realized I didn't have anything to really decorate it with besides a candle.   So I got creative.  I had some Christmas Oreos that I made into "volcanic rock." Then I mixed up some powdered sugar frosting with food coloring for the river.  We always have dino and shark dummies on hand so they were a perfect addition along with Tommy's mini dino toys.  (Tommy made sure to point out that the stegosauruses would definitely be in herds and to keep them together :).  It all came together PERFECTLY. How fun is this diorama dino-rama?

 I also made a cake with eggs as per usual. Both pretty delish!

Obligatory candle blowing out picture! Happy Birthday, Tommy T!

 Cousin picture!! A picture in a picture!

 After the party, Uncle Adam helped Tommy put together his marble run for the first time.  A little more difficult than I realized it was going to be but now that we have the hang of it, we are rocking it!

 On Sunday, Tommy had his super cool movie party! We planned to see Moana.  We decorated like it was a red carpet event.  Oscars, perhaps? :)  It was awkward in the room because it was so quiet but once the kids ate snacks and cake and starting playing, it was much better.

Here's a pic of all the kiddos.  His two besties, two of his other friends that are boys, and two friends that are girls. And Charlotte of course.  It was too cute.

 The kids were all keyed up on Gatorade.  I was really nervous about how this was going to go because the movie was nearly 2 hours! Yikes! But they did amazing! There was one kiddo that got pretty antsy but he didn't bother anyone too badly.  Maybe just Andrew and I.  Ha!

It turned out to be a super fun birthday party WEEK.  Happy Birthday to my wonderful kiddo.  I hope you enjoyed your birthday parties and felt super loved on your 6th birthday.  :-)

Christmas Show 2016

Tommy's teacher sent us a picture of the kids preparing for their Christmas show.  They were getting excited!

 The kids dressed up for their big event.  The boys had to wear white collar shirts and the girls could wear their Christmas dresses because they were getting bows for their hair.  They posed for me before the show.  Too cute.

Tommy's class and the after school kids performed first.  Tommy has the green bowtie in the front.

 Charlotte's class was next.  Isn't that bow gigantic?? I can't believe she kept it in her hair!

 At the end they all came out to sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I missed all but the last line of the song in the video at the bottom.  Oh well.  Still got a small part of it. :)

 The renovated chapel space is really great.  This is their first Christmas show in this space and it's so nice.

 They have a huge screen behind them which is what Charlotte was looking at in the video that you'll see below.

After the show, the kids came home hungry because they had to eat a quick dinner before the show.  Charlotte set herself up a little corner table in the kitchen to enjoy her turkey wrap.  Ha!


Here is the promised video.  I also missed the part of the show where Charlotte decided to do a little bit of a solo.  There were no movement during that part of the song they were singing but she decided to put her arms in the air and do a little ballerina move while everyone was singing.  It was too funny.  But I didn't get it on video.  Waaaaahhh. :( Oh well, still got some cute stuff.
Another great show.  This is Tommy's last Christmas show with KK.  Another milestone.  Time goes on without my permission! How rude! :-)
I hope this puts you in the Christmas spirit like it did for me! :)  Merry Christmas!

FIRST SNOW!

 The first snow of the season was a GREAT one.  We got a good covering on the ground at a time when we could go out and play in it.  WHOO HOO!

 The kids loved it.  They were throwing snowballs at me though.  Not a huge fan of getting hit in the face with snowballs.

 It came down in HUGE flakes.  So neat.

 It looked great on our Christmas lights.  Way to go, Andrew.  Our house looks amazing.

 After playing in the snow, we had to have hot chocolate with marshmallows.

 Clap if you LOVE hot chocolate!

Stick out your tongue and pretend you're asleep if you are worn out from playing in the snow.
Yep, that's what I thought.  Good times.  Tis the Season!

Mason's Birthday Party

 Tommy has a friend with a December birthday! Yay! Mason had his party at Elite Air.  It was all boys so it was perfect for getting rid of some energy.

The party attendees eating pizza and cupcakes.  Tommy ate snacks we brought.

 Mason's grandma made him a sweet football cake.  Bears vs Bronchos! Nice! Look at the detail on that thing!

 Then it was time to say goodbye!

These kiddos are so cute and such great friends.  Happy Birthday Mason!

Fitzograms

My friend Krissi and I went to see Phantograms and Fitz and the Tantrums the Wednesday after Thanksgiving.

 It was awesome! I was most excited to Phantogram. They did not disappoint!

 The lead singer is so bad ass.

 Indy is such a large small town.  I ran into several people I knew there.  We asked one of them to take our picture.  I had to lighten it a bit to even be able to see us.

 So we had to take another one as a selfie.

 This selfie got photo bombed.  :)

 Not sure what these faces are.

 Fitz and the Tantrums were so fun.  Our hands really hurt after it was over.  Lots of crowd participation!

It was entertaining to see the 4 year old in front of us.  She was having a great time.  She did not like phantogram though.  She stayed in the lobby for that part.


Here's some clips from the show.  We had great seats!
I'm so glad we were able to go to this show.  It was so worth it.  Haven't done something cool like that in awhile.