4 Little Reasons

4 Little Reasons To Be Grateful!

Kate turns 6!

Kate decided on a CandyLand theme for her birthday. This was her first "real" birthday party and she was super excited for it. Too bad the cake didn't make it in its entirety to the party. Those darn lollipops were just too heavy for the cake and started ripping it in half. So we snapped a picture and then had to take them out.

Kate was so excited for all her little friends from school to come. Top:Tessa, Paige, Dawson, Gracie. Bottom: Gracee, Kate, and Trevor.

Kate talks about this little guy quite a bit. One day she came home and said, "Trevor said he needed some space from me because I annoy him." LOL! I asked her if she was touching him and reminded her to keep her hands to herself. She said, "Okay, okay." Then I asked her if she had a little crush on him. Her reply was, "No way! That would awkward!" LOL! So funny, but they seem to be good little friends now, so hopefully she's not annoying him anymore.

Even little Josie showed up for the party. I'm not sure she knew quite what to do with all the chaos around her. I had all sorts of little games planned and thought it was be a fairly calm party. Boy was I wrong! These kids were WILD, but they had a ball so it's okay.

Kate blew out the candles and then birthday party season at our house was officially over!! Whew! We made it. Now, lets gear up for the holidays.

Oh, and one little funny to end with, I had to take the cute little blonde boy home. Johnny (our dog), all the kids stinky shoes, and the dirty laundry had all been shut up in the laundry room during the party. When we opened the door to walk out to the garage a stench you could almost see hit us. Trevor said, "Man, it smells like a zombie in here!" It was SOOOO funny. And he was so right, it practically did smell like death.

The Wrist

So the morning after Halle's party, it was Sunday morning, her wrist was pretty sore and swollen. We went to church where our good friend, who happens to be our pediatrician, took a look at her and said he would meet us at his office to put it in a splint. It was SO nice of him to do that for us. So Sunday night, she came home looking like a war victim.

She was super concerned about how the splint and sling looked with her birthday outfit Monday morning, but the comfort and security it gave her was worth it.

We took her in for x-rays Monday afternoon, and Wednesday morning (long enough time for the swelling to go down) she was in a full blown cast. Yep....it was broken. The first broken bone for our house. Thank goodness it didn't need to be set. So now she gets to wear the lovely pink cast for a month. She's SO relieved that it will match her outfits. Funny, funny girl.

And this picture is just for Tiana. "The Standards", a music group, came to Halle's school for an assembly and they asked Halle if they could sign her cast. I told her Tiana would be SO excited to see this. So we had to take a picture and post it!

It's been a full week since the accident today, and she is feeling much better. She still babies it a little, but she is moving it more and more each day.

Halle is 11!

Halle turned the big 11 last week! About two hours before the party she fell in her bedroom and hurt her wrist pretty bad. She was picking up her room when a "flap" (her words) on her shoe caught on the carpet and down she went, catching her wrist on her dresser on the way down. I asked her if we should cancel the party, but after icing the wrist, taking some pain killers, wrapping it in an wrist support bandage, and throwing up in the sink from shock, she decided the show must go on. So party we did!

Halle's request for a birthday cake was a "pretty one". She's my glitz and glamor girl so I decided to go with the trendy zebra print and hot pink look. I used edible zebra sugar paper and pearly pink Sixlets. I think it turned out pretty cute.

She had a group of darling friends come over for games and pizza making.

The highlight game of the night was the flour game. Pack flour tightly in a cup, carefully dump it out onto a plate so that it retains it shape, then set a penny on top. Each person takes a turn slicing away the flour and if the penny falls, you have to retrieve it with your teeth. They played this game forever, and then started begging to use sugar instead of flour. LOL!

After games and presents, (a couple of her favorites being -in case you need ideas for an 11 year old- her Orbeez lamp, and a Venus Fly Trap plant) it was time to make a wish and blow out candles. And even though her arm was hurting pretty bad by the end, she had a lot of fun.

This is Halloween 2011

All Kate talked about was wanting to be a "blue butterfly" for Halloween. But, our school carnival came before I had costumes bought, so we dug in the old costume box and Kate chose to wear the candy corn witch for the night. She was fine with it, but still mentioned the "blue butterfly" quite a bit. Above: Kate and Alyssa with some of our friends, Emily and Dawson at the school carnival.

So I broke down and scrounged up a "blue butterfly" costume in time for her school parade and Halloween night.

She paraded around in the "blue butterfly" wings twice, once at school and once at church.

Then Halloween night, decided she hated the wings because they "annoyed" her, so she went back to the candy corn witch. Guess I shouldn't have wasted my money.

Carter couldn't really care less about Halloween costumes. He never has a request to be anything, so I usually just buy something I think he'll like and he wears it. No protests, nothing. This year, he was a fighter pilot. He came home from his school party with an awesome skeleton painted face, so we said he was a "dead fighter pilot". "Okay", he said with a shrug and off he went to play with legos. If only we could all be as easy going as Carter.

Alyssa REALLY wanted to be a peacock. Luckily I was able to find the peacock wings at a Halloween store, then she made her little skirt and we found sweats in peacock colors. She seemed pleased with it, and I think it turned out great.

Halle wanted to be a bumblebee, mostly b/c she wanted to make a tutu and wear make up. She's all glitz and glam this girl. I think she made a darling little bee.

My little spooky spooks! I let Alyssa go alone with friends this year. It was a little nerve racking for me, but honestly either this year or next year will be her last year, so it was time to get to experience trick-or-treating without a parent around.

(This is a picture of Halle and Taylor at the school carnival.)
Halle went with her friend Taylor and Taylor's mom. And I took the two littlest toots, Kate and Carter, around.

Kate was done with one round of the block, Carter would have kept going all night I think. Unfortunately for him, I was feeling sicker than a dog with fever, chills, and sore throat. So we called it a night at 8:00, then went a visited Grandparents.

We got to see cute cousin Josie in her costume. What a sweet little tootsie!

Jarom's mom dresses as a witch each year and scares the tar out of the little grand kids. This year she added a chin to the get up and looked super spooky! It's always fun to visit Grandma's house on Halloween.

We Have a Teenager in the House!

Well, it's official.....I'm old. I have a real live teenager living in the house! Beautiful Alyssa turned 13 and celebrated in grand style with German pancakes for breakfast. Her favorite breakfast. In fact, its about the only breakfast she'll eat. This girl is not a morning eater; its all I can do to get her drink a glass of milk in the mornings.

Kate has a weird phobia of teenagers. She was a little upset that Alyssa was going to be one. One morning she said to me, "Mom, I don't really want a teenager in the house. I only want kids." I asked her if we should get rid of Alyssa, and reminded her that she would be a teenager herself one day. Then I said, "Being a teenager is fun. You get to do fun things like drive, and hang out with your friends." And then Kate interrupted me and said, "And sneak out...." WHAT THE???!! LOL! Oh my.....I am SOOOO in trouble. (Apparently she learned this from Soul Surfer, her FAVORITE movie lately. It's a great show with a great moral and the thing she took from it is how to sneak out! Ay-yi-yi!)

Alyssa decided to have a movie party. We borrowed the projector from a business associate and the party watched Selena Gomez's Monte Carlo in the basement. She wanted pumpkin bars for a birthday cake, so I decorated them to look like a tub of movie popcorn. I used strawberry Froot By the Foot for the stripes and marshmallow popcorn so I could mold the popcorn in the right shape.

The party girls came prepared in pj's and ready to play games. They played the m&m game. Everyone has a straw and there is a big bowl of m&m's in the center. You roll 2 dice and if you get 7, 11, or doubles, you grab the bowl and start sucking out as many m&m's as you can with the straw. In the mean time, the dice continues to get rolled; as soon as someone else gets the magic number they yank the bowl of candy away to give it their own try. The girls had a blast with this and it ended up being the only game they played. Made it easy for me!

They watched the movie in the basement. We had a candy and popcorn "store" set up where they could get treats and bottled water. I swear, these girls were so good and into the movie, that I could hardly tell I had a house full of girls. What a great bunch of kids!

Of course we had to take some pictures. Silly girls!

Serious girls.

And last but not least, cute smiley girls.

Alyssa blew out the candles, and just like that the party was over. Now we gear up for Halle's and Kate's in 2 weeks!

Back Blogging - Things Not to be Forgotten

Here's some goings on from the Manwaring household.

The boys in our ward know Jarom will let them borrow his Mustang for date nights. Above is Clayn and his cute little date. Jarom's loaned it out for a few boys now. I'll admit, I was a little worried the first time he let it go, but the boys always seem to respect the holy powers of a "muscle car" and return it in better shape than when they took it.

One boy in particular, Michael, had a true love for the Mustang. He took it out several times, and each time he would come get it in time to detail and wash it before his date. (A bonus for us!) His mom told us he would stand in the garage and just stare at it. Michael would generously leave us his vehicle to use while he had our car.

Behold "The Twinkie", Michael's truck. My kids would get so excited every time The Twinkie was our's to use. They thought it was awesome! Michael is now serving a mission for our church, but he wanted to take the Mustang one last time before he left for 2 years. So the big yellow truck was our's again for a time.

And my kids were in heaven for a few spins around the block in the back of The Twinkie. What cracks ups!

Carter's teacher, Mrs. Ball, won a grant last year for a whole bunch of iPads to use in the classroom. They have recently been using them to study space. The class put on a "Night at the Space Museum" where each child had to represent something from space. Carter chose to be the star constellation Orion. He had a little speech memorized and everything. He did a great job, as did all the kids in the class. What a fun project.

Halle has decided she hates ballet. This is an ongoing battle in our home right now. It's highly frustrating and I don't know what to do as the parent. The ballet school she's been going to is intense; 3 days a week, 2 hours a time, plus Saturday practices if you want to be in Nutcracker. A LOT....I know. To make matters worse, those 2 hours are full of intense workouts. You don't go to ballet school to learn routines and just dance, you go to gain strength and proper technique. So basically....not fun unless your heart is REALLY REALLY into it.

After many, MANY tears and fights in this house, we have decided to let Halle take jazz/clogging from a once a week studio, and then her ballet teacher is letting her come just once a week right now to keep some of her strength up. I was really hoping this would help her find the love of dancing again, but so far it doesn't seem to be working. Because her body isn't consistently working out anymore, she's coming home tired and sore from ballet. Also, the other girls in her class are moving on without her. They all got fitted for toe shoes, while she didn't. And while I understand completely why, I'm still sad about it a little bit. I just wish we could find a less intense school, with good technique. But that seems impossible.

I don't know if this is just a hard little hump Halle needs to get over and will say in the future, "Thanks for pushing me through that Mom," or if she really just hates ballet and will say in the future, " I hated ballet! Why were you so mean to me?". I see so much talent in her and would hate for her to not develop it and regret it in the future. But at the same time, I don't see her becoming a professional dancer, so if she doesn't want to dance, why am I making her? What to do as a parent, what. to. do?

I've been babysitting my adorable little niece, Josie, a few hours a week.

We have a great time loving on her!

However, I don't think she is having as much fun as we are. She's lately recognized that her mama's gone. If I make eye contact with her, this is the face she makes at me. It totally cracks me up, but breaks my heart too. Hopefully here soon, she'll realize that I love her and she'll let me be her friend. Cute little toot anyway.

And just for kicks and giggles, let's end with some kid funnies. We had Chinese for dinner a while back. Carter's fortune cookie said, "Prepare for the unexpected." He asked what that meant and Jarom said, "It means to be sure you always have clean underwear on." Carter's response was, "I'm DOOMED!" LOL! Funny, funny boy.

The girls have been fun doing their nails lately. They learned a new technique where you paint your nail, let it dry, then dip it in rubbing alcohol, press a piece of newspaper to it, and voila, you have news print letters on your fingernails. Anyway, they were doing this and Kate got really excited about it, went running to Carter and said, "Carter! All you have to do is put your finger in that kind of coffee!" (Meaning alcohol.)