I am in the process of getting pics off our camera and WOW! Looking back at the weeks before Christmas we were busy folks, ha ha! We made so many fun memories, I have lots to blog about for sure.
Here are a few pics from the little Big Brothers Big Sisters party we had at our house, it was small scale but we had a fun time. We had the "Bigs" over and made Christmas cookies and decorated stockings and hats then did a small gift exchange where us bigs gave our "littles" the gift we got them. So much fun! I will spare you the drama involved with Hannah's gift but basically for 3 years she has asked us to get her this strange Baby Alive doll. It is so creepy to me! When she is fed she moves her mouth as if chewing and then she poops and pees plus the talking and laughing and blinking. Ewww! For some reason though, Hannah has desperately wanted this doll for THREE years so after much debate Sam and I gave in and made it happen and to use her words her "dream came true". It was totally worth seeing her that happy (and now we don't have to hear about it all the time, an added bonus for sure). She was so sweet when she opened, it she just screamed then looked at us and said "you really got it?? really really? are you sure its for me and I can keep it??" then she said thank you probably 12 times or so and then bolted and actually kncoked me over giving me a hug. It was a very sweet moment.
Sammy throughly enjoyed the party, he was dancing around and thought he was big stuff. He kept saying "Sammy play big kids" and he even made his first Christmas cookies! He concentrated so very hard and was just too cute. I love watching him when he is trying hard on a project. His tongue is always out and he narrates each step. In my nerdy world of developmental psychology this is called "private speech" and is something children do to reduce their cognitive load while problem solving and is a good sign he is developing right on target. Yay! I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I am his mommy but I thought his cookies by far tasted the sweetest of the whole lot!
Busy little bees making Christmas cookies
Sammy was great at rolling out the dough
Can you believe how grown up Haley is now??? She has really matured this year
Mark was hilarious with his cookies, he cracked us all up
I love my Banana!
The behind the scenes crew... thankfully they cleaned up the staging area i.e. our kitchen and kept things rolling smoothly, thank you to all of you for your help and for the yummy pizza and fun activities! You all rock!!
My baby worked so hard on his sugar cookies! He took his time and planned it all out, I was one proud mamma!
Kristen got Samantha some riding boots since they ride her horses together, Samantha was beside herself if you can't tell from that grin... She actually squealed while jumping in the air kissing the boots!!!
and she gave her this horse... as you can see it was well received!
I LOVE this picture, this is when Hannah THREW her doll down and ran to me and tumbled me to the floor with hugs, super great moment for sure. Have I mentioned how much I love her??
me and my girl..(.and the creepiest doll to ever to hit toy stores)
Wow.. that was A LOT of icing!
more decorating! Check out the little elves thanks to Kristen!
Mark and his big Brother Terry
Kim and Haley were actually featured in the BBBS newsletter on the front page b/c they are such a great match so I had asked them to please autograph my copy since I have obviously never had celebrities in my house before.
Hannah Banana worked so hard on her beautiful cookies she made for me and Sam, they were delicious!!
Look at my baby working so hard!
His first ever cookies! Aren't they perfect??
I love this pic b/c looks like Sam is actually "sniffing" the sprinkles and getting high, ha ha
Mark made a "spiderman" stocking
Samantha wrote all of our names on her stocking and so of course instead of Sam pointing to his name he thought was funny to point to her since they share the same name (we used to call her Sammy before my Sammy was born and then it got too confusing with 3 Sams in the house!)
Sammy and her Kristen (her Big) they are too cute together!
Kim and Haley
Wendy who was Krista's big moved (we missed you SO MUCh at this party Wendy!) and so we told Krista that we are ALL her bigs until they can find a new match for her or until Leslie can move down here, ha ha
Mark and Terry
Me and my Banana being silly
