Her First Birthday Party!

After 7 long years of waiting, Livie FINALLY got to have her very first "Friend Birthday"!  It's always been hard for me to figure out when to have a birthday party for a girl whose birthday is so close to Christmas.  We decided to go a week late and have it before school got back into session and it was perfect!  In all the years I've been doing bday parties, we've never had all the invitees attend.  This year, we did!  All 13 of them!  That means I had a house full of 16 kids running around here and it was awesome!

We usually decorate the night before the birthday child's birthday, but we were in IN, so we waited until the night before the party.  I got it all up while Pete was at poker last night.

Livie went with a gnome theme this year.  They get to pick out their own theme every year and she picked this out early last month.  We loved the little wall clings that came with it!  Those will probably stay up for a while. :-)

She woke up this morning so excited about her party.  I think she asked me a half dozen times when it started.

Right as people were starting to arrive, we started getting these fantastic snowflakes!  Sadly, the snow didn't last long, but it was so fun to have the kids come in with it snowing like that.  Tater REALLY loved it!

As they started coming, the girls started hanging out in Madie and Livie's room, before making their way down to the basement.

They spent most of their play time down there, of course.

We hired the magician., Mr. Burke, from the Sabic Party to host Livie's party.  We booked him from 2-3:30, but he got their pretty early, so he started early and left at the regular time.  He was as fantastic here at the house as he was at the christmas party!  The kids loved him!

Because Livie was the birthday girl, she got to go first a lot and got to help do some of the magic tricks, but he was really good about spreading the magic love with nearly all of the kids that were there.

He did many of the same tricks, with a few new ones.

Everyone clapped and cheered and were loving the whole show.

As he finished up his magic show and got ready to make the balloon animals, we let the kids get some snacks and made up Livie's donut cake.  That's become our specialty around here.  They sang "Happy Birthday" and she blew them out.

As the kids sat around and ate, Mr. Burke walked around and started making everyone a balloon creation.  He told them he would make everyone one first then go back for doubles if they wanted them.  Livie got a cat hat for her first one.

It was so fun to watch him make the balloon things he made.  He's really an artist.  Such cool things!  Definitely worth the money to have him for that hour and a half. I could sit back while he entertained and take pictures or talk to my friends and the kids.  It was perfect!!

Love those happy faces!!

Nearly all the girls had him make them hats with different animals on them. :-)

The boys wanted dragons and swords, of course.

I swear, nothing makes me happier than a room full of happy, excited kids!

After everyone got their first creation, he said they could line up and get a second one.  As you can see, most of them wanted a second one.

We've had friends that weren't able to afford to bring a birthday present for our kids before and they were embarrassed by that and almost didn't come to a party we had.  Made me seriously look at why we have people bring presents for our kids.  Our kids are more than blessed with gifts from their family.  They don't need more presents from their friends.  The experience of the party itself is more than enough of a gift for my kiddos and that's why we have them - for the FUN!  So, we decided, moving forward, that we aren't going to ask our friends to bring bday presents anymore.  Instead, for Livie, she wanted them to draw her a picture and boy, did she get some really great pictures!!

All the kids (and even some parents) made her the cutest pictures!  We're going to make a book out of them and put them in her memory box.  What a great way for her to remember this special day. :-)

My friend Donna made this for her.  Isn't it awesome?!  Yep.  This turned out to be one really amazing first "friend party"!

Drexler Christmas

On the 29th we headed up to spend some time with the Drexler side of the family.  It turned out to be a very busy couple of days, but we had a lot of fun in that busyness!

We found out that Avery LOVES her Papa.  But, she loves him even more if he has food. ;-)  Whether it was this milkshake or a sub from Subway, she made sure she was nearby, so she could steal whatever it was that he had.  It was hysterical!

Shortly after we got there that afternoon, we had our christmas/birthday celebrations. Kendalyn's birthday is just a week before Livie's (the 21st), so we brought out her birthday presents.  She got the Little People princesses and a Doc McStuffins figure.  She absolutely LOVED the Doc doll and carried it around with her for the rest of the day.

Just had to post this picture of sweet Avery.  Those girls have the most beautiful blue eyes ever!

Papa actually wrapped the presents this year - and by "wrapped", I mean, stuck in christmas bags.  He had the kids gather around and pull one thing out at a time from their christmas bags.  It was a lot of fun for them.  They got lots of great stuff and, amazingly, none of it was a duplicate of what they got at the Trolingers!  Way to go, everyone!

Because mom can't buy for dad anymore, we decided to forego the adult gift exchange and just go in together as siblings and get a couple things for dad.  We got him a Kindle Fire and, as you can see from his expression above, he was super-surprised!  He doesn't have the faintest idea how to work the thing, but I tried to show him some things and told him to just mess around with it to figure it out.  I think he'll enjoy it a lot.  I mean, we already downloaded the ESPN app.  How awful could it be, right?

Livie got her birthday presents after the christmas presents were opened.  She loved this house she got with her little mice people.  She has some of the other animals that she got last year, so it's been a lot of fun for her to play with!

Madie got these hilarious earmuffs!  Of course, I'm not allowed to laugh at them, because her sensitive tween self will get offended, but I think they're great!

I found this giant bear hat (aka Yeti hat) and had to get it for her.  She rocked this thing!

Jill gave me this Spongebob costume for Kendalyn, since she's such a big fan of that yellow guy.  She and Avery posed for me, so I could take a picture of it.  So cute!

Just another picture of Livie in her new Yeti garb!

We went to church on Sunday, where we listened to a really wonderful sermon by dad and sang to some really wonderful worship songs, led by Jeff, Em, and the Worship Team.  After the service, we headed out for a big family dinner at the Olive Garden.  We went here last year when I had my terrible cold and couldn't taste a thing.  It was great to go again this year, because I could taste it all!!  YUM!

We took Tater back with us and he and Sherm became best buddies.  They would chase each other through the house, play outside together.  It was so cute to watch!  They were both exhausted by the end of the day from all that playing!

Kendalyn got a little Leappad for Christmas and was so adorable sitting on the couch, playing with it.  Again, those kids and their devices.  That was the theme for Christmas this year!

They spent a lot of time playing in the basement too though.  Mattresses on the floor might not look cute, but boy are they fun to play on!

Before we left yesterday, we headed to the nursing home to see Mom and give her her gifts.  We walked all over the place until we finally found her getting ready to leave the cafeteria.

We took her to one of the common rooms and gave her her presents.  We had quite a crowd there for her!

We got her a digital frame, but it wasn't uploaded with pictures yet.  That's on my to-do list this week.  And, we gave her this framed handprint thing I made with all the grandkids handprints in it.  She really doesn't talk too much anymore, but I heard her very clearly say "I love it". :-)  We stayed for about a half hour, before she got too tired and we took her back to her room.  She was so happy to see us all and really enjoyed her presents.  We got home last night without any problems on the road at all and were able to take down our christmas decorations tonight.  We're ready to move into the new year of 2013!  Hoping that it's a great one for all of us and our friends and family!

Olivia's 7th Birthday!

First, can I say, WOWZA!  Cannot believe that my baby girl is 7 yrs old!  Time is just going by too quickly.  It really is.  Sometimes it feels like these precious years are just slipping through my fingers.  But, at the same time, it's so fun to see them growing up and experiencing new things.  Sigh.  If only they could be my babies forever.

Anyway, because Livie is having her very first FRIEND party this coming Saturday, we decided to just make it a low-key birthday for her.  There were no decorations.  No donuts for breakfast, but there would be presents and there would be cake!  She was up bright and early and already excited.  She slept with me that night and when she woke up, she turned to me and said, "I'm 7 today!".  So sweet.

Her birthday played out into two sections.  The first section was her presents.  After lunch we gathered the family into the living room and let her open her presents from us and her Trolinger side of the family.

She got lots of great things - legos, bracelet-making kit, funny animals, etc... 

She ripped through them pretty quickly as her excitement grew!

Can you tell she's happy?? ;-)

She thought this present from Trevor and Ty was hiliarious and fun!  It made all sorts of weird noises.  Pretty funny.

After all the presents were opened, she played with them while her brother, sister, and cousin Trevor created box armor.  I mean, why not, right?

We got her some glittery nail polish, so Aunt Jill painted her nails with her.

While Uncle Adam checked out Noah's armor.  All that armor is now in my house.  He worked so hard on it, he didn't want to throw it away.  Oh goody.

The second half of her birthday came after the Schutz family left and her Aunt Francy got off work.  I wasn't going to make a cake, because of the party this weekend, but Francy works at the bakery at Marsh, so for her birthday present, she made her a cake.  Pretty stinkin' awesome, huh?!  Right up Livie's alley!

She loved it!  Can you tell?

We ordered some Pizza King pizza and ate up, before heading out to the dining room for some yummy cake.  Pete lit the candles while we sang.

She blew them out and concluded her fun 7th birthday.  Now that we're home, we're gearing up to have 16 kids running around our house this Saturday.  Last Thursday was just a prelude..

Trolinger Christmas 2012

We got home last night after several days in IN.  I wanted to get to these posts before we turned over into the new year, but we were all too tired!  But, here they are now, starting with the Trolinger Christmas event. :-)

We got to town around lunchtime on the 27th.  Pete's sister and her family got into town the night before, so they could celebrate with Adam's family.  We did our christmas with Pete's side of the family later that night.  Jill hadn't seen our newest nephew, Drew, since Sept.  We hadn't seen him since June!  He's growing so fast!

Now that our kids have Ipods and a Kindle, you would walk into a room and see all the kids on their devices.  They still played a lot, but nothing was funnier to me than seeing them all sitting on the couch, playing next to each other like that.

I tried to get all the grandkids in one picture, but Drew was napping when I took this.  Hey, getting 6 together wasn't too bad!

After Francy got off work, we ate a quick supper and headed into the living room to open presents.  The kids couldn't wait!  They were soooo excited!  We went in order from youngest to oldest (just with the kids, of course!).  Drew started us off. :-)

The kids were all gathered on the floor, taking turns opening their presents.  You can see how excited Livie was.

Madie got lots of new Monster High girls.  That was one of her major christmas wishes this year!

We fit a lot of people into that living room.  Sometimes it's hard to see what everyone is opening, but I think I got glimpses of all it as it was happening.

Trevor liked showing Drew how to work his new lawnmower.

Sue made all of us new scarves!  Isn't that awesome?!!  Loved it!

Pete's Uncle Scott got a new family picture of all of us.  The last one we took, Livie was only about a year and a half old.  Maybe 2 yrs?  Can't believe it had been that long!

The rest of the evening was spent playing on Pete and Andy's old Intellivision (I think that's what it was called).  It rivaled the old Ataris and played the lamest games.  It was hilarious!  Even with all the new technology, our kids still loved it.  Doesn't matter if a game is 30+ yrs old, as long as there is a screen and some buttons to push, they think it's great!  It was a really fun day to spend together as a family!