Pinkalicous Princess Party

Our princess turned 5 last week! We celebrated by having a princess party!

We couldn't have the party on her birthday, so we got to celebrate twice. On her birthday we opened presents first thing in our bed. She got lots of girly things including a lace parasol!

The next day she invited 12 friends over for a princess party. They all dressed up in their favorite princess costumes:

We played a muscial chairs type game, hot potato and everyone got their nails painted. Adam and Michael helped with the nail painting, but Adam didn't want anyone to know that he helped ;)They all got to dance along to a princess video while I was painting their nails, it was cute to see them all dance along.

We love the princess of our family!

The Frost Compound

We went camping last week to celebrate Michael's birthday. We invited a ton of friends and had a big campfire at our property (that Joe likes to call the "Frost compound"). We really enjoyed ourselves. There were quite a few families that came up and just stayed for the campfire.

Here are some of the kids, Emma, Ty, Shane, Michael, Nathan, Logan, Ben, Emmaline and Mariah

It was pretty warm outside, but nevertheless the kids still really enjoyed the fire.
At first they roasted marshmallows, but then they just started roasting sticks.
Here are some pictures of some of the kids that came...I love how they all have dirty faces and they don't even care- Ashlynn

Michael with Logan and Shane

Adam and Jack
Ellie and Lily

Logan and Michael

Nate and William
Me and my friend Sharon
Nate spent a large amount of time emptying the water cooler, glass by glass

Austin and Ron, they are our most regular regulars and we are so happy about it

Instead of a cake, Michael got a rice crispie treat pyramid! Much more yummy....

Before it got dark, the kids enjoyed swinging on the cheap swingset that is there, riding 4-wheelers, and riding in the boat.

I am still not allowed to sleep in the tent with Joe (and I am heartbroken about it too) so Nate and I slept in the house. Apparently in the middle of the night Adam needed to pee but didn't want to wake Michael up stepping over him, so he found a window in the tent and peed out of it, right onto a neighboring tent where it woke up our friend sleeping there.

The next morning, we had some other friends show up... we had fun with them riding the 4-wheelers and Daniel was even brave enough to take the 5 smallest children out on a boat. We enjoyed their visit until Ellie and her friends found a yellow jacket nest and all got bit...ouch!

We have really enjoyed having the "Frost compound" to be able to have friends up to visit and relax. The weekend before the campout, we had some friends come in from out of town that we hadn't seen in a long time. We also enjoyed visiting with them and riding 4-wheelers and the boat.

It was nice to hang out with friends that we could just relax with and not have to worry about what they think of us. I am trying to be more like that with everyone, but sometimes it is nice to be with people you have known for a long time. Plus our kids really liked playing with their kids.

Hannah, ready to go on the boat

Matthias

Nate and Matthias on the tractor

Taylor and Hannah

My Craft Armoire

We recently moved Nate in to sleep in Ellie's room. That created an "empty" room that used to be the nursery. Problem is that he won't always be in Ellie's room and someday I may need to use three bedrooms again for my kids instead of two, so I didn't want to convert the room into a room I couldn't do without. (Because that would give Joe a reason to want to move and the last thing we need to do now is move yet again in our neighborhood). So, I have a craft/art room now!

We also recently got a flat screen TV. Joe wanted one that was a little bigger than our TV armoire could hold, so we had an extra armoire around. We tried it in our bedroom for a while thinking we might start watching TV in there, but we just don't. So, instead of attempting to sell the armoire on craigslist where everyone else is trying to get rid of their armoires, I made it into a craft armoire. It is made from really nice hardwood, and I am a wood snob so I was excited to get to use it.

Here it is closed in the old nursery. It is nice because I can hide all of my project mess from view.
This is the before shot. I forgot to take a picture before I added the wire rack to the back of the open area, but you can see how it was empty for a TV before.

Here is the after. I don't use my sewing machine a ton so I didn't need it to pull out, I may change my mind about that and install a pull out shelf. If I have a big sewing project, I have a portable table I can set up next to it.
I made extra room by using the little wood shelves from IKEA. The wire holder behind the sewing machine holds scissors, my photos that I am working on for scrapbooking, tape, some thread, glue and other odds and ends craft supplies that I regularly use. My cricut is easily accesible to pull down and plug into the outlet that is part of the armoire. When I am done, it can be tucked away up top and I have room to work on something else.

On one of the shelves that had previously been used to hold videos, I found a drawer organizer and it works as if there was a drawer there. I can put my thread, my stapler and my 3 hole punch there.

I use a rubbermaid container to store my scrapbook paper, but if I want to look through it, I can pull out the shelf and easily find what I need.

The nice thing about this project is that I had all of the supplies already there. I had been using the IKEA shelves but they were just sitting on a table and the paper container was usually on the floor. Now the mess is contained, but if I am in the middle of a project I can shut the armoire doors and come back to the project when I get a chance.

Joe's Male Bonding Vacation

Since Joe finished law school, he has been taking a yearly trip out to Arizona to go fishing with his dad. It started being a 4 day weekend, but this year he added a day. A few years ago, Joe and Dad finally consented to allowing Austin to come, but he was in on a trial basis for the first year. Apparently he passed the trial, because he goes every year now.They came in on Tuesday night, and immediately drove up to Joe's dads house near Holbrook. The next morning they drove out to Reservation Lake to go fishing. For those readers who don't believe the lake exists (you know who you are) check out the link. Joe spent a couple of months reading about trout fishing and collecting lures so that he could experiment with different lures while he was out fishing.

They caught a lot of fish. The most fish were caught by worms, but the fish liked to swallow the worms, so if they caught a fish with a worm they almost always had to keep it. If they caught it with a lure (which didn't happen as often as with a worm) then the lure would catch their lip so they could catch and release. Joe mailed a box of lures out and then packed two suitcases and one overnight bag to take. The overnight bag had his clothes and the two suitcases had all of his fishing gear.

Joe did most of the driving on the boat. A couple of days it was too windy to fish too, but he did get to fish and drive at the same time.
A view of the lake:

Austin and Joe built a shelter and one night they slept in it. Dad was supposed to sleep in it too, but he snuck into his sleeping bag in the tent a little early so he could sleep more comfortably.

Joe and his Dad

They ate fish every night. Austin cooked the fish and Joe said it was delicious. Joe made potatoes and carrots for everyone.
Now that he got a week off, what kind of vacation do you think I can negotiate? He says that I get to go see my family every summer so that is fair, but I can assure you a "vacation" with 4 kids is anything but a vacation.

SHAC JAM

This weekend we went out to College Station to go to our first Scout Jamboree. The kids had a great time- there were so many activities for them to do. Luckily, I met up with Adam's best friend while we were there and both his parents were with him, so I had extra help with the kids.
Adam and Jack with the cub scout wolf
Here they decorated half of a plastic easter egg and then had a race.

Ellie, Adam, Jack and Michael

They got to do a push cart race.

Ellie was paired with Michael. They were supposed to trade drivers half way through at the turn around point, but Michael didn't think that Ellie could push so he just kept pushing. He was disappointed when he didn't win, personally I was impressed that he finished!
They also got to do a PineWood Derby race.

I am always impressed with the big activities that the cub scouts put together, they always are a lot of fun. Usually it is not expensive activities that they do, but the kids really enjoy them.