X&X Bday Dinner with the Busby’s

(I’m sorry this post took a long time to get up on the blog. It actually has been finished for awhile, but due to some pictures of spencer that I really wanted on this post, but needed to be photoshopped, made it take forever.  You’ll see the pictures below.  They’re so cute of him but show the state of his teeth.  You have to understand, he was born with really weird shaped teeth, especially the front ones… had this hump cut out in the middle of each one.  We thought they would smooth out over time, but they didn’t. They actually started decaying really fast.  Yes, he drinks a bottle, but we have tried very hard, especially the past 6 months to brush his teeth a lot, as well as make sure he didn’t have a bottle at night.   The dentist thinks it’s a mixture of a couple of things, and one of them is that he got his first two teeth at 2 months old and they just weren’t healthy teeth to begin with… healthy teeth don’t run in my family.  Anyway, Brian tried photoshopping it to blur it but it just made it look worse.  So… we’re working on getting his teeth looked at, but seriously, the pictures are so cute of him I couldn’t pass it up.  Long explanation short-that’s why it took so long for this post.)

Continuation of Birthday Celebration

Ashley Busby, the one in the green and black shirt, has the same exact birthday as the girls.  They were born only a few hours apart.  So, she is the third girl going into Young Women’s with the girls.  Her mom and I are good friends so we decided to celebrate their birthday by going out to dinner.  Emma, the one in the black jacket is Ashley’s younger sister, but she gets along just as well with the twins.

This turned out to be a much fancier Italian restaurant than we thought.  They were not happy to have us there.  They got us our food quickly so we would get out of there.  They actually asked us a few times to put away toys that Spencer was playing with.  Brian was more upset than I was, probably because he saw the person who had complained… it was a woman who was there WITH her six year old son! Who was she to complain?  Anyway, the waitress kept giving him dirty looks so he was frustrated. But other than that, we had such a great time. The food was amazing and it was just fun to be there with our friends.  I definitely would go back for a date night. I thought it was an awesome fancy restaurant.

Ashley’s parents are on the right (Sarah and Brady) and her aunt is the one in blue (Holly) who had just flown over from the states.

Of all things when hanging out with your friends for your birthday at a fancy restaurant, you all read Scary Stories Books???? Sarah and I couldn’t help but laugh. But hey, if that’s their thing!  They probably were looking for stories to tell at the next night’s slumber party.

Now you can see why I had to post these.  I told you! He can’t keep his eyes open. But cute huh? This kid actually loves the camera now. He will stand and pose for you when you have the camera on him.

We decided we should go back home to open presents so we went to the Busby’s house right around the corner.  Spencer wanted to help open presents.

 

Next Post: Their Birthday Swim Party

Black History Month-Step Performance

This is the girls' FIRST Step Team Performance.  If you watched the first one I posted (but was their last performance) you can definitely tell the difference in how much better their confidence level became from what it was at the beginning.  The girls were extremely nervous for this show... especially cuz they were told they weren't allowed to have any emotion on their faces but were told to have attitude.  They hadn't figured that out yet.  

This is the "Goal Den Steppers" Team.  They're making a "GDS" with their hands.  Can you see the difference in their costumes than the last performance? By the end all they wore were their t-shirts. haha.

This performance was about an hour away at another base for their Step Teacher's organization to celebrate Black History Month. Again, they were last to perform, but we thought it would only take about an hour to get to it.  But after three hours and we were only about 1/2 of the way through the program, we were kind of wondering when we wold actually get out of there.  It was pretty fun though because the group just took their time in the honoring and appreciation of their heritage. There were some pretty amazing messages and speeches and musical numbers.   Spencer got pretty bored.

Showing off the cake

The next few pictures of Spencer trying to entertain himself by running with the kids in the back.  The video is of him, at one point, trying to play trains (we think) with a little girl and we're not quite sure if she was playing along and just walking, or if she was annoyed by him. Either way, we think it's funny for some reason.

This is him "bored."  Playing games on the iphone, legs propped up on the table and just "kickin" it.  All in all, he did pretty well.

So, here's the performance. It's long... 9 minutes.  You don't have to watch the whole thing, but if you want to, just think of it like you are there at the performance and you can sit through the whole thing.  They do a few more different steps than the other posted performance, because they weren't kicked off the stage. :)  Oh, and their Step Teacher is at the bottom right with the pink weaved into her hair.  Her name is Ms. Brown and she's the one singing at the beginning.

And this about sums it up.. they're VERY tired after their performance.

Birthday Celebration!

Yes, it’s true.  The girls are 12.  How time flies!  I love those girls to pieces!

I think I’m more aware than they are of how big of a milestone the age of 12 is right now and in the future.  I wanted to do fun things for them and make it really special.  Usually we do big parties but they have made a couple of comments about two things that I thought I’d incorporate. 

The first is the breakthrough door!  My sister-in-law, Ruth, does this with her kids for their birthday.  They have to sort of break out of it in the morning.  I thought about doing poster paper, but they wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and I didn’t want them freaking out cuz they weren’t oriented enough to know what was going on and be strong enough to break through it.  haha.  So, I did streamers. 

Xanthe’s Door

Xoe’s Door

Xanthe was seriously groggy that morning. I let them sleep in until 9:30 a.m. and go to school late.  Xanthe was still groggy even when I woke her up at 9:30. She looks trashed huh?  Too many late night and very early mornings getting up for school.

I hung a happy birthday sign. Yes, it’s a train, but come on!  I used all this stuff from our Birthday Box (described below) and this was an amazing sign that my friend Randi had used to surprise Spencer and I on his first birthday.  So, I had to save it and reuse it.

Birthday Box

The infamous “Birthday Box.” My mom, one year for Christmas, made one of these for each of her kids that had children.  It comes stocked with everything you need for a party.  Cake mix, goody bags, streamers, signs, etc., etc. I actually didn’t realize how much I would use it until I had it.  She periodically replenishes stuff for us, and I’ll throw things in there as well. 

 

 

Birthday Breakfast

The second thing the girls said they wanted to do like their famous aunt Ruth does, is to make their favorite breakfast.  So, I made pumpkin pancakes with Butter Syrup and whipped cream, bacon and scrambled eggs.  Here are the kids before going to school. Brian even stayed home long enough to have their birthday breakfast (but secretly I think it’s cuz he LOOOOOVES Butter Syrup). 

And I’m surprised Spencer’s eyes are open in the picture above.  He has “Nanette Syndrome” (sorry, Nan, I had to).  She’s my sister who cannot keep her eyes open in pictures for the life of her. She has to look away during picture time.  It cracks me up like you wouldn’t believe.   As you can see from the majority of remaining pictures below, I could not get his eyes open, even when I practiced with the double flash or turned off the red eye flash.  haha.  Anyway, Spencer is here sans shirt cuz Butter Syrup is dang sticky and I did NOT want to deal with the mess.

 

 

Spirit Day

It just so happened that their birthday is on a Friday. Every Friday is Spirit Day and they’re supposed to wear blue and gold. Well, one of their favorite school counselors gave them some blue and gold hair paint.  I asked them like 10 times if it was going to be okay, and they said, “Yes! Mr. Haines GAVE it to us!”  It obviously made them super happy cuz look at those smiles!

 

 

Young Women Welcome

So many people made their birthday special.  One of those people was a girl named Sarah Anderson.  She is the Young Women’s President (the “Young Women” is the teenage group in our church that you have to be 12 to move into).  For awhile she was the only one in Young Women’s.  Can you imagine how excited she was to have 3 extra girls come in (I’ll explain the 3rd girl below)?  She drove all the way to our house after school (we live about 15 minutes from the base) to bring them these special treats.  How sweet, huh? 

 

(Ignore Xoe’s orange one.  She couldn’t keep her fingers off of it before I took a picture. )

 

I’ll post about our dinner for tomorrow’s post!

Awards Ceremony, 2nd Quarter

Another awards ceremony the girls were acknowledged at.  Go Xanthe and Xoe!!!!

Xanthe 

Xoe

Xoe receiving her award from the principal.  The Colonel (head hancho), "Colonel Dill" was there to congratulate the kids.

Xanthe receiving her award

Way to go Girls!