Drive to Utah

We drove to Utah for the holiday season.  We were so excited to go!  We hadn't been back for 1 1/2 years.  We sure missed everyone and were so excited to see them.  We loaded the kids into the car after Spencer got off work Friday night.  We put all three older kids in back together so they could see the movie players that we bought for the trip.  They thought it was fun to go on a night drive in their pajamas.  We drove five hours the first night.  Then stayed in some hotel somewhere.  :)  Six people, one hotel room...  enough said.

I planned lots of fun activities to do in the car.  We had one day that was pirate day.  I let them each have a little pirate set from the dollar store.  We also had some fun mustaches from Papa's work party.  We had a lot of fun with the mustaches!  We told pirate jokes.  Here's a good one...  How much did the pirate pay to get his ears pierced?  A Buck an ear.  We also practiced talking like pirates and we had to call the driver "Captain".  The kids really enjoyed this.  We also watched "Peter Pan".

I was driving and Spencer reached over and put a mustache on me and then took my picture.

Gotta love the uni brow.

Lily sporting a mustache.

Katie was awesome!  We were worried about traveling with a baby that young but she was young enough to still sleep a ton!  When she wanted to eat I would just climb over the seats to take care of her.  The second day we hit a snow storm.  I didn't take any pictures- I helped Spencer watch the road.  After three hours of going 20mph we finally decided to stop in Colorado.  The kids were excited to see snow.  Claire was amazed that it was cold.  :)

The next day we finally reached Utah.  Spencer laughed when I took a picture of the sign but I was so excited!  There is just something about the place where you grow up...  it always feels like home.  We like Texas and our life there but Utah is where our extended family lives and we miss them.

I just had to take a picture of the mountains.  There and not real mountains in Texas.

We stopped at my Grandma's house in a small town in Utah.  Ollie and Spencer lost no time playing in the snow and building a snowman.

Ollie wanted several pictures of his snowman.

Claire exploring Great Grandma's house.

Great Grandma Beck holding baby Katie.  I love this picture.  Katie was just studying Grandma.

I'm so glad that we were able to visit with my Grandma.  It was a little out of our way but so forth it to spend a few hours with her.  After the few hours we spent there we loaded back up in the car and finished the last two hours of our drive.  At this point we were all pretty restless and just ready to get to our destination.  More about the trip later.  :)

Claire's BirthdayI

I can't believe that my sweet crazy busy little girl is two already!

We woke her up by singing Happy Birthday to her.  She smiled all day when we sang to her.

We got her a basketball hoop in the hopes that it will help direct some of her energy.

She's also athletic so this should be a fun toy for her.  She is wearing her favorite skirt that she wears every time it is clean.

She saw this Minnie Mouse in the store one day and loved it!  She cried when we didn't buy it...  little did she know Mom can always go back to the store later.

She also got a shopping cart and enjoys giving Minnie a ride.

Claire loves Dora and Diego.  Her favorite color is pink.

We sure love our Claire Bear.  She is a funny little girl.  She never walks when she can run.  She loves to dance.  Her favorite color is pink.  She loves to wear skirts and swimming suits.  She loves to throw things.  She has more energy all our other kids combined.  She loves to be with Mommy and help with things.  She is smart and has no fear.  We are sure glad she is a part of our family!

Sisters

These photos are from December...  Katie is much bigger now.  I'm just behind (as usual) in my blogging and thought these were too cute to just pass up. 

I have noticed when one of my children is grumpy or angry or upset I can have them come to me and I tell them that Katie wants to give them a hug.  Then I help Katie hug them.  It just seems to make things better.  Nothing like a baby hug to cheer you up!

Beautiful little girls.

Ollie's Harry Potter party

For Ollie's Birthday we had a surprise Harry Potter party for him.  He wanted to have a party in Utah with his boy cousins but I wasn't sure if there would be time or if everyone would really be able to get together so I planned one with his friends in Texas and then we took the supplies with us to Utah and had another Harry Potter party in Utah.  The party in Utah wasn't a surprise nor a birthday party.  Both parties were a lot of fun and Ollie had a blast!
We arranged for him have a play date with a friend so he was gone for a few hours before the party...  this gave us some time to set up.  This party required a lot of planning and set up...

 We had two classes that the kids got to attend.  They got to go to potions class and make three different potions.  The first one was Felix Felicis (liquid luck), then Polyjuice Potion (changing into someone else), then we had lots of different (gross) ingredients on our stock table and they got to invent their own potions and drink them if they wanted.

 We also had a care of Magical creatures class where the kids got to make their own creature.  I had playdoh with tons of different craft supplies.  I also hung up some pictures of different magical creatures from the Harry Potter books.

 We created our own Hogwarts Express platform complete with a "brick" wall.  My creative hubby helped me by figuring out the wall. :)

 We made magic wands and had Harry Potter glasses to give everyone.  Another shout out to my awesome hubby for making the awesome wands!

 And then Ollie came.  He was super excited!  He had a blast playing with his friends.

 Everybody got to pick a wand with the birthday boy getting first pick and then the kids all practiced their spells with their wands for a few minutes.

 While we waited for Ollie we all got some lightening shaped scars.

Cute Harry Claire Potter had to keep her head tilted up to keep her glasses on.

 After the wands came some lunch of pizza and snacks.

Then it was off to potions class

The kids loved making the potions.  I experimented ahead of time and found some fun ingredients that would fizz and bubble and such.  The kids really liked it.  I noticed that the kids automatically ended up with a girl table and a boy table, except Lily who wanted to be at Ollie's table.  (Lily also choose to dress up as a witch for the party.)

After potions we headed to care of Magical creatures class to create our own creatures.

Then we finished off by opening presents.

Ollie had a great time and I think it will be something that he will remember for a long time.  :)


Our Utah Harry Potter was the same with a few changes.  Utah is FREEZING cold in December so everything was inside.  We did care of Magical creatures first and then potions to make the clean up between classes easier.  (I didn't take pictures of the decorations again but we did haul them with us and set them all up again.)

 Cousins with their magic wands.

 Making our creatures...  they were all very creative!

 Potions class...  nothing like mixing, pouring, fizzing, and mess to make a child happy!

 Part of the directions for the potions- jumping jacks and push ups

We had a blast having the party with our cousins.  It was fun to have some time to watch all the boys interact.
Ollie had tons of fun at both Harry Potter parties.  It was a lot of work and effort but it was worth it for my sweet boy!