50th Wedding Anniversary

We had an exhausting, fun weekend! :) Tom's parents have been married for 50 years this March. Almost all the family was able to meet in Kansas for a weekend to celebrate together.
We drove up on Saturday and hung out with all the family at the hotel. On Sunday the guys went golfing, in the rain!, so we took the kids to this fun kids zone at a mall.

I love Elizabeth's pose here! Ben is having fun with the kids.

Ben loves air hockey...he had to play a few rounds.

Can you tell they are all related?! Tom's mom, Carole, and 3 of his sisters - Theresa, Sue, and Janet- and Elizabeth!

This picture is for my mom - it's our old house. They painted it so it looks pretty different to me!

After the mall we headed back to the hotel to decorate for the 50th Anniversary party. I made the cakes for the party and all the other ladies brought a variety of decorations.

Some pictures of the party room.

The hotel had a pool so the kids spent most of their time there.

They're having a blast with cousin Pat!

Here are some of the family waiting to go into the party.

Here is Tom's brother, Mark, and his wife, Annie, and their new baby Blakely.

The hotel had a great happy hour with lots of hot food for everyone. Everyone had snacks before the party began.

Tom and Mark

Carole and John, still going strong after 50 years!

We catered in food and played a couple of games during our party.

Our family

Campbell, Maria, Sarah, and Nancy

Tom's brother John and his family - Sharon, Jim and Johnny.

Tom's sister Theresa and her family - Mike, Theresa, Lexi, and Matt (their daughter Katie couldn't be here).

Tom's sister Sue and her family - Kevin, Tom, Claire and Dan

John and Carole and all their kids -minus one!

Elizabeth got to hold baby Blakely!

Buddies - Josh and Ben

Me and my girl

(Ben was too busy running around with all the boys to be in too many pictures)

Enjoying the party!

Nancy and my kids.

Nancy made this awesome game for us all to play. She got family photos of every person for us to play a guessing game.

Can you tell who we are? I am 36 and Elizabeth is 34.

Ben is 18 and Tom is 19.

It was such a wondering weekend, being with all of the H family. I only wish we could do it more often!

TCU Basketball Game

Elizabeth's basketball team decided to attend a college basketball game for our end of the year party.
Here's Elizabeth with the coach's daughter.

Ben enjoyed watching the game, too.

I think the kids both enjoyed watching their first college game!

The TCU horned frog came into the stands to visit with the kids. Very fun!

Last but not least our pool is finished! This isn't the finished photo obviously, (since there isn't any water in the pool!) but here it is right after they finished pouring the gunite on the interior of the pool. I think we are going to have a very hot summer so we are looking forward to having a way to cool off!

Field Trip

Elizabeth's first grade class had a field trip at the Science Museum and I was one of the chaperones. The morning started at school with Elizabeth and a few of the other students in her class doing the morning announcements on TV.
We then headed through tons of traffic on the highway to the museum. The kids all rode the bus and the chaperones followed behind in our cars.

We played all over the museum.

This was a fun smoke tornado machine.

Here the kids were folding their own airplanes and launching them in this flight machine.

It was a great field trip and I'm so glad I was able to go!

Valentines Day 2012

After school on Valentines Day the kids opened their Valentines that they had gotten in the mail.
They sure love to get mail!

And money in a card - whoo hoo!

Then the goofiness began.

Next came our heart hunt. Elizabeth read all the clues for the hunt.

They kept searching and searching...

until they found their special treats! They each got a book, a placemat, a tiny bit of candy, and Ben got a fun workbook (he really does think it's fun!)

Elizabeth got a couple new chapter books - she devours books so we are always on the look out for new ones!

We ended the evening with our hearts desire dinner - each of us picked our favorite thing to eat - it was a fun way to end our Valentines Day!

Broken Elbow

Poor Elizabeth - in February she was riding her cousin's electric scooter (I allowed her one trip up and down the sidewalk and that was it!) and on that one trip she fell off extremely hard onto her elbow.
It didn't look swollen or anything so we ended up sending her to school the next day (bad mommy!) even though she wasn't really moving it. We took her into the nurse's office who said she didn't think it was broken because her range of motion was pretty good. Once she got home and in the bathtub we could see that her elbow was now swollen so I took her to the doctor the next day and it was slightly broken.

She wore a cast for 4 weeks. No biking, scootering, running, recess, P.E., etc.. We went to have a treat with our neighbors after she got the cast on.

She thought the idea of a cast was fun for the first few days, and after a while was very tired of it. She handled it really well and is glad to now be cast free!

Valentines Day at Elizabeth's School

The first graders at Elizabeth's school had a program right before Valentine's Day. They sang 4 songs for us, which was so much fun. Elizabeth was so cute and shy. She was so excited before the show, but kept telling me that she was just a little bit nervous. She did a great job singing along, she just looked a little nervous up there!
There she is, way at the top left.

The next day Elizabeth had a Valentine party in her class that I was in charge of. I decided to do a "minute to win it" theme party. We did four different games in four groups. They really had a great time.

The first game was how many marshmallows could the kids pick up in a minute with chopsticks.

Next the kids had to throw as many mini marshmallows into a basket as they could in a minute.

Then the kids all worked together to see how tall of a tower they could make in a minute with candy hearts.

Lastly the kids used straws to move M&M's into a bowl.

After the game the kids decorated a magnet with their photo and an assortment of other Valentine decorations.

Lastly they got snacks and a gift to take home. The girls got the necklace that Elizabeth has on that I made out of gumballs and the boys got a dog tag necklace. I think they all had a great time!

Something Exciting...

We've had something exciting going on in our backyard!
This big digger came and took out our old 10x10 slab...

and dug this!

We're getting a pool! After last summer with a million 100+ days, Tom couldn't stand the heat anymore and talked me into a pool :) I have a feeling this is where we will be all summer long.

We're exciting to have it be finished soon!