Pour yourself a cup of coffee...this is a long one

So we had Gabe's birthday party last Sunday and it was such a good time. You know the best part? I didn't have a thing to clean up. Who cares about the kids having fun...who cares if Gabe had a good time...who cares about remembering the boy's 6th birthday forever and reflecting on the last year of goodness. All I know is that I didn't have to clean up. So this was the best place ever for a party because you can have a bunch of kids running around being crazy loud, making a mess, getting teh energy out and it is just not your house! Who ever thought of this gig was a genius. He did have a great time though and thought it was great to have all of his friends in one spot. I've already announced that next year there will be no parties. They can take a friend to Chuck E. Cheese and that's it. Hey, that's a place where you don't have a mess to clean up too. Brilliant! No parties at home any more.


Here are a few pics of the gorgeous cake my mom made. Of course it is a pirate ship and is just completely awesome. She made it andn then put the sails on and candles when she got there. Gabe was so excited to see what LoLo made for his party since Ella got the castle. The kids all thought it was great too.

What in the world? This girl is such a drama queen trying to steal any attention away from Gabe that she can. She hurt her foot so bad and went into such a crying fit that they got her an ice pack to put on it. As you can see she is just in such pain and agony over her severe injury.
The church had a hayride about 30 minutes outside of town at a meeting center and it was fun. This is a pick of all of us waiting to get freezing cold on the long hayride that pulled us fast and created a major wind chill. Good thing we came prepared!! What is my hand doing? That is weird. It's just sitting there dead.

So yesterday Ella came home from preschool yesterday with a report from a clinic who did a hearing and vision screening stating that she had great hearing and terrible vision. Her right eye was 20/80 and the left was 20/100. So after a bit of guilt for not realizing or noticing that my little girl had any sort of vision problem I decided that I needed to take her in for an exam. We were able to get into a clinic that had opened only a couple months ago. The doctor was fabulous--like seriously he was just wonderful and had four kids of his own and know exactly what to say and do. Long story short, he said that her actual vision was 20/70, but he did not recommend glasses for her because she was so young and had never shown any signs of problems. I am supposed to bring her in next year for another exam unless she starts squinting or having problems in school or watching the tv too close or something. I was really glad about that though only so I can put off dealing with glasses on the kids for a bit longer. I know it is inevitable considering Micah and my vision and our family's history with it as well. I just really didn't feel like dealing with the maintainance of glasses on a four year old right now.

Here is Gabe the future optometrist telling Ella about how the equipment works. He has never been to the eye doctor and that was the first time he had every seen that equipment. He just has to instruct his little sis though.
And then finally I had a few evenings to work on some scrappy pages. Here are four and I have more coming up. After this weekend maybe. I am also working on my Christmas cards and they may be finished after a weekend at the Bell's this weekend. I'll work on them in the evening after the kids go to bed.