Happy Birthday Jenna!

Jenna celebrated another birthday on March 2nd! It's hard to believe that she's already 7. She's been looking forward to this birthday for quite sometime. Jenna has been talking about having a birthday slumber party for at least six months. She was so happy when we told her that we were a-ok with the idea and started immediately planning the whole evening. I actually was really excited about it too. It reminded me of my own slumber party days. So fun.

So, here are all the girls. Top row: Abby H., Stephanie, Abby M., Jenna, Chloe, Ava, and Lauren. Bottom row: Madeline, Brianna, Marissa, and Mallory. Eleven giggly little girls in all! They arrived at 6pm and each and every one of them were in their jammies by 6:30pm. They were all hyped up to get their sleeping bags set up, too. C'mon, it's a slumber party!

Jenna wrote many notes, letters, and lists about her upcoming slumber party. I found this picture particularly entertaining. It's a "map" of where everyone is going to sleep. So cute.

After playing for awhile, we all did a little craft. Each girl painted a suncatcher. I think they really enjoyed it. Here's Stephanie hard at work on her butterfly.

Jenna wanted a cake with a big purple flower on the top. Mission accomplished. She loved it! She really liked her sparkly green #7 candle, too.

Wondering who's at the bottom of that kid pile?? That would be Jacob!! He was the only boy in the house (Nicholas went to Joshua's for a sleepover) and when he was around he made the girls extra giggly. Thank goodness for his personal bodyguard, Madeline. She tried to protect Jacob from the madness as best she could.

Jenna loved all of her presents! She received so many fun things including Squinkies, Zoobles, Pixos, Chixos, a new soccer ball, a kitty towel, and a new doggy pillow pet!

After opening presents, the girls settled down to watch Toy Story III. Brianna and Marissa always snuggle together on the couch and this is the spot they always claim. Tonight was no different. They hung out with the big girls all night.

Jacob and Madeline were in charge of making popcorn, serving it to the girls, and keeping their bowls full at all times. It was no small task! They popped 14 bags of popcorn! All the girls had to shout out was "refill" and one of them would run over to get their bowl. It was cute. They also played Blokus with Tom.

The girls headed upstairs around 9:30pm. It took them quite some time to perfect the sleeping arrangements. Marissa and Brianna slept together in Marissa's bed, Mallory and Jenna were in her bed, and all the other girls were in sleeping bags on the floor. The plan was to "take turns" visiting Jenna in her top bunk. Ava brought her American girl doll and I cracked up when I found that she had her own little sleeping bag, too (see picture above). After everyone was settled in, we left them to slumber...not really! Tom and I got a kick out of them chatting and giggling. That's what you do at a slumber party! I checked in on them around 10:30pm. Brianna and Marissa were asleep and Mallory was ready to go to sleep. The other girls were not, so Mallory moved to the twin bed in our office. Jacob and Madeline crashed in Jacob's room each in their own bunk around 11pm and by 11:30pm everyone was asleep!

I made chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream for breakfast and the girls packed up and got ready to go. I'm pretty sure all of them took a cat nap that day to catch up on the sleep they didn't get the night before! After the girls went home, Jenna thanked us and said that it was the best birthday party that she'd ever had. I have to say that I had alot of fun myself!

Jenna now weighs 52 lbs (50%-tile) and is 50 1/2 inches tall (90%-tile). Do you notice anything different about her smile? Jenna recently lost THREE teeth in just 10 days! Her interests include Daisy Scouts, soccer, dinosaurs, doing crafts, stuffed animals, and cats. Earlier this month she was the Star of the Week at school and presented a poster all about herself to her class. It sums up our Jenna very nicely! Here is what it says:

3 Wishes: That she can have a sleepover everyday. That she can have a cat. That she can have a DS. (Turns out she just bought one with her birthday money so that wish came true!)

When I grow up: She wants to be a preschool teacher (like Miss Hollenbeck).

Things she likes: rainbows, dolphins, ice cream, sea horses, dinosaurs, bunnies, chocolate, and flowers.

Things she doesn't like: thunderstorms, lightening, wind, snakes, bumblebees, anything spooky, and sharks.

I'm so proud of you Jenna! Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Jacob celebrated his 9th birthday on March 1st! Per usual, there was no shortage of celebrating going on in our house. We had lots of fun gatherings with our friends and family to celebrate, but I think the highlight of Jacob's birthday was his sleepover birthday party. Stealing the idea from his sister, he thought it was simply a fabulous plan to have his buddies over for the evening.

Anticipating the high energy level of boys, we let him invite half of the amount of people that Jenna had at her party. And let me tell ya, what a brilliant idea that was! 5 boys = 10 girls. It came as no surprise to us that these boys came over ready to party. My hopes of them eventually falling asleep were immediately dashed the second they set foot in the house. No explanation necessary. They're boys. Here are the party animals....Jacob, Neel, Jacob W., Logan, Connor, and Dylan....oh, and Nicholas! Jacob was really nice and let his baby brother participate in all the fun. Nicholas thought he was so cool hanging with the big boys all night.

Jacob was so excited when we found this Star Wars birthday cake! It came with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker figures complete with illuminated light sabers. For those of you who don't know, Jacob has become quite the Star Wars fan. Stay tuned to the blog for an upcoming post about this new obsession of his.

After eating pizza and cake the boys played "Star Wars" and ran around battling each other with light sabers. Dylan was nice enough to bring foam balls (thank you, Dylan) to make the battle even more fun. It was entertaining to say the least. I'm still amazed at the crazy sound effects that boys can make. Girls just can't do it.

Jacob was so excited to get some new Star Wars stuff and DS games for his new Nintendo DS (which he saved up for and bought with his own money!). He loved all of his gifts and is very thankful. We gave him a scooter (his old one has seen better days) and the Stars Wars Trilogy. He's now the proud owner of all of the Star Wars movies. :)

The boys settled down to long enough to watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and part of Toy Story III. Here they are eating popcorn and kicking back together. We left them on their own at around 10pm and headed up to bed. Unlike the modest giggling and laughing that took place with Jenna's slumber party, it sounded like a tackle football game was taking place downstairs. I later found out that they were having sack races with their sleeping bags! They did finally crash around 2:30am after I came downstairs to find all of them all wide awake and wrestling with their shirts off, the pantry raided, every possible light we own on, and SpongeBob Squarepants on the T.V. After suggesting that they entertain the idea of sleep they reluctantly crawled into their sleeping bags and fell asleep. (By this point, Nicholas had ditched the boys for his own bed.)

Jacob still sleeps with his Froggy every night...doesn't matter who's there. The boys were all up at 6:30am the next morning and ready to eat. Jacob requested a very special treat for breakfast: Fruit Loops! My kids have never had them (don't make fun of me) so my little ones didn't even know what they were. All the fun ended around 9am when parents started coming. Jacob had a great time with his friends and was really happy with his party. :)

At his 9-year checkup we found that Jacob is now 74 lbs. and 4' 6" tall (75% for weight and height). He was not happy to find out that he still needs to be in a booster seat (he's three inches too short). It'll be at least a year or two big guy! He still loves sports and is looking forward to starting competitive baseball this spring. His recent interests include Star Wars, Mighty Beans, and his new DS. He likes school, has lots of friends, and is doing fantastic in his academics. All that said, I'm mostly so proud of the wonderful person that Jacob is growing up to be.

Happy Birthday, Jacob!

Daisy Update

Time for an update on Daisy Jenna! She has had a fun and very exciting year with her troop and there is lots of news to share. As you can see, her Daisy flower is complete! Here is a summary of the last three petals that she earned:

The rose petal stands for "Make the World a Better Place" and to earn it the girls visited Hidden Oaks nature preserve where they learned all about nature. They took a hike, saw some deer, did a scavenger hunt, and planted flowers. Here she is with her whole troop.

The purple petal stands for "Respect Myself and Others". The girls went to Living Yoga and learned all about good nutrition. Jenna came home showing me all her new yoga moves and has been trying to convince me to enroll her in a class. They also learned about ballet from a troop mom.

The girls earned their last petal by doing a variety of service projects. The spring green petal represents "Considerate and Caring" so giving back to the community was the perfect way for them to earn it. They made Valentine's for veterans, fleece blankets for a children's hospital, birthday bags (everything needed to throw a birthday party) for area shelters, and bookmarks for nursing homes.

Jenna earned her Yoga and Nature Center patch. Two more for the back of her tunic! She also recently participated in her first World Thinking Day Celebration. The troop did activities, games, and projects with global themes to honor their sister Girl Scouts in other countries. She earned a Trefoil pin (in first picture above) to symbolize her participation.

Jenna's troop decided to sell Girl Scout cookies for the first time this year! I was very excited and couldn't wait to send Jenna around to the neighbors. Turns out that Jenna was a bit shy and didn't really like delivering the pitch for people to buy from her. She sold to our family and a few close neighbors and then declared herself done selling! Jenna sold 59 boxes and has absolutely no interest in delivering her cookies. She did take them to our neighbors, but after that she again declared herself done with the cookies. Her troop as a whole did great selling 803 boxes and raising over $500 for the troop! Thanks to everyone who bought cookies!

It's been a full year, but wait! There is still more fun to come! Later this month, the troop is touring the police station and participating in the Ms. Manners program. Jenna will also be going on a special outing with her Dad called "Me and My Guy". They will be doing silly relay races, obstacle courses, dizzy bat races, kickball, and blindfold soccer. This summer she is going to a Daisy day camp! It's a half-day program for one week and she's really looking forward to it! She'll also be bridging to Brownies!!

Winter Blast

Here are a few pictures from the snow storm that hit our area earlier this month. As you can imagine, my kids loved all the snow and were thrilled to get two days off from school!

Tom was out of town when the snow fell so I am very thankful to my wonderful neighbor, Dale, who helped me with all of my snow!



Saddle up, Nicholas! I love this picture.

Busy Marissa

Our little Marissa is quite the busy bee these days! Every morning she asks what's on the agenda for the day and is quite unhappy if my response is not "school" or "soccer". A quiet day at home is okay (here and there), but she's much happier if she has somewhere to go. Here's what she has been up to lately:

Marissa has "graduated" to the My Own Time II class that she takes at the community center. She now goes twice a week for an hour and fifteen minutes. Going to school is by far her favorite activity and she's dressed with her backpack on way before it's time to go. She loves it and has become very attached to her teachers, Miss Anne (in above picture) and Miss Kim. This little class has been a good baby step toward real preschool which she will start in the fall. She's very excited to be learning to write her name and loves to make the letter "M".

Marissa did take a swimming class not that long ago and as I've already blogged, she wasn't thrilled about it. So we decided to move on to gymnastics which she really enjoyed. She loved to wear her "gymnastics suit" and was happy to be in the class with her best friend, Brianna. She still can't do a somersault, but that's okay!

Now it's on to soccer which she goes to on Friday mornings. So far she seems to be liking it. There are 18 kids in her class and I have NO idea how the coaches keep everyone happy and moving in the same direction. Since we're at the community center so much we visit the library often. Marissa heads straight for the book shelf with Dora and Diego books. She also likes to go to storytime. Her favorite part is the craft that they do after reading books.

Marissa also enjoys playdates with her little girlfriends. Here is a picture of her with her friend, Caitlyn, from a recent get together. It's so cute to see her forming little friendships. So, as you can see, our little Marissa is busy and loves being so!

Team Crush!

Jacob has wrapped up his second season of competitive basketball. We had a lively bunch of fans in the stands which made for some extra fun. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the games and usually came home with a sore throat from cheering so much!

Team Crush had a great season and made it to the final tournament. They ended up winning the consolation bracket and coming in third place overall. Jacob scored the winning point in one of these games when he was fouled and placed on the free throw line. The score was tied 20 to 20 with 6 seconds left on the clock (so no pressure, right?). He missed the first shot, but the second one went in! Crush wins!

One of the moms on the team gave each of the kids a can of Orange Crush in honor of their great season (see picture above). Jacob has now moved on to another season of recreational basketball on Team Duke. Stay tuned. :)

Christmas in Michigan

The day after Christmas we went to Michigan to spend a few days with Tom's family. What was the first thing we did when we got there?? We opened presents!!

The kids loved all of their gifts, but I have to say that one special gift from Uncle Nick will stand out in my kids minds for years to come. He bought all of them SILLY STRING and then proceeded to start a HUGE silly string fight right there in the family room! The kids were thrilled and just could not believe that this craziness was going on inside. As you can see, it was everywhere and we got Tommy pretty good. Just a sidenote, Fran was a-ok and with all of this and actually encouraged the whole thing. She was part of the planning committee. I do recall a "warning phone call" that something unexpected and a bit nutty might be happening during our visit. I could never have guessed this and I have no idea how they're going to top this next year!

I had been anticipating this visit for awhile, anxious to see my father-in-law. For those of you who don't know, he had a benign brain tumor removed in November. See for yourself, he's doing great and has been cleared to go back to work in a few weeks! He was so happy to see his grandkids. Thank you to everyone who kept him in your thoughts and prayers as he went through surgery. Please continue to pray for his full recovery in the months to come. We love you, Papa!

My in-laws have a fantastic little snow hill right behind their house. The kids couldn't wait to get out on it so we bought some sleds and hit the bunny hill slope! The shocker was that Marissa not only participated, but loved sledding! I think this hill was just the right size for her and she went down over and over again. Can't you just hear her giggling??? Yes, that is Papa out there in the snow!

Tommy took a ride down, too. OUCH!

Snuggle time with Papa.

Aunt Ali and Uncle Rob gave Marissa an adorable baker outfit complete with rolling pin and wooden spoon. Here she is all ready to bake! She loves to bake so this was the perfect gift for her. Jenna got a clothespin doll kit and we made a mermaid. :)

Marissa insisted on bringing and wearing her new, fancy, sparkly skirt...over jeans of course...because why not? She thought she looked awesome and had a extra spring in her step all day.

We had a great visit and got home in time to ring in the New Year. Happy New Year and thanks for reading our blog! Looking forward to another year of Martin family updates!