Evie's Birthday Party

Today we held Evie's Birthday party. It was a far cry from last year's 14 kid party. Suprisingly, it was just as loud. Girls scream a lot.The theme was science experiments. For once, we had enough for them to do to fill the 2 hour time slot. First, we started with chromotography of Crayola markers.
Then we moved on to showing how your sense of smell effects how you taste things. We did this experiment with Jelly beans.

Everyone had a partner.

And then the mess began. We made slime. This was by far the messiest and loudest activity because there were a lot of girl screams.

Paige thought it was cool.

Lizzy let the slime fall off her fingers.

Gracie just went nuts. Note to all parents out there, this is a good outside activity. Lots of cornstarch all over the floor.

Cadence had a great time.

Evie makes a super long slime string.

After slime, they all went out side and shot off a mentos/diet coke rocket. They also played with some dry ice while I cleaned up the slime mess. Then we sang Happy Birthday. The cake was recycled from last night because the baked ice cream melted in the oven. Whoops, science doesn't always work on the first try.

The crowd at the party

Everyone enjoyed cake, opened presents and then it was all done. A success. I then retreated to my big TV to sleep off my cold medicine in front of a couple of basketball games.

Evie's 7th Birthday!

Happy birthday to our beautiful seven year old daughter. The day started out great with a two hour delay from school and got even better when school got canceled because of the overnight ice and snow. Yay! A whole day at home because why go to school 2 times in one week? We started the day with the traditional number pancakes.
And then she got to open some presents when dad came inside from snowblowing. She opened some jacks from Annalise.

And a book from mom and dad

Dad and Evie work together to open a package from the TX Tallers

Yay for books! She opened other presents from The Browns and GG Taller. Thanks everyone. We will post pictures of the upcoming science that will be conducted in the kitchen. I already have plans to extract some DNA from the kiwi and then stain it and look at it under the microscope.

In light of the science theme birthday year, I talked her into a volcano cake. It was much easier than trying to figure out how to decorate a mythbusters cake. I had a lot of fun with this one because lava is nice a free form type of decorating. The dry ice was better than the icing or the cake!

After birthday dinner, the girls played with the dry ice. It was super fun for them to experiment with blowing on it and trying to catch the steam

Our best buddies, Paige and Taylor came over for some cake and dry ice fun.

Dad got super creative and put some soap in the dry ice bowl and made cloudy bubbles. As you can see, Annalise was pretty excited about it.

At Grandma's House

This past weekend, the girls and I loaded up and went to Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house for the night since the girls didn't have school on President's day. We didn't want Grandpa to be alone on the Anniversary of Dale Sr.'s passing (you can start healing, now, Grandpa). While we were there, we flopped around on the couch, went swimming, and generally let Grandma take care of all of us. It wasn't all play. Grandma has been cleaning house for an upcoming garage sale and she found some of the priceless treasures that I had as a child. She found a stack of Valentine's from my first grade class and this lovely drawing. When I was 8, Happiness was a clown. don't worry, I have the original and can make copies for all of you for Christmas.
The Archbold Seiberts came over for a President's Day lunch that included a surprise birthday party for Evie! (this was the day that the ice and snow rolled in and we were stuck in Ney for the storm).

Tessa and Annalise played nicely in the kitchen.

Uncle Kevin came over with Natalie, but left with this horse.

To pass some more time (while mom was napping--it's the life at Grandma's house), Grandma took the girls to the basement beauty shop and cut their hair. They requested more inches off than I expected. I think it looks nice and it is certainly easier to take care of! Less Tangles!

Then we decided to go to Great Grandma Wagner's house to visit. While we were enjoying our lunch, we decided we needed to through Great Grandma's button tins. Annalise and Evie both found some beautiful buttons to bring home.

When I was about 4, Great Grandma taught me to sew buttons. (probably to get some piece and quiet). So with Great Grandma's buttons, I taught Annalise to sew buttons too. She is really good at it.