Faith's birthday party

Faith's birthday was November 1st, but we planned a party with friends for November 13th. Faith decided that she wanted a hamster birthday party this year after going to her friend Brooklyn's and becoming obsessed with the cute little pets. I nearly went crazy trying to find hamster themed trinkets for the gift bags and finally decided to make my own after seeing a Sculpy clay hamster model on the internet. Faith was inviting eleven (!) girls to the party, so I had a tall order. Also, I'm no artist and I've never worked with Sculpy clay before. As I worked on them, the kids had to get in on the act and make their own. Faith let Christian paint some of her creations,

and she helped paint some of mine.

In the meantime, we had fun at the park one afternoon.

Faith created each envelope individually, but I thought this one was especially cute!

Here is the army of hamster sculpture pendants just before I sprayed a clear coat on them.

I thought they didn't turn out half bad! We put them on some sheer white ribbon and made them into necklaces.

Instead of a cake, Faith decided on cupcakes for the party. It just about killed Christian to wait until it was time to dig in. (Love the expression in this pic!)

I made toppers with the cartoon pictures of the Zhu Zhu Pet hamster toys from thier website.

Faith drew this great game all by herself!

And that is what we played first, "Pin the hamster on the wheel".

Next we raced to see who was the fastest climbing through the "hamster tubes".

And played "hamster toss" (except the hamster was really a Webkinz guinea pig).

Present time! Faith received absolutely wonderful gifts from all her friends.

Next, we did our craft. We made these cute pompom hamsters in plastic ornament "hamster balls". We even made removable Santa hats for them so they could double as Christmas tree ornaments!

I worked one of three hot glue stations to help put them together, but many of the girls assembled the craft theirselves. I heard some of them remark that they had never used a glue gun before, but nobody got burnt--not even me and I usually burn myself every time I use one! It was even Friday the 13th! I joked with my friends Ann & Natalie when they came to pick up their girls that had I known that we'd be so lucky I would have had them do a chainsaw craft instead of a hot glue craft. Ann teased back, "Or a toothpick craft!" but I told her that I wouldn't push my luck that far! (Just a few weeks before, my neice impaled her foot on a toothpick she had brought home as part of a gumdrop geometric craft from my preshcool. One week after that, one of Ann's children did the same from a toothpick we were eating Little Smokies with, minutes after sharing my neices grim tale. We all have toothpic phobia now!)

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They turned out absolutely darling, but I didn't get pictures of any because of being so busy helping glue, and then getting the next thing started. Some turned out like the internet photo above, but many had creative twists like white pompoms for cheeks, pompom ears, felt tails, etc. These girls were definitely creative and talented!

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Our final activity was making hamster treats with Twinkies, melted white & brown chocolate, coconut (in white, yellow & brown), chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and pink Jelly Bellies. I sent the girls' awesome creations home with them in little cello bags.

This picture is blurry, but I had to document the rousing impromptu game of "chuck the stuffed animal" up and down from the balcony!

The gift bags were brightly colored paper sacks with the hamster necklace, a baggy of granola labeled "hamster food" and their Twinkie hamsters. Faith loved her party and several of her friends were kind enough to tell me that it was the best party they'd been to!

Halloween

Sorry I've been MIA for awhile, I broke my camera :( and forgot that I had some pics ready to post from before. Then everything got crazy with the holidays. But I'm finally back and Tony got me a new camera as an early Christmas present!

On October 28th we went to a great Halloween party at Breck's house. There was cookie decorating,

bingo,

pin the spider on the web,

and find the rubber eyeball in the "guts"!

It was so much fun and all the little preschool aged neighborhood kids looked SO CUTE in their costumes!

Christian couldn't leave without climbing the mountain of LoveSac and showing off the mini pumpkin that he got to take home as a favor.

I had the preschool kids make these ghosts, but Faith wanted to make one with the leftover materials and added the cute fangs, mean eyebrows, and word bubble.

That evening, we carved our pumpkins.

Christian got a hold of my camera and took this picture with it inside his pumpkin!

He also had to get a close up of pumpkin guts.

The next morning, Buddy was still a bit sleepy and cuddled with his kitty while I was at the computer.
Faith looked cute for the last school day before Halloween:

On Halloween night, we had a special dinner of green worms, blood sauce & eyeballs! Faith also made some great "bone" breadsticks.

Here are Christian's monster and Faith's haunted house jack-o-lanterns. Buddy drew his entirely by himself and I carefully carved exactly what he drew. Faith planned, drew and carved hers by herself! She got the idea from a Martha Stewart special. Didn't they both come out awesome?!!!

Mine is supposed to be a goblin.

Here are the cuties all ready to trick-or-treat.

Tony took them around our neighborhood while I handed out candy at the house this year. Then I joined them and we went around the patio homes neighborhood which is also in our ward. We headed over to Braeggers' for the traditional homemade chili and then to my parents' to show off the kids. Christian was asleep by the time we got our last stop in and he just snoozed on the couch.

Here's Faith with my mom:

and a close up of the cool eye makeup I did for her. We had a great Halloween!

The next day was Faith's birthday, so after church we made cupcakes to take around to the families. She wanted them to look like hamsters, so here was my prototype-

She got to open the gifts from us,

then we went over to my mom & dad's.

Hey, Christian! Always keepin' it classy, bro!

Faith's hamsters, unlike mine, had cute cheeks. We loaded up one with 8 candles

and she got some help blowing them out.

At Tony's mom & dad's, Tammy went all out as usual.

To go with Faith's Halloween costume, I had broken out my ancient sewing machine to make a lacy edged petticoat.

Now she loves to wear that thing over black leggings and with her new boots!

While out running errands, Christians second favorite stop (after "Old MacDonalds") is the bread store! We stopped by Great Harvest this day and had a brownie with our free peice of bread.

Here is Christian's art project that he made entirely on his own: back

and front. Love the glued on candy wrappers and envelope!

He made this picture for me on the computer and figured out how to make it print. He was asking me how to spell my name, and I was telling him the letters and describing what those letters look like. I didn't show him and he doesn't know his letters yet, so I had no idea any of them would be recognizable.

He got one that looks like a backward E,

a fairly decent M,

and a great Y!

Hopefully now that I've started, I can get through November and December in a hurry to catch up!

Happy New Year!

We're alive! Just busy with Christmas activities and our lives, but soon to be back blogging away. We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and filled it with charity, love and fun! I didn't even get Christmas cards out, so here it is:


















We want all of our family and friends, far and near, to know how much you mean to us. We hope and pray for the very best things to happen in your lives and look forward to a great year ahead! Love, the Braeggers.