Friday, January 27, 2023

Making God's eyes with Grandma

Claire has been soaking up all the time she can with Grandma while she is here. The other evening Claire taught Grandma how to make God's eyes....
First Claire went out and collected sticks to start the project. Then she taught Grandma how to wrap the yarn to make the eye in the center. Once the sticks were held in place, Grandma learned how to make the diamond shape craft.
All finished! They both did a great job!

Occasionally Claire will allow me to sneak in a picture. I was lucky to get one yesterday morning before school! I have a feeling this time next year Claire will be taller than Grandma!
Grandma always makes a special arrangement on Claire's bed to surprise Claire when she gets home from school. Today her bed was filled with little panda bears to make Claire smile!

 

Monday, January 9, 2023

Decorating for Back To The 50s Sock Hop!

Mom, Brandon, and I spent Friday morning decorating for Claire's Back to the 50's Sock Hop for Cotillion. The kids had a big dance Friday night and got to put into practice all the dance moves they have been learning the past few months. At the end of the dance, the fathers got to come and dance with their daughters!











 

Back to the 50's Sock Hop for Cotillion

Claire looked amazing all decked out for her 50's dance!


Got to get some fun pictures with friends before heading to the dance!

This is the whole gang from Hamilton Middle School!



Jeff and Claire had a fun time dancing a few songs together. Claire laughed a lot and did some correcting, but overall, they looked great together!

My favorite picture from the wonderful evening! Claire danced with five different gentleman and had a great time!



 

Fun with Uncle Brandon

Grandma Rachel and Uncle Brandon arrived last Thursday. We were able to get in some fun times together before Brandon had to head back home yesterday morning. We played lots of Mexican Train and cards, Claire got to show off her driving skills, and we got to eat lots of good food!


We did an escape room and got out with 12 minutes to spare! 




 

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Happy New Year!

We decided to spend the last evening of 2022 at home playing Minute to Win It games! We had lot of laughs as we tried to see who could complete the task the fastest! We started with moving candy canes from one bowl to another using only the candy cane you have in your mouth!
It was challenging but Claire figured it out. Mom ended up winning this one by transferring 7!
Next, we had to push a ping pong ball down the path using only the candy cane in our mouth. This was tough because the ball always wanted to go outside the lines. So we made it a little easier by bending up the tape to create "bumpers"!
Then we had to stack iron nuts on top of each other using only a chopstick in one hand. Dad won with stacking 8!
We tried "Face the Cookie" but were unsuccessful. We could get the cookie close to our mouths but never into our mouth. The facial expressions while trying were pretty hilarious though!


Next we stood back to back and had to toss ping pong balls and cotton balls over our head to have the other person try to catch them in a cup. Claire won this one by a lot! Guess her reflexes are a little better than her old parents!
Then we had to sort out the numbers 2 and 0 by color into different bowls. There were three different colored 2's and one colored 0 for 2022. All three of us tied on this one.
In the next game, we had to stand on a chair and drop ping pong balls into the cup on the floor. We found that the balls liked to bounce in and then right out of the cup often! Claire quickly became very good at this game. We added more challenge by putting down 4 cups and having to go in order. We had to get a ball in cup 1 before we could move to cup 2, etc...
This game had us use only a straw to transfer M&Ms from a bowl to the numbers on a clock that were written on a paper plate. This was pretty easy for all of us.
Making a puzzle from a cereal/oatmeal box proved to be a bit tough to get done in one minute. We all got about half way before the time was up. Maybe I shouldn't have cut the pieces so small!

This game had us start on one end of the table, pick up a tic tac with a tweezer, run to the other side of the table to drop it in a bowl, and then run back to the start to get the next tic tac. This was fun and Claire and I ended up getting 8 each in the bowl before the minute was up!

Next we had to stack cups. This began with the purple cup at the bottom. We had to move cups from the bottom to the top, one at a time, until the purple cup was once again at the bottom. We found it easy to want to go too fast on this one and end up dropping cups or grabbing two at a time instead of just one. Jeff had the right idea and went slower and finished before the minute was up.
Next we had to roll ping pong balls from one end of the table into the cups at the other end. This was a challenge because the table has a crack in the center where it folds up and that made the balls go in all kinds of directions! We still had lots of fun with this one!
Finally, Claire used the tennis ball in a pantyhose to swing around and knock over the cups using only her head. She was very good at this and it didn't take her long to figure out how to aim correctly!
We had a wonderful evening enjoying family time and are thankful for another wonderful, blessed year! We look forward to what God has planned for us in 2023! Happy New Year!