It's Time To Par-Tay!

Yesterday was a fun filled of parties. KL, CK and I started out our day by taking a gift down to Dave's office for his work party's gift exchange that he had left at home. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of that party, but he assures us that it was fun. Along our way, we stopped by Petsmart to pick up a couple of goldfish. One for us, and one for another party... more on that later. We got home just in time to feed our new feed our new fish (which has been named Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Princess Dora Goldie--I told each of the kids they could give it a name. Since I don't imagine it being in our home for long, I didn't it would be worth with the fights that would surely ensue if only one person to pick the name) before heading out to our first party of the day. It was at B and L's class. Their teacher is so great! She invites any parents who want to come and to bring the little brothers and sisters to come along too. She did this for Halloween too. She doesn't even ask the parents to do anything for it. This time she did ask for us to bring bags of candy to help decorate the gingerbread houses, which we were only too happy to do. Here we have some pictures of that party.

Here is me with all the kids. They were allowed to wear their PJs to school that day. B didn't want too, but L did. I figured since she was wearing hers, the other girls could wear theirs too. CK felt so cool being able to be just like her big sister in school--really. She just didn't want to pose for this picture.
Here are the girls working on their houses. I thought it was so sweet that Mrs. MacRobbie (their wonderful teacher) even had things for the little siblings to make houses with. CK thought it was great too.

B working on his house.

B with his finished product.

CK's finished house.

L's finished masterpiece. I didn't get her picture until after it was in plastic, but she really did work long and hard on it. It has a fence, walk way, and a sleigh in the front yard.

One of the greatest thing for my twins is they get to have their cousins in their class. I don't think I'll ever get over how lucky they are. What I woudln't have given to have this!!! Here is Jill with her kids working on their houses. B just couldn't resist the oppurtunity to jump in as soon as I took the picture.

After the twins party, we ran home, the girls ate lunch, then they went over to Jill's to play while I went down to D's party. It was just at the end of the day and they just sat around eating treats til school was out. Hmm... sounds like my kind of party!

Here he is with some of his friends from his class.

Finally, that evening, we had our 3rd annual neighborhood Christmas party hosted by Jill and Scott. We always have so much fun. We have the greatest neighborhood and it is so fun to get together with everyone. We have dinner then do a white elephant gift exchange that is getting better every year as the inside jokes and repeat gifts go on an on! Here is just a quick pic of everyone mingling over dessert.

I had a great tip this year on a fabulous white elephant and I encourage anyone else to copy this! This is where the goldfish comes into play! I'm so glad that Beth opened it too! (Technically, Mark and Beth don't live in the neighborhood, but we always love and miss people when they leave so it is great when they come back!) She is not an animal lover. At first she just thought it was a bag of water. Once she realized what it was, she threw it at Mark. You can see how much she is loving it!

One more funny gift was to our neighbor Danny. He actually didn't get to pick out his present. There was one specifically designated for him. It was from Jill. It was a pair of pink fluffy slippers with the following note attached (hopefully, you can read it. It is a little blurry from scanning it):

One of the funniest parts was that as soon as he opened it, before he even had a chance to read the note was that Jarad (who was told NOTHING about this before hand) , another neighbor who can frequently be seen jogging around the neighborhood yelled out, "It's for his feet in the morning when he runs out to get the paper, so at least he can have something on!"

Here he is modeling his beautiful footware. Thanks for being such a great sport, Danny!

All in all, a very fun day! Hope you all are enjoying your parties this season too!