Chuck E. Cheese

Like I said in my last post, we went to Chuck E Cheese for Brayden's birthday. She loved watching and dancing with Chuck E. as long as it was from a distance. She saw another kid go up on stage to touch him (who was also having a birhtday and he was also turning three) and she thought she wanted to do the same but this is as close as she got and quickly wanted down.

She had a blast with the blue screen and got a kick out of seeing her face on a TV.

I didn't have time to even clean off her face full of greasy pizza before she ran off to play.

I had to promise her I wouldn't turn on these little arcades. She's afraid of them when they start moving:) She walked around with me the rest of the time and she watched me win some tickets for her to get some special treats. Kaleb had a great time as well.... ...as long as he had something to munch and he especially loved Chuck E.

These next pictures are mostly for my mom who requested them. We had our YW New Beginnings last night and I was in charge of the decorations. So after Brayden's birthday was over I was on to this next project. It was an ALL STARS theme. We thought it was fitting right after the Superbowl. The girls were stoked that they didn't have to dress up. Everyone wore their favorite sport's get up. We likened everything unto sports. The girls were the team players, their parents were their coaches, the bishop was the ref, we were the cheerleaders, and the Book of Mormon was the play book.

There are whistles in these little bowls that we gave to the "coaches".

I tried to round up sport's jersey's around here without much luck so my mom was a big help and sent me a bunch of Chicago gear.

Here's the cheerleading section.

The tables had mugs with pennants...

....filled with peanuts and M&Ms.

At "half time" we served hot dogs, nachos, chips and dip, with sodas at the "concession stand."

And the girls performed for our half time entertainment.

The night was a great success. We did a "starting lineup" introducing the five new beehives that are going to be joining us this year. We talked about our "goals" and stuck them up in the goal posts. Some of the YW shared their testimonies of them. We introduced the changes to Personal Progress Program and tried to cheer on the mothers to do it with their daughters and we talked about camp and other calender events. It was nice to change it up a bit from the typical dress-up event and we all had a great time. By the time it was all over Brayden was thrilled that she FINALLY was able to be the recipient of all the fun stuff that had been lying around the house beforehand.

Just one little story before the video.

I got a chalkboard for Brayden for her birthday and when she saw it the first thing she did was grab some chalk and started writing all kinds of letters. I have tried to sit down with her on many different occasions to practice writing but she has never wanted to. So I was shocked she knew how to write so many letters. After seeing that, I had her write her own "thank you" letter to her friends and family that thought of her on her birthday. She wrote each of these letters herself...I just had to cut and paste them so they weren't all over the place.

In the video I have some clips from Chuck E. Cheese, Brayden drawing a picture of her family on her chalkboard, and the best I could get of Kaleb saying a few words. He is coming up on 11 months now. He's talking more and more. He says "stop,"and "no," these were his first two words thanks to a paranoid mom and an older sibling who was always trying to do something to him. He also says, "ma ma," "da da," "please," "all done," "thank you," "uh oh," and featured in the video "jump," and "ow," all in baby talk of course.