The Vacek's: 2012-12-30

Cookies for the Fat Man

and I'm not using another name for myself in that title. I have eaten WAY too much in the month of December. With the crazy pace of December this year, I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to squeeze in Santa Cookies, but we got it in right under the wire the Friday before. GiGi got all of the ingredients ready and Emmy decided to add a few ingredients of her own.

I mean GROSS. We didn't tell Santa. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Emmy came and went and basically decorated a cookie and a half and ate a couple. Not sure when she's going to care about doing stuff like this. Yes, I know the writing is on the wall that she's not ever going to. I'm in denial.

Clara was in a GREAT mood. Think she wanted some frosting!

B just wanted frosting too. He has a bigger sweet tooth than me.

Here's the final, pretty un-christmasy Santa Cookies. At least they're made!

A Little House Christmas

Emmy sometimes surprises me with what she has a tolerance for. I LOVED the little house on the Prarie books when I was little and I hoped Emmy would like them too one day. When I saw that the Main Street Theater had a production of a Little House Christmas, I figured now was the time to try. I just had my Young Adult Reader with a black and white sketch every 20 pages or so. We started reading a chapter a night and I thought for sure we would never make it past a few chapters, but we made it through the entire book. Her mind was consistently blown over what Laura and Mary didn't have in their house. When we first started reading she would randomly come up to me during the day and ask if Laura and Mary had "x" or "x" and then head off to contemplate after I told her no. Blake and I couldn't believe just how un-PC the books are now. We had to get creative on all of the Indian chapters (ok, we skipped a few that were too hard.) I was so happy that when we got there, she already knew who all the characters were and some of their story.

Kate and Caroline joined us for a special girls day! They all got a special book for the characters to sign after the show. Emmy just loves to watch the play. Every time after we leave she says "I want to be in that play." I'm so glad that we have access to things like this to introduce it to her now.

The girls all decided that meeting the characters after the show was thier favorite part (along with the square dancing and chocolate after.)

Caroline got giddy everytime they said Ma's name "Caroline" on stage and got so excited to meet her after.

And of course we couldn't leave without meeting Laura and Mary!

After the play we had a little girls lunch at Black Walnut and a quick trip to The Chocolate Bar.

So happy to spend time with these girls (and their mommies) and so happy that they seem to pick right back up every time they see each other no matter how long it's been.

The Princess is 4!

After all that celebrating this weekend, we still saved a little for the real thing. Emmy celebrated at school with her friends, and had a special lunch with Daddy. She even got a real, big girl bike with a basket made just for her princess dolls to ride in.We ended the day with dinner and a cookie cake with the cousins and GiGi and Pops .

Bon B-Bon Bon BON!!!!

As we done in recent years, the day after Emmy's party was Bon Bon day. This was Clara's first bon bon day and I can't say that she contributed greatly, but she was really cute! Mom made adorable matching aprons for all the kids.

As everything gets more complicated with more kiddos, there is pretty much two people on full time kid duty. Emmy couldn't have cared less, so she was out. Maybe next year. Beckett was REALLY good at tasting. We would catch him coming back from the dining room with chocolate fingers and chipmunk cheeks. He must've eaten about eight or nine of them over the course of the day.

We slacked a little this year and only made around 1300. The amount of kids seems to be inverse to the number of bon bons. Emmy is still impressed! I am what I could only classify as worn out. THAT was a long weekend!

Capes and Castles

Emmy told me several months ago when I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday that she wanted "Tiana, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Spiderman to come to her party.) I wasn't quite sure what to do with that =) Every year I say I'm going to tone it down and well, we know how that goes.

It's hard to believe that Emmy is 4! She swears to me that she'll go ahead and turn 5 but then she's not getting any older than that! We'll see how that's goes. She's pretty much the size of a 6 year old and surprises me all the time with the adult things she says.. and then she'll act like a 2 year old. Guess that's the beauty of 4!

Here's my Rapunzel and her little brother Superman.

As a favor for all of her guests Emmy sat for an hour and a half and hand wrote every single Thank You topper for 27 party favors. I thought she would get bored after 3 but she really got in to it. By the end her letters were much better, and what a special way to practice being grateful.This is a special memory for me.

Emmy was very in to helping with all the preparations. Since it's a birthday, we had to have the cheese puffs! (Beckett now calls these my balls and we had to throw away all that were left over because he literally wouldn't eat anything but cheese balls as long as they were in the house. He would hunt them down and find them everywhere we hid them)

This pinterest project got al little nuts. There were almost 400 suckers on this ball. We will be eating suckers for a LONG LONG time. The Dentist will be so happy with us!

Emmy set a superhero and princess table for all of her friends to have a tea party with Cinderella and Superman.

We also made some photo backdrops to take pics and you know we had to have a castle!

But for some reason the highlight of the party seemed to be Emmy's old "fat car" that we haven't played with in about 6 months. The kids couldn't get enough of it!

After everyone was settled in and had jumped a bit, look who the mailman brought!

Emmy was so excited to meet Cinderella. Her friend from school Perri ran SCREAMING all the way down the driveway to tell everyone the she was there.

Cinderella started by singing everyone her story. She had a beautiful voice!Amazingly the kids sat still to hear the story.

Then Superman told his story as well. Beckett REALLY got into that. He said - HEY you look like me.

Then they all sat down for a game of Princess Superhero Duck Duck Goose.

Then it was time for the tea party! Emmy is not one to get too excited or show a lot of emotion. She will barely even smile in a picture. Believe it or not, this is Emmy having an ABSOLUTELY fantastic time =)

But probably the highlight for her was when Cinderlla poured pink tea for her to give to all of her friends. Nothing makes her happier than organizing or distributing things.

After the tea party Cinderella and Superman had time for a few pictures.

Emmy even WILLINGLY took some with Cinderella. That's when i knew we had a hit . This NEVER happens.

I'm so glad we got to give her an experience I know she'll remember for a long time. Emmy had a FABULOUS time! And all the little princesses agree.

It's the Little Saint Nick

We switched to a new dance studio this year (and will promptly be going back to the other one next year!) and this dance school does a Christmas Dance Recital. Emmy performed a tap dance to The Beach Boys "Little Saint Nick". Makeup went MUCH better. I know she is my daughter, but I can't help but think she is just exceptionally beautiful. Especially with those big red lips (she had wiped them all off my then!)

At the last recital she was so excited about flowers so everyone brought her a ton. Guess what, she could care less this time. She is so crazy!

She had to wear this shirt that would just not stay down. So that led to a few tummy flashes on stage! This was a little more of a low key recital and the teacher danced on stage with the girls. Emmy did her fair share of looking (and digging in her ear - poor thing), but she knew the dance!