Eve's 9th Birthday Party

Eve had her birthday party at "Pump it Up", a big soft play area in Frisco. She had a crowd of friends mainly girl scouts and the Grizzly girls.
It was great fun and even we both got to play on all the stuff. We moved through two rooms and lots of the time was spent in races through the assault courses.

Eve choose her cake. The girls ate so much food at the end of the playtime, quickly demolishing pizza, the cake and lots of boxes of drinks.
Eve received lots of lovely presents.

Nov/Dec 2009

This is Zoe dressed for Colonial Day at school. She made candles, learnt to cross stitch and quilting, and did stenciling; a fun filled two days. I was dressed in a similar outfit which we both worked out was totally impractical to wear.

Neil's birthday.
For Neil's birthday we had some friends round for a meal, we all ate and drank to much. This is Sue, Anne and JP. Anne and JP brought Neil some Irish whiskey glasses, here is his first attempt!


This is the Grizzly girls float for the Plano parade. They didn't win but they had fun giving out sweets and running along the parade route.

Dallas moterbike show Nov 2009

This day was fun because we got to sit on and try out all the bikes! This is us on quad bikes. Daddy said that if we lived in the countryside we could get quad bikes...maybe! They had a different size for each of us!
This is us on a giant quad bike! It had a comfy seat but it was way to big and said '18+' on the lable. So we couldn't get it until we were 18. But daddy could! Mummy wouldn't! She wouldn't like the 'scariness' of the quad bikes!
More quad bikes! I would like to have a white one because then when it got mud on it it would look cool!
Eve is on a motor bike in this one! I had to hold it because it would have fallen over if I hadn't! I can really see Eve with a future of riding (and owning) a black motor bike. (although the top 3 pictures are of quad bikes most of the things we tried were motor bikes. Mummy just obviously liked the pictures of us on quad bikes more than us on bikes!

Halloween

The kids all chose new costumes for Halloween. Felix went as a vampire, Eve as the devil and Zoe as a pirate. I did the face painting. Once they were all in costume, they played outside the house waiting for it to get dark and then headed to the street in our neighbourhood that is closed to traffic where we were meeting friends.


Here Eve is with her friend Keri.
All the houses are really decorated and lots have smoke machines and bubbles. The kids each filled a whole bucket with sweets. They were able to donate some to a local orthodontist, the next day, for dollars which we used to see a movie at the dollar cinema.

Zoe's 11th Birthday

Zoe had a sleep over party at home this year with 9 friends. Felix was away with Neil and Eve stayed with a friend so Zoe and her friends had space. We did craft activities making headbands and decorating tea shirts.

I made three different pasta sauces and we had garlic bread followed by ice cream sundae's. Here Zoe is showing her creation.

The girls all then changed into pyjamas and watched movies eating popcorn. I thought I'd done well as the girls were asleep by 12, but they woke at 6.30 for a pancake breakfast!

Autumn 2009

The kids are went back to school on 24th August, when it was still really hot. All three were pleased with their teachers. Eve was really pleased as her friend Keri was in her class.
As most of the sports had yet to start we had some time at the weekends to visit some of the state parks. Here we are at Mineral Wells State Park, where we had a nice long walk before playing on the lake beach. The day ended with everyone trying fishing.

Neil and Eve went away with the Y-princesses again see separate entry. During the weekend they were away, those left behind went to the Plano Balloon Festival. Felix and Zoe had a great time collecting freebies but it was too wet and windy to let the balloons fly.

Then soccer season started. I have taken over as assistant coach for Felix's team and Eve's team changed their name to the Killer Bees, complete with new lime green uniform.

England 3

The rest of our England stay involved catching up with friends in Cambridge. The kids had a great time and i really enjoyed seeing everyone. The kids ate in Teepee's with Anna, played with pets with Toby.

The girls put on an amazing show of Mama Mia with Molly and Ellie, which had both Julie and myself laughing and crying. They spent 24 hours putting it together.

We also managed to go and see the bumps with Lucy and Daniel, even though the weather wasn't fantastic. We ended out time in Cambridge with a trip to the park which involved many friends and was great fun.

We then returned to Watford and enjoyed a trip to see Joseph with my Mum and Dad and cousin Hannah. we all had a good sing along.