The First Annual Big Birthday Bash, Part 1

This party was huge!  I've had parties with nearly this many kids before (remember the one last spring with 40 some kids?), but this one had about the same number of kids (at dinner the head count was a little over 40), but there were a lot more parents staying for the fun - we had a little over 20 adults present!

The really big part was how much planning/games/fun we did!  There were 3 parts to this party - team games, BBQ dinner, and then a Carnival!

I'm going to share some of the party tonight, but there's so many great photos and things that happened, that I'm going to break it up into a couple of posts!

First, here's some great people photos (my dear friend, Renee, was our official photographer for the party, and she was gracious enough to let me have all the photos after the party for my own personal use!  She is so great at people pics! - check out her new website for her new business, Little Earthling Photography !  Congrats Renee! And thanks for all the great photos - now I REALLY want a new camera!)

First, here's the babies that were present - totally ignored the proceedings, but they served as great entertainment for the adults:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="397" caption="Esther"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Caleb"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Zeke"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Elizabeth"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Josh"][/caption]

Are those some of the cutest babies in the world or what???  They were all born within 3 months of each

other!

And here's some pics of bigger kids waiting for the action to begin:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Dayton - already had face painting, as you can see"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Elizabeth - post face painting too!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Hezekiah - doesn't seem too impressed with the party so far!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Jubilee - one of the most photogenic children I've ever seen "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Kellina"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Rachel and Kalina"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Rebekah and Keziah"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Zoe"][/caption]

Ok, so now that you've gotten to meet some of the "players", we'll get into the fun stuff - team games!  We divided all the kids up into 4 teams - lined them up by age and counted them off into teams.  Then the teams nominated a captain or two and lined up for the games.  We had some late comers, but we just added them to teams as best we could to keep things as fair as possible.  We were working with kids from 2 - 25!  We were in good hands though, as the oldest team member is an EMT from the Ferndale Fire Department - he was such a good team captain and for some reason seemed right at home in some of the events (like where he got to carry two kids in a relay race, and jumping rope!).  Everybody was so helpful and encouraging...it was good to see kids of all ages work so well together!

The first game was the pancake toss - you had to toss a pancake from you flimsy paper plate over your head for the person behind you to catch it on their plate - if it was dropped the same people had to try again until success.  Once the pancake reached the back of the line, the last person ran to the front and started it again...over and over until the first front person ran back to the front!  Here's some great pics of the action:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Wes and Jonathan Demonstrating"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="On Your Mark"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Get Set"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Go!!!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Up and Over"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Catch It"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Ok everyone, let"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Nice and Easy"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Help"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The Big Toss to Keziah"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Scary toss to Jessica"][/caption]

Well, I had hoped to get more games in tonight, but my computer/connection is realy giving me fits - so I'll have to continue another day - stay tuned!

Have a blessed day!

Get a load of this hair!

Just a quick post to show you Esther's hair after a bath:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Esther's Woody the Woodcracker Doo!"][/caption]

Esther turned 11 months old yesterday!  Can you believe it???

I got a lot of great pics, but it's too late to post them all.  Check in again soon for more bath time photos and the "Biggest Birthday Party" post...coming real soon!

Have a great weekend if I don't get on again this weekend!

The promised, long awaited update!

OK, so it's been more than a long time since I posted anything personal.  Tonight I am required to sit up for 30 minutes after taking my antibiotic to prevent esophageal damage (if the pill disolved before entering my stomach).  So I've decided it's time for that update!  Not sure how many pictures I'll have time to add, as those are far more time consuming than text, but I'll try to update the bigger happenings in our home since May!

The most memoriable event in May was Memorial Day.  We all wore red/white/blue in our clothing:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Red, White and Blue Einfelds"][/caption]

(sorry but the lens was dirty!)

Esther was cute in red and white (she did have a blue bow in her hair):

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="376" caption="Esther in her stroller"][/caption]

What was really cool about that day is that we went to the services at Green Acres Cemetary.  They had thousands of flags, all in honor of someone who died serving our country.  Jerry Stewart spoke and as usual his speach was inspiring (Jerry does radio broadcast about our nations Christian heritage and he's always to good!)  Also there was a veteran who carried the flag to the Marines who put the flag on top of the mountain in Iwo Jima - the photo that is the most famous and there's so many statutes of - he spoke briefly, raised the flag, and signed autographs afterward.

Here's some photos of Esther back in June:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Here she is catnapping after playing on her play blanket"][/caption]

The next big event was going to visit my mom.  She had new windows put in and decided to have her draperies cleaned.  The cleaners really messed the draperies up and only Daryl and I knew how to fix them.  So off we went to Grandma's house with the 3 youngest in tow.  What an adventure!  Daryl and I with the three little ones with no helpers!  It really went well though - just like riding a bike, eh?

Here's some photos of our trip there, and also some of my sister, Beth's grandkids (we spent one day with her and her 2 sons, Ben and Scott and 3 of her grandkids, and then spent the night at Scott's house - I spent the evening jamming with Scott with his Wii - we both played guitar and I caught on really fast!).

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Daryl and Kids on Kingston Ferry"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="432" caption="Esther wasn't too sure about all the wind!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Elizabeth enjoyed the Wind!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="358" caption="Esther with Noodle Fangs!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Esther and Grandma!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="354" caption="Esther poses as Cindy Lou Whoo!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Beth's Grandkids/Scott's Children"][/caption]

The week after that we went for our annual berry picking - we did 60 pounds of strawberries, and 45 pounds of raspberries (Jessica went again with a friend later and got another 20 pounds of raspberries!):











And then the processing:











Then along came the 4th of July - we did the usual parade in Blaine (it's getting bigger every year), checked out the car show (biggest/best one I've seen), and then home for naps and a BBQ dinner.  Then I took the all but the little ones to fireworks at Blaine - they did a great job!





This summer Rachel has built her own playhouse (she already has a very nice one, but she just had to do something with the left over cinder blocks from moving the mobile home!).  She's done great putting it together and having sleep overs with some of our kids.  Personally it tends to look like we have a homeless person living here, but who am I to squelch creativity!?





The next few weeks were planning for the Biggest Birthday Party ever!  on August 1st we had over 40 kids and 20 adults for a wild and fun party - but it was so big, I asked Renee to be the official photographer and I'll save that for a post all by itself (that and the photos are all "raw" and on my other computer). But here's a photo of Esther playing with my friend, Marrianne's little boy while she helped me with some of the planning:



The more recent event was our annual church campout.  Typically we  take the entire week before the official campout and camp at Silver Lake Horse Camp as our family vacation and have a lot of fun with other families that are as crazy as we are! For me the highlight was watching Daryl on a team of dad's doing tug of war against another team of dad's and Daryl's team won!



Reuben's team won the tug of war contest!



We also had a great time sharing our campsite with our friends and their 3 daughters and twin baby boys! It was a very busy campsite!


This year camping was a real bummer for most of us though, most of us had a terrible cold!  Everyone, including Esther, got over it, with the exception of me...I on the other hand still had a nagging cough, dizziness, headaches like you wouldn't believe etc...so finally on Tuesday I went to the Dr's office and sure enough my "cold" had developed into a secondary bacterial infection resulting in brochitus and a sinus infection.  So this last week I've been pretty much laid up and useless. I'm starting to feel better and have high hopes for next week - North West Washington Fair week.  Jessica will be showing dogs on Monday and Wednesday, so I'm hoping to attend those days and try to catch up on all I'm behind on the other days!

Hope you've enjoyed this long (overdue) summer update!