Friday night was basketball practice for both Sophie and Josh, and then we headed out to dinner to celebrate Emily's 18th birthday. We always try to go out to a special place for dinner with each child, and since Em's birthday was in the middle of the week, we had to wait until Friday to go out. She picked a new barbecue place we had never been, and it was really good!
Saturday morning started nice and early with basketball practice for Josh at 8am. Sophie had her team pictures at 9 and after picking the two back up, we all loaded into the van to head to church for a Christmas event. We were so excited when we arrived to find a mini petting zoo!
Our church had an event called A Very Merry Morning, and we got to do lots of fun things to prepare for the upcoming Christmas holiday! We started with the cookie decorating station....
Then we headed over to make ornaments for our tree....
We were able to participate in lots of other fun crafts and activities and finally ended the morning watching a show about the birth of Jesus!
The rest of the day was spent secretly prepping for Sophie's big surprise party that night (yes, this is the 2nd weekend we have had a surprise birthday party at our house in a row!) and doing some Christmas shopping! We ended up at the mall in an effort to get Sophie out of the house so Allie could decorate and get kids in to surprise Sophie. When we arrived home, Sophie headed downstairs, completely unsuspecting of what was about to unfold....
I was SO thrilled to be able to pull off ANOTHER surprise party, especially since Sophie had been in on helping plan Emily's party the weekend before and we did almost the exact same thing!
It was a great party and she was completely shocked....YAY!!! I love it!
Sunday was Sophie's actual birthday, and we woke her up with one of her most favorite things....
An Edible Arrangement!
We got one for her last year as well, and I think it's quickly become a tradition for her birthday!
Unfortunately, Sunday morning was spent cleaning house as we prepared for an open house. We decided to open Sophie's gifts after dinner ....
She was really excited about a clock that we got her (Moshi) that is voice directed to tell you the time, temperature, set your alarm, and a whole host of other fun things! (ThinkGeek.com if you're interested!)
After we cleaned house, we headed out to pick a Christmas tree and cut it down while our open house was going on....
Sadly, the tree farm didn't have any firs left, and I really didn't want a white pine, so we headed to another farm.....
We ended up driving about an hour away from our house, and still didn't get to cut our own tree! Apparently, there was quite a drought in our area this year and many of the tree farms had to ship in pre-cut trees. Turns out, I should have gone to the tree farms waaaaaaaaay back in September or October and selected a tree to cut down then! Who knew?!
Anyway, I was excited for the kids to have the experience of choosing and cutting their own tree down, and we drove a looooooooong way to get what we could have gotten in the local grocery store parking lot ;D Oh well! Here's the gang watching our tree "get bagged!"
We got home late after making a stop at Red Robin for Sophie's birthday dinner.
We threw up the tree and then opened Sophie's gifts....
and then we vacuumed the floors for the second time that day :D
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