Grandma and Pop-Pop arrived around 1:00 am on Saturday morning. Once everyone got in bed, it was no time before we were up and getting ready for Ethan's birthday party. They were calling for sunny, 80 degree weather. Well, it was quite chilly and raining off and on! Luckily we had a pavilion and it only rained hard while they were eating so they were able to play on the playground and play games as planned.

This game was really funny to watch! All of the kids had balloons tied to their ankles and they had to go around trying to pop everyone's balloon. In the end it came down to Spencer H., Emily W., Ethan, and Kyle. Emily used some sneak attack strategies and won in the end.
I'm not sure what they were doing here besides racing over the bridge.
Pamela makes and interesting face and she tried to get the clothes pin in the jug. Pamela also managed to get herself stuck in the baby swing which was quite funny.
Here Emily goes in for the sneak attack. Spencer better watch out!

Ethan has come a far way from hiding under the table screaming when people sing Happy Birthday to him!
His favorite present that has been the non-stop source of entertainment around here for the last two days! (That would be Guitar Heroes III for the Wii.)

More present opening.

I guess he was happy about something he got!
Emily blowing up another balloon preparing for a second round of balloon stomp. They all loved the game and begged to play again!

While the boys are having fun with the Havoc Heli that Kyle gave Ethan, I think Pop-Pop and Daddy are having even more fun with it than they are! (That is Ethan's teacher, Mrs. Zois, in the background.)

I'm not so sure what Kyle is doing here!
Sophie and the Headless Woman.

Well, this week has brought some sad news. It started Sunday morning when Bobbie took a spill off of her bike while we were all out biking and had to make a trip to the ER. It turned out to be a minor injury but it sure was scary when it happened. Then of course Buppa with his fall. It is sad to think of him being alone when that happened. When Stephanie emailed today about Evan I instantly pictured that cutie pie sitting in a great big hospital bed. He is not one that likes to sit still so I can only imagine how frustrating that must be to him. Hopefully both Buppa and Evan have quick recoveries. Santa better be extra good to both of them!

Today at school the classrooms all had their holiday celebrations. Mrs. Walton's class made these adorable reindeer t-shirts and sang many adorable holiday songs. Mrs. Walton's father collapsed yesterday as well. He too is going to be okay, but what a horrific week!
The lovely Mrs. Walton with my boys. (Those halos Mrs. Walton gave them may be the only halos they will ever get to wear!)
Ethan was happily showing off one of his presents from his holiday celebration.
Pamela got Chris' favorite- bloonies!

Spencer was super excited to get his remote control cars until he realized that he had no batteries to get them going! Oops.
Will and Noah carrying their loot at the end of the day!
Tomorrow is the last day of school before break. So, our countdown stands at 1 day of school, 2 days until Grandma and Pop-Pop get here, 2 days until Ethan's party, 3 days until Ethan's birthday, and 5 days until Christmas! Hopefully there will be no more illnesses or injuries.

We had a fun day and a half with Eric, Asa, Isabelle, and Vera. Just after they arrived we took off to the beach. It was getting chilly but that didn't stop the girls from stripping down and getting in the water! They definitely have Schrader blood in them and have no problems running around naked! The boys played soccer with Uncle Eric while the girls swam. We then drove down the beach to the tourist district and Asa did a little shopping. The kids all jumped in the spa after dinner on Sunday night to warm up in the chilly weather. Our freeze protection actually had to come on for the pool last night because it dropped down into the 30's! Today's high was only in the low 50's and it was quite breezy. It made for a chilly day.

I took off work today to spend the day with Eric, Asa, and the girls. We drove down to Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. We saw a bunch of manatees, more birds than one can imagine, and two gators. Here is the first gator we saw.
The girls and I enjoyed walking around the boardwalk at the visitor's center.
Isabelle checks out the second gator we saw along the side of the road. I guess he was trying to sun himself in the freezing weather.
We went to lunch at Ce La Luna and then I had to go pick up the boys from school. They had fun and really enjoyed the puppet show at school today. They said it was awesome! They rushed in the door to get the last couple of hours of play time with the girls in. They did lots of crafts, played a Cranium game, and also played lots of guitar! Once Chris got home we ended their visit with a trip to Mi Mexico. They are off to Disney for a few days of fun. I am a bit jealous. The boys have all of their countdowns in place. 4 days of school, 5 days until Grandma and Pop-Pop arrive, 5 days until Ethan's birthday party, 6 days until Ethan's birthday, and 8 days to Christmas!!!

Just traps, no boobies!! So, if you want to see a movie with just traps and no boobies, Home Alone 2 is the way to go. We went to the Eagney's on Saturday night and we all watched Home Alone 2 together. Melissa commented on all of the booby traps he was setting up and Noah corrected her and said, "Just traps, no boobies!"

We've had even more holiday fun this week. On Wednesday Johnna hosted a holiday party at her house. It was a lot of fun and Johnna was an awesome host. Everyone brought tons of delicious food and drink. We did a white elephant ornament exchange and of course that was a riot. Last night was the Winter Wonderland at school. The PTA did an incredible job of decorating the school. The chorus put on a second performance of their Light Up Flagler show. The PTA had set up little craft centers around the campus and had hot chocolate and cookies. Here Will and Noah decorate their mitten ornaments.
Tonight was the toy party. I can't even imagine all the hard work Donna, Susan, Vicki, and Amy put into organizing the event. It is open the community and everyone brings an unwrapped gift. There are raffles going on as well. Of course there was tons of wonderful food and drink! The best part of the night is when the teachers from the schools that are present get to dive into the pile of presents and scout out gifts for the kids at school. Read-Pattillo definitely had the unfair advantage of having tons of people there to scout out! So, after getting lots of great gifts for some families from school we loaded up the cars and drove it all over to the school. Next week will involve sorting through all that stuff and wrapping it.

Tomorrow I am taking Will and Noah to watch Emma's choral performance. Hopefully it won't get rained out. While we are at that, Chris is taking Ethan to his friends' birthday party. They are twins and Danielle is in his class and Daniel is a scouting buddy. The plan is to see Alvin and the Chipmunks with the girls once all of that wraps up. Then Sunday Eric and Asa arrive with the girls. I'm not sure what the plans are during their visit, but I'm sure we'll have fun!

Sunday was the 2nd annual cookie exchange. Bobbie did a great job putting it all together and everyone seemed to have a great time. The girls provided the entertainment. While Emma, Paige, and Sophia mostly took turns singing the same song over and over again, there were one or two other songs thrown into the mix. Of course I was entertained by it! I was the lucky winner in the "Overall" category. So Grandma, thanks for making fudge such a Owens' holiday tradition! That is what I made! Anne won for best presentation and Melissa won for best taste. Emma, Paige, and Sophia won for best decorating. They made sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles and they were beaut-eee-ful!

Here are the winners...
This is the sweet Longaberger holiday purse that I won! Pretty much everyone was jealous. I had a stomach virus on Sunday and almost didn't go. I had a low fever and the worst stomach cramps all Saturday night and Sunday. It didn't help that once I pulled myself off the couch, put on a fancy version of sweatpants, loaded my bike with the fudge, tray, & recipe, and finally headed off to Bobbie's tons of fishing line got caught in my bike components. I had to walk my bike back home and get my Knight in Shining Armour to come out and fix my bike for me. I was really ready to call it quits then. Luckily I didn't or someone else would be walking around with my super cute bag!
(Oh, if these pictures look familiar I stole them from Melissa's blog!)

Tonight I am off for more holiday fun with my peeps from school. I can't wait until my mom gets here so I can bike for hours at a time to work off all of this holiday fun!

Ooh, I forgot to mention... Will lost another tooth this week! Noah keeps wiggling and wiggling his. I keep trying to tell him that Ethan didn't lose his first tooth until 1st grade, but he insists that he will lose his in kindergarten.

What Jen was alluding to in the previous post was that Ethan was picked to go onstage at the Animal Actors stage show. We weren't even planning on going to the show, but we had some time to waste before the fireworks/laser show was supposed to start. Well, the host of the show asked for a volunteer and Ethan raised his hand and stood up. Of all the kids there, he felt really lucky to get to go up there. He had no idea what was in store for him though.

First up were a couple of intro questions like what is your name and where are you from. Ethan said his name and stated that he was from Maryland. Huh? I guess that is kind of my fault. I tell him that we are from Maryland. I don't want anybody confusing us with crazy Floridians. Plus, he was born in Annapolis.

Anyway, I have video of the whole thing and some pictures as well. Here are a couple of pictures. Enjoy!

What we thought was going to be the highlight of our day was the Macy's Parade at Universal. While it was incredibly cool, it was not the highlight (more on that from Chris later). Mike, Melissa, the girls, and Melissa's Aunt Stephanie secured some awesome seats. We, along with Debbie and family, rushed over from the Grinch show at Island of Adventures and met up with them right in front of Terminator 3 at Universal. We were right near the beginning of the parade. We shouted at everyone going by so we got lots of handshakes and high-5's from the people and characters in the parade.

I believe that they just brought the Macy's owned balloons down. There were no licensed characters. Ethan was convinced that the famous people from the New York parade would be there as well. When I screamed, "Look, the Jonas Brother!" he totally fell for it! Man, I love tricking those boys. Mike had his fancy camera so I'm sure he'll have a lot of great pics on his blog.

After the parade we came home and had lunch. We quickly packed up and headed to Universal for the holiday happenings there. First on the agenda was the How the Grinch Stole Christmas stage show. It was really good! We met up with my friend Debbie, her husband Chris, and their son Bryce. Because it was so crowded, only kids and one adult was allowed in the main viewing area. That meant that the Chrises had to rough it in the back!

When Mom and Dad were here we went to the Monster Horror Make-Up Show and this guy was in it. Chris and I really liked him and were excited when we saw him in the Grinch show. He was awesome in this as well! (He was the narrator.)
The Grinch and his Who-Ville dancers.
Will was worried that the Grinch was going to breath on him with his stinky breath.
After the show they were able to meet one of the Who's.

Yesterday morning we started our day at the local Christmas Parade. (Yep, another one!)
Hanzie started off staring at everything going by.
Will's favorite part, of course!
By the end, he was wiped out and asleep in the street! The poor guy got bit by something on his butt and he got a GIGANTIC bump where the bite was. I wish I had a picture of it. It looked like the had a ping pong ball under his skin!

Friday evening we went to Light Up Flagler to watch the chorus perform. They did an awesome job. Hanzie went with us and had tons of fun walking around downtown.
Noah gets his groove on while the chorus sings!
All the kids gather to see the chorus as they get started.
After Light Up Flagler, I went to see the Showdolls show. I'm always so impressed by what they put together. I'm so proud of you Sam! Melissa, Bobbie, her Aunt Stephanie, Colleen, and Anne all went as well. Good times!

It finally cooled off a bit and we got enough in the spirit to put up the Christmas tree yesterday. I stood back and let the boys do all the work as requested. I think they tired out once 1/2 of the ornaments were up so we still have a way to go. Ethan took the top 1/2 and Will and Noah worked on the bottom.
Ethan brings back memories of his MP3 player ornament.
Ethan had a field trip to see Junie B. Jones at the Peabody on Monday. He really liked the play. He reads some of the Junie B. Jones books at school but never brings those home. He got the new Beast Quest from Aunt Lori on Saturday. He had about 5-10 pages left and begged his teacher to bring it with him on the bus. She initially said no but eventually caved. Well, as you can imagine, it got left on the bus! I could have killed him. That's okay, he is pretty upset with himself because he REALLY loves that series and he lost it. He had to resort to reading Pippi Longstocking again. He was only halfway finished Pippi Longstocking when Beast Quest 2 arrived and abandoned it back to the bookshelf. Lucky for Ethan Santa has Beast Quest 3 on his stocking list!

It was design on a dime, or at least design on a dollar day! We found some wreaths and ribbon at the dollar store. I had gotten two gigantic bags of remnant flowers for 75 cents each at Wal*Mart on Friday night and the boys went to town tonight decorating their wreaths! They made the most gorgeous wreaths and they are now hanging on all the doors in their hallway.

Here Ethan and Noah sift through the many, many flowers and decorations spread all over our floor! (Even those presents, candy canes, and ornaments were in the remnant bag!)
Will picks out an ornament to glue on his wreath.
Ethan's finished product.

All the finished wreaths in the drying process. Will's is top left, Noah's top right, and Ethan's is on the bottom.

The boys had a fun birthday party on Saturday. Outside of the red tide making everyone cough, it was a gorgeous day. They played on the playground for a few minutes and once everyone arrived they started building and painting their pirate ships. While the ships dried, the kids ate and played some more. After lunch it was present time! Will and Noah loved absolutely everything they got- even the clothes! We got home from the party, unpacked the car, and then headed off to the NSB Christmas parade. Chris didn't go and had my camera in his pocket while he was out shopping in Daytona. So, no pictures of the parade, but we had a blast. Hanzie was so excited to go and watch all of the floats and people go by!