Merry Christmas!!!!

Well we had a fun Christmas! On Christmas Eve we read the Christmas story together and talked about Jesus and what Christmas means. Eileen learned "Picture a Christmas" this year in Primary and she has been singing it all month. This week she added a new verse. This new third voice goes something like this- "picture the evil mean king Herod and he wanted to cut off all the babies heads...." (They did a neat primary Christmas activity on Sunday and they had someone portraying King Herod and he was rather enthusiastic... ) :) For some reason Eileen was very curious about why and how Herod wanted to kill the babies.

So Christmas morning was also fun (aside from Aaron being sick and having a 102.4 fever) Eileen was so funny, she got so excited about everything. Anna got her stocking and found the cereal and pop tarts in the top and went to the table ready to eat, everything else forgotten! Aaron just wanted to play with all his sisters stuff! I had fun this year using up extra fabric and making Christmas presents. I made bags for the kids and put note books and colored pencils in them. We couldn't get Anna to open up anything once she found the book and colored pencils! Dan found a jump rope for the kids and the girls got very excited about that too. We went outside with them and they jumped over the rope while we held it. :)

After we had opened gifts and played for awhile, we went down to Grandma and Grandpa's house for brunch and gifts and dinner. We had lots of fun playing with Grandma Penny and Grandma and Grandpa Cox. That evening we had a yummy dinner and then went home for bed. Our wonderful day was capped off by a video call with Dan's parents from Malaysia. The kids had lots of fun talking to them and showing them some of their gifts.

The next day brought even more fun when Aunt Sandi and Uncle Jon and Great Grandpa Francone showed up! It's so nice to get to see family! Life is great. Now we just need to get ourselves ready for a marathon and get poor Aaron over this cold. :( Wish us luck!! Sorry there aren't more pictures, but there are so many cute ones that this post would have ended up being a book by itself with the pictures and their explainations! Maybe I'll get more up eventually!

Our Crazy Boring Week

It's funny, but the last couple of weeks have seemed both VERY busy and very uneventful. I'm not sure how we can be so busy doing nothing interesting.... So what have we been up to? Well, I managed to survive my concert season and even managed to get well enough to cover for the soloist who lost her voice. (yep it went through the whole choir) Dan has had his usual contingent of wrestling meets and tournaments. Eileen has had preschool. I've had soccer games. We've had all our church commitments. (which some how involves more at this time of year that all the rest of the year combined-at least for me) So now, school is out, music is done, and wrestling is off for the week. Do we get to breath? Of course not, it's the holidays!! :)
The kids are growing like crazy! Aaron has been taking steps by himself. He will only do it if it is absolutely necessary and if he only has a couple of steps to go, otherwise he plops down like a rag doll and refuses to stand on his feet at all. He has taken a much more active interest in climbing, much to my dismay. We have a couple of stools in the house to help the girls reach things and help with things. Any time I leave him for a few seconds with access to one of these stools, he is up it faster than I can say "Aaron, get down from there now!!!" The problem is he looks so cute there! The other day I heard him fussing a bit and I found him in the bathroom. He had climbed the girls stool and was trying to play in the sink, but the stool had slid back and he had gotten stuck. He was suspended between the sink and the stool, holding on to the stool with just a couple of toes. For once I didn't run for the camera.... :) What a crazy little boy!!
Anna has had an obnoxious back sliding in her potty training. She has had more accidents this week than in the entire potty training process combined. I guess it's just the crazy schedule that we have been on. I was afraid when we started potty training that the holidays would cause problems, but she was ready, and I was sick of changing diapers. She is learning so much and talking so much. She loves to imitate her sister. When Eileen says something Anna repeats it. So she is leaning many new words and slowly getting easier to understand. Her sweet smile and cuddly nature warm my heart! She always wants to sit with me and be cuddled with and read to. Tonight as they were getting ready for bed Anna told Dan that she doesn't get tooth paste. (she has been caught recently eating tooth paste, so I don't leave it on the counter any more!) She is a stickler for making sure that she and everyone else are following mommy's rules... (of course this is entirely selective!)
Eileen just amazes me. The other day while she was showering, Dan went in to check on her and he found ZOO in foam bath letters on the wall. Eileen sees him and says "Z-O-O that spells zoo! See daddy I spelled zoo!" I didn't know she knew how to spell zoo! So the next day she asks me how to spell dog. So we sat there and sounded it out together. Sure enough, the next time she was in the tub, she spelled DOG on the wall. Her next word was CAT. I am just amazed that my 4 year old little girl is already starting to read and write and spell! Today at church, she sat on my lap during the Sacrament and we talked quietly about Jesus. She told me all about how Jesus was born and how he hung on the cross and how he loves little children. It was so sweet to talk to her about these beautiful stories and see her understanding.
So there is what we have been up to! Now I need to go to bed and recover from the weekend... :)

Friends

John Lennon sang "I get by with a little help from my friends." I have a greater understanding of the truth of that now. This week has been kinda crazy for us. My heavy concert season has started as has Dan's wrestling season. Our family calendar for the week was filled up for every day of the week. We knew that it would be crazy and we prepared ourselves for it. What we forgot to prepare for was everything else that would go wrong.... Last Saturday I wasn't feeling so hot, but I kinda figured it was just tired from a crazy holiday and that it would go away with a good night sleep. I was wrong. It kept getting worse, until Wednesday, I ended up having to miss the concert because I had no voice. Thursday was no better. I was feeling run ragged and tired, sick and very annoyed at an internet connection that had been out for 2 days. I called a friend that I was going to hang out with this week to apologize for my lack of communication and to say that we would have to put off our playdate on the assumption that she didn't want my cold near her 2 month old son. :) Later that day, she showed up on my doorstep with lunch. Delicious soup, bread, cheesecake and warm cookies. I don't know that I can put words to how much this lifted my spirits that day, and in the day since just remembering kindness. I am so grateful for the people that the Lord puts in our lives to lift us up when we are feeling down. I am grateful for the friends and family who have helped me "get by"

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Saturday we went to a Christmas Tree farm to get our Christmas Tree. The girls loved watching the people shake the tree and put the netting around it after we had picked it out. We all had lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa and the girls got a kick out of smelling the tree! So we took it home and set it up and then for FHE on Monday, we decorated. After Dan and I got the lights on, we all pulled out ornaments and started trying to hang them on the tree. Aaron mostly just pulled ornaments out and tried to eat them. Or he would pull off ones that had already been hung up and try to eat those. If those didn't work, he would just go after the tree! Oddly enough, Anna seemed to manage getting the ornaments on the tree better than Eileen. She would pull ornaments out of the box and then ask who's ornament it was. She loved looking at my old ornaments from when I was a kid. She was so funny to listen to. Eileen really struggled with getting the hooks over the branches. She too loved pulling out the ornaments and she wanted to tell everyone else where to put each ornament. So thanks to our three talented tree decoraters, we now have one beautiful Christmas tree in our house. Eileen is actually old enough this year to understand some of our talk about the real meaning of Christmas. As part of our FHE lesson, we talked about what Christmas is celebrating. We talked about how we give gifts just like the wise men gave gifts to Jesus. We told her how we give gifts to eachother to show out love for eachother. We then asked her what gifts we can give to Jesus this Christmas, what would make Jesus happy. She throught for a second then very seriously told us that Jesus wants a Littlest Pet Shop and that would make him happy. Dan and I had a hard time not cracking up, but what sweet innocence! Gotta love kids!

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, we didn't have a terribly exciting Thanksgiving, but the food was really good, the company was better and really what more can you ask for! For years my mom has complained about making rolls for Thanksgiving because she thinks she doesn't make rolls well, and they aren't worth the effort. So this year, I decided to take on the challenge. I called my good friend Megan who makes VERY yummy rolls and asked her to come over to teach me how to make rolls. So today I tackled rolls. I am excited to say that they came out very yummy!! Aaron kept trying to escape up the stairs. So here are the kids hanging out on the balcony upstairs!
Also in a rare occasion, someone other than me picked up the camera, so here is a picture of me waiting for dinner! And of course, my handsome husband carving the turkey! So that was our Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the time with my parents and the chance to remember the many reasons we have to be grateful.

Potties and Pirates and Pajamas OH MY!!

Kind of an odd title, but this weekend has been an interesting one. Eileen came home from preschool on Thursday with a Pirate Costume. She was very excited about it and told me on the way home that the reason that the edges were jagged was because an alligator had tried to eat her! I think the idea was talking about pilgrims journeying to the new world, but Eileen's memories came out sounding more like Peter Pan. :)
Dan has started into wrestling season again, and as a result had had to be away a lot. When he came home with his new coach shirts, he asked Eileen if she liked his new shirt, and she said "Yes, can I have it?" Instead Dan gave her one of his old ones, and of course Anna needed one too. When she said how much she was going to miss Daddy, we told her she could just wear his shirt to help her feel better. So the girls have worn them as PJ's while Dan was away at wrestling. They just look so cute!!

Finally, our big news, we (by that I mean me) are potty training Anna. Anna ran around bottomless all morning and held it all in until after lunch when she let a little leak. (fortunately she had been confined to the kitchen so it was easy clean up) She came and told me and we rushed her to the toilet where she sat for 10 minutes before she finally let it all out in the toilet. Eileen, Aaron and I all clapped and cheered for her! I then put her in a diaper and put her down for her nap. After naps she was still dry, so I sat her on the potty and and shortly she again went in the potty! I'm so excited, we made it through the first day of potty training with out any major accidents and a couple successes. Not that she is anywhere near potty trained yet, but it's nice to have the first day go so well. Eileen was also a HUGE help, she sat i the bathroom with Anna and read books to her and brought in books for her to look at. What a sweet big sister! Aaron of course tried to get into everything, but he clapped for her when she did it!

Happy Birthday Eileen!

Today my little girl turned 4. I can't believe how much she has grown this last year. This has been a big year for her. With preshcool starting and a new brother joining the family. she has truly grown up before my eyes. We had a birthday party for her Saturday night so her Aunt Sandi and Uncle Jon could be there. It was so funny to watch her open her presents. Most of them were clothes since she was in desperate need of some cool weather clothes, but she was very diplomatic about it, saying how cute each thing was. She even let Anna open some and ooh and aah for her... :) Dan had been gone all day for a bus driver training course and found a surprise when her got home...
Dan had stayed up late the night before to make a special "hot air balloon" cake "just like mommy's" for Eileen because that was the birthday cake she wanted. Unfortunately, she and Anna were unable to wait until after the party to eat some. I caught Eileen chewing some of it, and walked into the kitchen to find Anna's fingers still in it and cake all over her face, hands and the floor. They didn't get any more cake that night....

Eileen's present from Dan and I was a kid tough camera. She opened it first (that was a mistake on our part!) and wanted to play with it the rest of the night instead of opening her other presents! She spent all evening snapping pictures. It was so cute to watch. She got so excited when we showed her that she could put them on her computer!
The first thing she did when we put some on her computer was open them in Paint and color all over them! Here are a couple of pictures she took that night. I think we have a future photographer on our hands! I'm just impressed that she took pictures of what she aimed at!




A few fun facts about Eileen at 4 years old :

1. Eileen love to say "actually..." and then of course she tells us how things really are... :)
2. Eileen loves jokes. Her favorite is "knock knock" - "who's there" - "Elephant!" - "elephant who?" - "ANNA!!!!" None of her jokes make sense, but that's the funny part!
3. Eileen loves to sing. She sings everything, including how her friend Austin is 5 and is going to kindergarten next year"
4. She loves to play computer games and is VERY good at them.
5. She loves to play house and invites Mommy out to visit her at her house.
6. She loves to watch movies (maybe because she only gets to watch stuff once or twice a week) especially "Toy Story" "Bob the Builder" and "Veggie Tales"
7. Her favorite food (the one she requested for her birthday dinner) is Mac and Cheese, in any form.
We love you Eileen!!

Happy Halloween!

Well, The girls, and especially Eileen, were very excited about Halloween this year. Dan and I have been talking up Eileen's old Ladybug costume to her for a while now, so she was excited to get into it when the time finally came. She kept walking around saying "I a lady-bug!" About 4 months ago, Eileen told us that she wanted to be Jessi (From 'Toy Story') for Halloween. Unfortunately, Mommy and Daddy are slackers, so as of Thursday morning, she had no costume. So mommy spent Thursday morning (while Eileen was at preshcool) looking for a costume for Eileen. She had told everyone that she wanted to be a "Cow-she" so mommy went hunting and got rather frustrated... 3 hours later, I picked Eileen up and we went home. She was so excited about her costume that she wore it for the next 2 days straight.
Aaron was a chicken...literally. :) He wore Anna's old chicken costume. It barely fit, but hey, for a hour, who cares! He still looks very cute! (Of course he is very cute...so no surprise there!)The girls favorite part was getting to Trick or Treat with Aunt Sandi and Uncle Jon. We walked around the neighborhood and Eileen rode her "horse" and Anna was carried by Aunt Sandi. The girls made out like bandits and we are now have plenty of candy to last us the year, and to still have enough to hand out next year!!

Our Buddy Jack

For Family Night on Monday we carved a pumpkin. Eileen was very excited about the whole thing, Anna wasn't quite sure what to make of it. While Eileen was willing to dig her hands in and pull out the pumpkin goop, Anna wanted no part in it! As you can see in the picture, she would barely touch it when forced to. Eileen had lots of fun with it. We asked her what kind of face she wanted Jack to have and she said she wanted him to have a "scary face," so Dan carved a scary face for him. Eileen has been talking all week about how scary our pumpkin is and how he is going to scare everyone. In fact it was apparently so scary that Anna refused to sit next to it so I could get a picture with all of the kids next to our pumpkin. Aaron was a whole different story. He was rather curious about what everyone was doing with the pumpkin, but once he tried it once, he had no interest in touching the goop again. What he was interested in was trying to put everything into his mouth (so what's new!!) He tried to eat the pieces of the pumpkin that were cut out (the top, eyes, nose and mouth) and when we took that away, he picked up the spoon that we had used to clean out the insides and ate that. So now, our buddy Jack is sitting on our front porch waiting for Halloween and the girls are very excited about tomorrow and wearing their costumes and going trick-or-treating! We tried on costumes today and they all look so cute!! Eileen was so excited about tomorrow that we had a hard time convincing her to take her costume off for dinner so that she wouldn't get it dirty. Have a Happy and safe Halloween everyone!

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday, we went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch. We met Grandpa there and spent the first hour just walking around and letting the kids go where they wanted and just making sure at least one of us was following each of them! There are tons of fun things to climb on, a tractor, a train, and a truck. There are tons of painted wooden characters that the kids loved to look at, like Nemo, and Dalmations, Care Bears and Dora. Eileen went into the maze for little kids and managed to find her way out in about 15 seconds. I barely had time to walk around the maze to the end before she was on her way out. So next she attempted the bigger kid maze. (Mom was a bit worried since adults were not allowed in) She took a bit longer getting through that one, but once she did, she ran right back to the entrance and re-entered it! Anna was not interested in the mazes, but she spent a long time running around looking at everything and climbing on everything. She knew what she wanted to see and do and did not want anyone telling her where to go. After we all met back up and the girls got to have their faces painted. Eileen got a cute orange, black and white spot that was suppoesd to be Nemo, and Anna got a black pokey spot that was supposed to be a spider. I'd blame the girls for wiggling, but they sat still as stones for the ladies, so I guess they were just in a hurry with so many kids there... Anyway, after the face painting, we went over to where the hay rides were and went on the hay ride. The kids loved it, and after running almost 10 miles that morning, I was just glad to sit. After the hay ride, we went to the bounce houses and the girls bounced for awhile where the girls bounced them selves silly, then we wandered around the hay stacks and pumpkins for a bit until crankiness and fatigue drove mommy and daddy to beg to go home. After a fun filled morning, we all drove home and most of us passed out in the car on the way! Then that evening we went to celebrate Grandma Cox's birthday with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jon and Aunt Sandi. After a fun, but exhausting day, we all went to bed quickly and slept soundly! Best part was the memories made. The kids will hopfully have memories of fun times together as a family, and I have fond memories of watching them explore and learn and enjoy. And the second best part? Admission= $0 Mazes= $0 Face Painting= $0 Hay Rides= $0 Bounce House=$0 Rediscovering just how brilliant, adorable and adventurous your children are...PRICELESS!!! :)

A Day at The Zoo

This morning we went to the Dallas Zoo. Now that the weather has cooled down some, the animals seem to have gotten more active. We had tons of fun looking at the animals and watching them all move and play and eat. We got to see 5 very lively otters playing around with each other, some noisy monkeys hollering at the whole zoo, and some lizards being fed live crickets. We went on a monorail ride around part of the zoo and pretended we were mongooses (mongeese?) :)

Yes that's right, there are penguins that are taller than all of our children.

My favorite part of the day was watching the otters play!!

Daddy and Aaron really enjoyed the monorail ride. Aaron got so excited anytime he saw an animal.

Our big 9 month old

Aaron is officially 9 months old today. I can't believe it's been 9 months since he joined our family. We love him and our family wouldn't be the same without him. It would also be more quiet. Aaron is 27 inches long (45%) 17 lb 8 oz (20%) with a 18 in head (70%) He is healthy, sweet, happy (especially now that his 6th tooth has popped through) and very mobile. He crawls everywhere and he loves to sing along with his sisters. We are still nursing, but mommy is kinda hoping to wean him soon since he won't sit still and pokes, prods, pinches, and hit me while he eats.... Now if we could only get him to take a bottle....

An Opportunity to Serve

Our ward is getting a new building. It has been in the works for awhile now and we are all VERY excited about it. Our excitement is in large part due to the fact that our drive to church will change from a 30 minute drive to a 10 minute (with traffic) drive. The building is in it's final stages and last night, Dan was going there to help the young men paint the building name on the folding chairs. We decided to make this a family outing and had lots of fun dusting and helping and even getting stamped! :) The girls love to be "big girl helpers" so when they were handed a dust cloth and asked to help just like mommy, they were very excited. In fact the hardest part was getting them to remember that they were in a chapel and shouldn't run around screaming as they dusted... :) As you may be able to tell, I couldn't get Eileen to look at the camera, she was just too busy cleaning! Anyway, we had lots of fun, and hopefully taught our kids a bit about the value of service.

My Hubby the Genius

With Dan preparing to start his Masters program, he needed to take the GRE. Today was the day... We got up, he dropped the kids and I off at my parent's house and he went to go endeavor to get an 800 or higher on the test. He'd taken a couple practice tests to prepare for the exam, and knowing that an 800 isn't exactly an impressive score, he wasn't too stressed going into it. The test is split into 3 parts, a quantative (math) a verbal and a written. He got the score for the quantative and verbal right away. So why is my husband a genius? Out of a possible 800 on the
quantative he got...800. That's right, a perfect score, and he hit the minimum for his Masters program with just half his test. He's so smart!!!! :)

So I kinda feel like the last few posts have been rather picture-less, so here are a couple of recent pictures that I just pulled off my camera for fun!

First, is a picture of the wonderful birthday cake Dan made for me!And these are of my cute kids playing outside.

Happy Birthday to me! :)

I had a wonderful birthday! Dan took me to Luke's Locker yesterday morning to let me get fitted for my birthday present. For my birthday he got my a good pair of running shoes for my half marathon. They feel sooooo much better than my old ones, they even make my foot hurt less, so hopefully, I will be back up and running soon, but for now I am excited to try walking in them tomorrow morning. My sister and her husband came to town to visit and they stayed with us Friday night. Eileen and Anna were SOOO excited to wake up and have Aunt Sandi and Uncle Jon still here! They came with us to Luke's, then my mom, Sandi and Iwent to lunch together. Dan made me a yummy cake in the shape of a hot air balloon. That night my mom brought California Pizza Kitchen up for dinner and we all hung out and ate and played. Sandi and Jon gave me a picture frame with pictures from their trip to Colorado, the pictures were all of things that brought me so many memories of my summers at the cabin as a kid! It is beautiful!! Today we had stake conference and Elder Nelson was there speaking, It was a great stake conference, but hugly crowded! Aaron finally broke another tooth. He's been working on one for awhile now, and had been in lots of pain, so hopefully now that it has broken through, he will be a bit less cranky! Anyway, my wonderful husband and family gave me a wonderful birthday weekend!

Grounded...

Or something like it anyway. I have managed to hurt myself. I have an "inflamed something or other" (Dan can't remember what it's called) All I know is that it hurts to run, or even walk. So I'm taking it easy and hoping that it will heal soon so I can get back to training. I'm going to try some cross training tomorrow morning and try a bike in the hope that it will help for later....

Eileen's First Day of Preshcool

Yesterday was Eileen's first day of preschool!!!! She had lots of fun. When we went to drop her off, she was so excited to be there. She ran up the walkway to the house and turned briefly to wave good bye and then was perfectly happy to be rid of me. Anna was not so happy about it. As we left she was very upset at me about leaving Eileen. She kept screaming "No Leave Lene!!" The two younger kids and I went to Wal-Mart to do our grocery shopping, then headed home. The 3 of us hardly knew what to do with our selves with out Eileen there. I got some dishes done and played with the younger kids, then picked Eileen up at noon. She looked so grown-up coming out of preschool. She did such a good job and Sister Thomas said the kids all got along really well together. Eileen very excitedly told me how she had gotten a snack outside and had climbed something that was "kinda hard to climb, but not so hard." She also had fun playing shadow tag. Mommy loved looking at her work in her binder, and seeing her so excited. On the way home she asked if she was going to preschool tomorrow. I told her that she only went on Tuesday's and Thursdays. She sadly asked why only tuesdays and thursdays. I told her that those were the only days that we had preschool but when she went to Kindergarten she could go everyday. That seemed to satisfy her. Congrats to my big girl on her next big milestone!

Ummm...Update, I guess?

So the last few weeks have been kinda busy for us. Dan has been gone alot for work and his calling with the young men. I have been keeping myself busy with play dates and activities with the kids and in my "spare time" doing some graphic design and getting ready for a marathon. And while all these activities have been fun, they have also seemed to come one on top of the other, so none have really gotten posted. :( We took a trip to the zoo, we have had friends over to visit, and had fun at the park. Beside all this, school has started back up for Dan, Eileen is getting ready to start preshool next week, and Aaron is getting more and more mobile.
Dan made a big decision to start his Masters this year. He has found an all-online Masters program that will be starting in October. So he needs to take his GRE this September. It's funny to be because this decision seemed to come so fast, but since it's an online program, our life isn't going to change as much as Dan's brother Steve who is also starting his Masters program this fall and who sold his house and moved his whole family out to Utah to do it. Life will be a little busier, but for the most part, our daily lives won't be that different.
This morning I added a mile to my distance run. I ran 7 miles this morning and can still walk...sorta... :P Anyway, I figure I'm getting there slowly but surely.
Now for the fun part! This morning (yes after I ran 7 miles) we went out on the boat with our friends the Hatches. We had a blast and spent the morning on clear water under a clear sky. We brought the tube along with us and the kids all took a turn being pulled (at idle speed) in the tube with a parent. By the time we got home we were all exhaused!! You would think that we would then all take nice naps...no such luck. The kids slept just enough on the way home to not want to sleep for naps, so of course mommy and daddy didn't get much sleep either :( Oh well, we should all sleep well tonight. And speaking of which...I'm off to bed...it's late. :)

Am I Crazy?!?!?!?

Yes, I am... Let me explain. I have recently signed up for a half marathon. Having never run more than 3 consecutive miles before, I decided that this was a better idea than a full marathon. Why does this make me crazy, after all people run marathons and half marathons all the time? Well for starters, you have this whole not having run anything longer than a 5k before. Next you have the fact that this will be run less than a year after the birth of Aaron. Finally, there's that minor point...I'm not a runner!!!! So here I am attempting to make a good, if exhausting start to the new year. Dan has also signed up, but for the full marathon, and my sister Sandi and her husband Jon are also doing the marathon. My dad is going to walk the half. So this has become a family affair, and really I'm looking forward to the challenge. I went out last weekend for my first "long distance" (for me anyway) training run of 6 miles and the only part of me that died were my feet (courtesy of the quarter sized blister) So I'm feeling optimistic about this whole thing, but really when all is said and done, I can't help but wonder... Am I Crazy!!!!

Primary Fun!!

So Eileen got to go to a Primary activity today. They had a water balloon Olympics! Eileen was so excited to go, but when she found out that Anna was staying home since she isn't in primary yet, she got very sad and told us (in her best pouty voice and face) that she was going to miss her. :( It was soo sweet! This didn't prevent her from having a blast there. Daddy dropped her off and then mommy came early to pick her up and get a few pictures of our little Olympic athlete! Here she is in her water balloon spoon carry! She almost made it without dropping it! (Can you tell that I had as much fun cheering her on as she had doing it!) The last event for her group was the balloon circle toss (pass-it's not like 4 year olds can throw and catch balloons!) Anyway, she did great, and had a great time. It was so funny to watch her just enjoy being part of the action. Finally the games ended and all the kids gathered and got York Peppermint Patty Medals for all their hard work. After the medals were given, a closing prayer was said, and the Bishop was pelted with water balloons. The kids got otter pops and went home sticky, wet, tired and happy!!