Easter!

Every holiday has it's own hoopla here in the Haley house and Easter is no different!

This year the boys requested that I make their shirts, probably because of the stellar dress I made for Emmy.  But they also wanted to wear jeans.  So t-shirts with ties/suspenders it was!  They loved them and they were pretty cute:)  Emmy had a very cute outfit from Grandma Horsey.

As is tradition Katy and I dressed up our kids to have a little photo shoot, and our bunny Hoppy Joe was a rock star, well as far a bunny models go. 

 Emmy REALLY enjoyed taking pictures alone with the bunny too!

 And to refresh your memory, last year's adorableness!  How is she the same kid?!

 

On Sunday we had brunch and more eggs with the Haley's and dinner with the Rhoades' it was a wonderful day!

 

While there wasn't an official Easter craft night, Katy and I did manage to squeak out some floss eggs one day over lunch.  It was messy, but I do love the finished eggs!

 

I'm not sure why when I email them they end up upside down....  But I did manger to make a few bloggy updates!  I can read it better, and I hope you can too!

It's not easy being green, or is it?

For the second year we and our friends have had a Leprechaun party.  As with many things since the advent of Pintrest, it was taken to a whole new level:

Also with the help of a recent craft night, my St. Paddy's flair was multiplied:

 

And because it was the end of an era, I printed this to remind me of when they were little, and just how lucky we are!

This picture shows just what everyone else sees, I guess they DO look alike!

I had Courtney watch the kids Thursday afternoon so I could take them one at a time on a "date". 

Emerson, didn't really choose, but I do know that she loves nuggets, and animals so lunch and the pet store it was!

 
Colin chose bowling where after two rounds, I gave up.  Turns out he's really good, and my sore wrist reminds me that I lost, 3 days later.

John has been BEGGING to go to the pottery painting place to paint something to keep since we went at the beginning of the month, so we did.

It was very fun to see each of them alone, doing something that they wanted to do. 


I took a class on how to make a dress, it turned out great and I'm excited to put my new found knowledge to work!  Look out fabric world!  Em didn't not feel the same way about the dress:(

Just call me Martha, or Happy 4th!

 Fourth of July is serious business around Longmont and my bff Katy and I took it to the next level this year, competing in the Longmont Picnic Contest. 

It has now become our tradition to have all of our friends meet up before the big concert in the park and have all the kids decorate their bikes. Last year after we all about died from the extreme heat parading from our house to the park, we decided that we would meet at the park and just parade around the park before the concert. We did just that this year, and it was perfect. Our parade has changed from mainly strollers and wagons to scooters and big kid bikes as our kids have gotten older, and we have some new babies in the group, so it just keeps growing each year!

And they're off! Notice John and Colin's shirts that I made from a handme down tie die.

Each year, there is a contest for the best picnic set-up at the park. We have never participated before, but this year we really got into it combine all of our party planning experience for a tablescape that we can now call award winning.  All of our friends and families humored us and we set up a pretty awesome patriotic tent/tablescape/picnic spread. Here is most of the crew.

 Here we are with our finished tablescape. We got to the park at 9am to stake out an ideal shady location next to the playground and spent time perfecting our decorations before everyone else arrived.

Every single thing on the table played into our Stars and Stripes theme.  We warned them it wouldn't make the table if it didn't.  Luckily we have really understanding friends:)  Highlights included: sliders, which made the paper here, layered Jello shots , custom water bottle wrappers and other stickers, a red, white and blue layered punch, 7 layer dip with an American flag on top , a trifle with a star on top, table runner sewn for the event, fruit flag , patriotic pasta salad, and pretzel sparklers.

When the judges came to our table, we had our kids sing Yankee Doodle Dandee. We thought it added that little something extra.

There were 24 entries in the contest this year, and we came in 3rd. Not too shabby for our first time. We took notes and are already planning next year's tablescape. We figure if we had won the first time we entered, it would have been kind of anti-climatic anyway. Now we have something to work towards. We won a family movie night themed gift basket with candy, popcorn, and movies, and a gift certificate to get our oil changed.

Both of us felt very validated by all of our over the top efforts in decor and food when no less than 10 strangers stopped to take photos of our spread, and multiple people also stopped and asked if they could buy our food. We are good at picnicing!

We headed home for naps after the concert and reconvened at our house that evening for a barbeque. All the kids had a great time playing together, and the adults enjoyed patriotic mojitos, good food and Katy's patriotic playlist that has been accumulating songs for the past 4 years.

The kids' table chowing down on hot dogs and/or black bean burgers, fruit, chips and pasta salad.

How many kids can fit in a wagon?

4 kids didn't seem to be pushing the limits of the wagon enough, so Mac and Cam crammed themselves in for a few spins around the yard.

All the kids had patriotic outfits, and Em even had a day AND night outfit.  I think she is just the cutest kiddo!

John, Colin and James doing an impromptu jam session/dance party on the picnic table after dinner. I really wish this was a video because Colin and James' had some seriously awesome moves.

Patriotic bomb pops are really the only way to end a 4th of July meal if you are a kid.

Look how much everyone (Minus Riley and the babies) has grown from last year:

Longmont, along with many other Colorado towns has a fire ban for the rest of the summer, which includes ALL fireworks-even sparklers. I have to admit that I was a little bummed, fireworks are one of my all time favorite things, but we all came inside, turned off the lights and watched NYC's fireworks show on tv and all the kids had a dance party to Katy Perry's Fireworks.
Like most Nichols' parties, this one ended with a little nudity and table dancing.  Just checking if you were sill reading:)

Happy Independence Day!

Most of this post was clearly stolen from Katy's blog, and used for my own :)  Thanks Katy!

Hoppy Easter!

Hoppy Easter!
Before the big day my good friend Katy and I had a photo shoot in my living room with Emmy and Mack.  Honestly it was fully based around an awesome bunny hat given to us by my friend Kate.  We had too much fun doing this and I'm so glad we did!

 Her hair photographs SO red!  It doesn't look quite this red in person, which is too bad!

 What up peeps?

 Colin getting a little shutter time

Em and Mack hanging out, not smiling for the camera, but looking oh so cute!

Actual Easter was a beautiful day in Colorado filled with sunshine and family!

We started the day at our house finding eggs and baskets from the bunny. The boys found all 30 in about 10 minutes! John and Colin found all three baskets and the baby eggs filled with Cheerios and set them aside for Em.
We got all dressed up and headed to brunch at Fox Hill with Grandma and Grandpa, an annual tradition that has the boys calling Fox Hill "brunch". Though we were missing Uncle Grant and Katie Ooh we were still able to eat like kings!

Then we went to John and sues to have another egg hunt and enjoy the weather. More candy and baskets filled with fun activities were found:)  We attempted pictures, but really getting all three to look into the sun at a camera is near impossible!

We headed home for Emmy's nap and the boys went golfing with Colin's new lefty clubs! He is SO excited to have big boy clubs just like John. And he is swing much better now that he is able to do it with his correct hand.

Then we hosted the Rhoades family for a wonderful dinner. My don't do anything to it ham was a success!! (And the leftovers in the crock pot with bbq sauce and some broth, shredded and turned into tacos was even better!)
It was an amazing day that was thoroughly enjoyed by all!

We're Lucky!

The weather in Colorado has been amazing for weeks, with just a slight repreve this week.  Although it's late I thought I'd include what we did for S.t Patrick's day because it is proof that I do things:) While the daddies watched basketball at a bar, all the mommies made green day memories!

 All the kids dressed in their green-Colin, Riley, John, James and Mallory.

And the babies-Emerson, Carter, Macky and Cameron.

The big kids were delighted to discover that a michievious leprechaun must have been in the park and spilled his gold. They had so much fun running around and collecting all the gold coins that they could find.

Gold!

With the contents of a recycle bin, tape, string and some glue and we turned them loose to make leprechaun traps. With absolutely no adult direction or suggestions (and let's be honest, between babies to watch and maragaritas to drink, minimal supervision) the 5 older kids worked together for over an hour creating a leprechaun trap and rigging it up in a tree. They even scattered green food and gold around to attract the leprechaun. John was a bossy leader...

 

Trying to catch leprechauns is hard work! Re-fueling with a green picnic (pasta with spinach and cheese sauce, green apples and green veggie booty).

After lunch all the kids played together at the park until it was time to head home for naps, all of the kids were filthy and exhausted.

All of the Haley, Andrews, Gahn, and Nichols kids and Mamas!

Baby girl on green day!

And a flashback:

John and Colin March 2009 (colin in the kiss me shirt..)

 John March 2008 in the kiss me shirt!