KCS Holiday Train

My dad works for KCS, and every year before the Holiday Train goes on it's American tour, they have a Family Night for employees and their families to come visit. Since the girls had just seen Polar Express, they were extremely excited to go back and see it this year!

First, we started at the caboose-end of the train to see Santa Claus, where the girls repeated their request for drums with cymbals and drumsticks, and a microphone. Then, we walked through the various cars of the train seeing trains and Christmas decorations on display.

We ended up under the tent outside for hot chocolate and cookies. This was such a neat experience for the girls, and the yucky drizzle outside made it not crowded. We really enjoyed this, and the girls had a wonderful time!

Craft Time = Fun Time... or Does It???

We had a pretty busy day yesterday! Thanksgiving started with brunch with Del's family. I made a sausage and egg breakfast casserole and a hash brown casserole, and they came over that morning for breakfast. We went to my parents' house that afternoon for an early dinner, where I was responsible for the dressing. So after eating all day, the girls and I came home to assemble a gingerbread house. I had visions of this neat mother-daughter craft experience...... needless to say, we will NOT attempt to make a gingerbread house again in foreseeable future. You can see from the pictures how much of a group effort it was. It really consisted of me working on it by myself with Lacie and Leslie coming in every 5 minutes or so to put on a piece of candy or stick their fingers in the icing. The baggie that was supposed to pipe the icing on broke about halfway through, so we had to improvise, and the girls kept eating pieces of the candy. You can see from the finished product that we aren't very crafty people in the Johnson household.

More Birthday Fun and Christmas Lists!

As mentioned in the earlier post, 'tis the season of the birthday parties. We had another one this past weekend. My friend Amanda's little girl Makenzie had her 7th birthday party at her house with a MASSIVE bouncy. Pictures are below:
Also, the girls are very excited about how close Christmas is getting! They both have made VERY specific requests to Santa... and it doesn't look like anything will change their minds. Leslie has, since July, requested..... drums. Real drums. With cymbals. And drumsticks. In July, Del's extended family had a 4th of July party (where Leslie fell and got stitches in her chin). At the party were Del's twin cousins Beau and Hunter, who are 16 and very musically talented. They put on a show for us, and one played the guitar and sang, and one of them beat on his chair like a drum.... which began Leslie's love of drums. When she first said Santa was bringing her drums, I thought she would change her mind. Nope! So it looks like Santa will be delivering on the drum set, as much as my ears are already begging him not too. Lacie wants a microphone on a stand. They said we are starting a band. Their daddy will play the guitar, and they've told me I will be the "fluter". Not sure what a fluter does when she can't play the flute, but we will see.

They also asked their daddy if they could have a pet unicorn. He told them that unicorns are pretend, and they said, "They DO exist. They live somewhere on this Earth. You just don't know!" They promised to feed him, and clean his horn, and keep him from pointing his horn at the lamp if they could have a pink and blue one. I think Santa might have a hard time coming through on that one.

Birthday Bowling

So, it's that time of year again..... birthday party time. Every year, from about October to April, we have at least 1 or 2 birthday parties a month. The girls have gone to school with the same group of kids since the 1 year old class at Renzis, and as close as they all are, everyone gets invited to the parties. With a class of 15 kids, that's a LOT of birthday parties.

We missed the 1st 2 parties of the year - the same weekend in October. Tanner's was at Sci-Port and Anniston's was at Chuck E Cheese, but we dutifully sent our gift. Last weekend, was Kaitlyn R.'s birthday party at Holiday Lanes in Bossier. We went to a bowling party last year, and it was pure CHAOS, but being a whole year older made a huge difference.
This is a pic of the girls with Emily (one of their best friends) and Kaitlyn, the birthday girl. Kaitlyn is the one in the jeans. Lacie is in the headband.

This is Leslie with her bowling her ball. Lacie is below:

After they bowled, there was a dance part of the party. The girl who was the Party Assistant came out when the music came on and taught the little kids how to do the Cupid Shuffle and the ChaCha Slide... the dances are way cuter when 4 and 5 year olds do them than when the Byrd kids do them at Homecoming!

We have Emily's party today at Jill's Gymnastics, Makenzie's party next weekend at her house with a bouncy, and a ton more coming up in the distant future. With all the fun parties, I've now got to find a fun place for the girls' party in February.... and apparently, I need to book soon. Birthday parties at the fun places book up months in advance!

Pumpkin Carving

Now that the girls are older and more cooperative, we want to carve a pumpkin with them each year at Halloween. Last year, we did one for the girls to share. It was the basic triangle-eyed pumpkin. This year, we were a little more adventurous!
When we went to the store to pick out the pumpkins, we also got a pumpkin carving kit. It came with a handy carving knife, a scraper, and stencils for cool designs. This year, each girl picked out her own pumpkin, and Lacie chose a cat design while Leslie chose a ghost. But, before we traced on the stencil for Del to cut out, we had to cut open the pumpkins and scoop out the seeds - by far their favorite part!


All in all, it took less than an hour. The finished products turned out to be pretty cute! Of course, the carving kit came with glitter markers, so you will see smeared glitter all over the pumpkins...
The pumpkins glowed very nicely when we were done!

Fall Fest 2008

This past Sunday, our church had its annual Fall Fest/Trunk or Treat. Aside from food and inflatables, they had music and a Trunk or Treat, where all of the cars were lined up in the parking lot and kids went from car to car completing carnival-type activities and getting candy.

The girls got to wear their costumes. This year they decided to be clowns because they loved the idea of wearing a full face of makeup. Look how excited they are!
Here they are striking a pose:

Our across-the-street neighbor, Anna, also goes to our church. She is the closest thing the girls have to a big sister. They love Anna, and she plays with them all the time!

Most of the shots we took on the inflatables came out blurry, but here's a good one of one of them.... no, I can't tell them apart from far away in clown makeup!
Luckily, I took pictures of the whole costume, face paint and all.... I'm not sure if they will have face paint on Friday. We washed it off when we came home last night, but Leslie had itchy red splotches on her face where the paint was this morning. Unless I can find some new hypo-allergenic paint, they will be fresh-faced for Halloween!

Johnson Family Fun Day 2008

That's what we called today - Johnson Family Fun Day 2008. Today, Del and I both took the day off work and kept the girls home from daycare to spend the day with our children.

1st stop? Dr. Kendrick for the non-shot FluMist. I know, not fun, but not a shot.... Apparently the girls are old enough now for essentially the flu shot in a nasal spray. When we got there, Lacie told the receptionist, "I'm not sick. I don't need a finger prick or a shot.... only the flu water medicine."

2nd stop: St. Luke's Pumpkin Patch
We didn't get as many good pictures as we normally do. There was an elementary school class on a field trip, so it was crowded; plus there weren't that many pumpkins. Here are a few pics:

Lacie by herself... I couldn't get Leslie to pose

Stop 3: Louisiana State Fair
This was the main reason we took the day off work. If you go to the fair during the week before 3:00, you get in for free and the all-you-can -ride bracelets are only $10 instead of $24. We definitely saved a ton of money by going during the day. The girls rode tons of rides, went through the fun houses, and rode the big gigantic slide about 10 times! In some of the pictures, you will notice that Daddy rode with them.

Stop 4: High School Musical 3
This was the highlight of our day.... Opening Day for High School Musical 3 They decked out in their new HSM t-shirts, but their favorite accessory was the "Troy" necklace. If you are new to the HSM obsession (and it is an obsession), Troy gives Gabreilla a big "T" necklace because she is his girlfriend. Disney store sells these, so Del bought each of the girls one a while back thinking we would keep it till Christmas, but they were so excited about going to the movie that today seemed like an appropriate time for a present. The movie was AMAZING, and I was as excited as my children to see it. They even re-enacted some scenes for us afterwards, which you will see below.

Stop 5 (the last one): Byrd vs. Huntington football game
Leslie wanted to stay home with her daddy, so Lacie and I went to the football game. She and her friend Caitlin got to cheer during the last quarter with their new BFFs, the cheerleaders. I didn't take any pictures, but they were cute. At one point, Lacie (having just seen HSM where in the movie, they cheer "Go Wildcats!") cheered "Go Wildcats" when everyone else was cheering "Go Jackets!"

Johnson Family Fun Day was a total success. The girls went to bed easily around 10 pm. I'll bet they sleep in tomorrow... surely they were worn out from all the fun. With the girls starting kindergarten next year, I don't know if we'll get to take off from school and work for a Family Fun Day in 2009, but we enjoyed every second of this one!