Superbowl Party

This past weekend we hosted our 8th annual Superbowl Party. Now I'm not exactly sure why we host a Superbowl Party every year. I definitely don't care about the game - just the commercials. And even Jason is much more into college football than pros. He roots for the Patriots, sort of, because Tom Brady went to Michigan. But yet, somehow we had a party a few years back and the concept stuck. I think we've embraced it because it allows us one day a year to really go all out with junk food. Which is tasty, unfortunately!

I started telling Hayden about the party we were going to be having a few days in advance. Every time I mentioned party, she would say Poppop? I said no, not this time. That was last weekend! She's been very fixated on Poppop and pretty much anything we talk about, she brings up Poppop. It's great! Anyway, I'm still not sure she really knew what was going to happen, but she liked when I told her people were coming over (Noah especially). We would run through the list of guests and she would repeat names I said, and then add Noah. And then Marshall. I'm not sure she knows exactly who Marshall is (sorry Marshall!) but she liked the name and said it A LOT! And then he couldn't even come because he got sick! We weren't sure exactly how she'd do at the party, but we relaxed a little bit when she took a good nap, with her good friends Lion and Rainbow Dog.I think she ended up having a great time. She was a little bit shy when Kathy, Mike and their boys, Gabe and Nat, showed up but she quickly warmed up. We had quite the spread of food - meatballs, cheese dip, guacamole, mac-n-cheese, veggies/dip, chips, salad, spanikopita plus three kinds of cookies (peanut butter cup, chocolate chip and oatmeal raspberry bars). Making you hungry yet?

Once everyone got grub, the kids quickly found good places to sit. Hayden and Noah loved sitting next to each other at the table downstairs, while Nat and Gabe took command of the upstairs table - with Blizzard waiting patiently. I was told her patience was rewarded with a wayward meatball. She stuck pretty close by to Gabe for the rest of the evening! :)
Hayden didn't end up being too into the game, she was too busy being busy - running around, screaming, trying to sneak cookies, sitting in chairs, telling other people to sit in chairs, etc. The adults weren't nearly as busy, or photogenic, but we did manage to keep entertained by Superbowl Bingo (did you spot Father-Son Giant Foam Fingers or a coach hiding his mouth from spies?) and with 3-D glasses for the special commercials.

The big hit of the night for the kids was actually the bowl of gems I pulled out for them to play with. Gabe had brought a little vial of beads with it, but I thought they might be too small to have around Hayden. So as substitute, I pulled down a bowl of gems - you know, those little glass shiny things you can find in Michael's to put in candles or fishbowls, we have them leftover from our wedding centerpieces. Much to my surprise they were the absolute hit of the party for Nat, Hayden and Noah. They spent ALL of their time scooping, dropping, stealing, picking up and transporting and just about any other verb you can think of to do with gems. I think most of them ended up in the belly of the airplane.
There wasn't much that distracted them from the gems, until we put the M&M bowl within reach. Noah found it first and managed to get a few, under the watchful eye of his parents, before the other two kids saw what a treasure he had found. Then Nat and Hayden both went for the bowl and it was immediately lifted up and out of reach, with six eyes following after it, trying to decide if they would be able to grab anymore.


All in all it was a pretty fun evening. The kids had a great time and yet still went to bed easily, and at a fairly decent hour. (well at least Hayden did, I don't know about the boys!) Hayden didn't eat too much junk food, she might have mainly had tortilla chips with a little bit of bean dip for dinner, but that was after a big snack of hummus. And I think she only managed to woo her dad to give her one cookie. I know I didn't fall for her charms; I was too busy eating them myself!
The group was a little bit disappointed because we were rooting for the Cardinals in support of Brittany (who's from Arizona) but I don't think anyone felt too badly. It was just fun to have an exciting ending! Another successful Superbowl Party under our belt. If you're in our area next year, come on over, I'm sure we'll be hosting again!

Happy Poppop

We recently returned from a wonderful trip to North Carolina. The main purpose of our trip was to help my dad celebrate his 60th birthday. The best part of it was that he had no idea the entire family would be arriving in Durham to celebrate - we called it Operation Birthday, complete with five phases. :)

Phase 1: The Pennsylvania contingent arrives late Thursday night. We left around 4:30 in the afternoon and with a very smooth drive, stopping only twice since Hayden did a great job sleeping in the car after dinner, we arrived around 12:30 am. A quick phone call to mom when we were minutes away alerted her to our arrival and she promptly woke up Dad and said - your birthday present is arriving, get dressed! Thus moments later we greeted a sleepy, and very surprised, Poppop. Phase 1 was complete.

Phase 2: Friday began nice and quiet. Mom had jury duty (great civic timing, but she did get off). We made plans to go see my grandmother in Cary and to pick up the 2nd surprise. That meant brushing dad off on his request to come with us, but we made plans to go to lunch. We had a nice visit with Grandma and got the very snazzy cake (phase 2!) from the bakery - the same place we got our wedding cake from. The thing was HUGE and only sat in the bottom of a box, so we weren't sure how to "hide" it when we went to lunch. We just parked far away and made sure dad came nowhere near. Once back at the house, we were able to secret it downstairs to wait for it's special debut. We couldn't WAIT to eat it.

After a yummy Mexican lunch, we had plans for Hayden to nap and then to head to the mall to meet up with a friend and her daughter. Of course that meant Hayden had no interest in going to sleep. She played, screeched, cried a bit and joyfully greeted Jason when he went in to check on her after an hour. Dad volunteered to take her for a walk and after about half the block she could no longer resist the lure of sleep.
I ended up getting dropped off at the mall by mom (so middle school!) and Jason and Hayden came later. The play place was great and we had a good time. It was next to impossible to get pictures of Hayden and Allie together - until the end when they both liked getting up in Jason's arms!

Phase 3: Sometime in the evening, Mom got a mysterious phone call from our neighborhood family friend that she was stuck in the mall and needed Mom to get her. Mom headed out and we did the nighttime routine with Hayden - dinner, bath, etc. Just as dad was telling us that we didn't need to wait up for Mom to say goodnight to Hayden, "cuz who knows how long she'll be...", then we hear the car in the driveway and in bounds Aunt Katie. Dad gets a huge hug and has that surprised look on his face again. We all smile and laugh and get ready for dinner. Two sisters home, one more to go.

Phase 4: We have a lovely dinner with Katie, Mom and Dad - pasta with red sauce that Mom "lightens" up with cream. May not be good for you but it tastes YUMMY! Katie, who has a reputation in the family for being out late with friends, makes plans to head out to visit people. After all, she lives on the West Coast now so she doesn't see her NC people all that often. I loan her our car and off she goes. A little while later, we're all headed to bed, but the car comes back to the house. Dad takes the dogs out to see what Katie is up to and low and behold, it's Aunt Lacey, Uncle JT and cousin Jay!! Yay the family reunion is complete!

Saturday morning dawns and we need to share Phase 5 - which is a surprise open house birthday party on Sunday. Mom very un-subtly tells dad to check his email where he finds the evite we sent to him earlier. Now he knows about all the surprises (except the cake) and he just can't quite believe anything we tell him now. Luckily, we're all focused on getting out of the door and on the road down to Southern Pines to visit his parents, Great Granma Jane and Great Granpa Rut. We have a smooth trip down and the babies have a fun time showing off for a full audience of 9 adults. Every thing goes well till it's time to head over to the dining hall for lunch and Hayden decides to have her worst tantrum ever. Literally 20 minutes of non-stop, inconsolable fussing. Everyone heads over without us and we finally try taking her for a walk to get her to calm down. It works and she rallies quite well for lunch - eating almost an entire 1/4 lb beef hotdog and as many blueberries as we can secure from the waitstaff. Everyone is entertained and all stay happy. Here's Hayden and Jay playing BEFORE the meltdown.

And here's the Sanford family clan all together.


Hayden had more issues with not-sleeping on the car ride home but she managed. Back home it was family party night. Happy hour was enjoyed, a turkey was fried and the cake made its debut. Crowns were tried on, baby dolls were put to bed in boxes and milk cups were traded back and forth.
Here's dad getting his first view of the cake - that's pretty much what he looked like most of the weekend - happy, surprised and a little overwhelmed. Hopefully that was a good feeling on the inside.
We finally got to try the cake on Saturday night and boy was it delicious. Yum! We all went to bed with full tummies, ready for a big party day on Sunday.

So Sunday we had a great lunch out at another Mexican place where Dad was surprised at the end of the meal with a giant sombrero and happy birthday from the staff (not in Spanish that I recall). I wish I had a picture but I'd forgotten my camera. I think all of us were surprised by the singing but it was fun. Plus the kids even ate stuff. Jay loved the rice and Hayden thought the refried beans were delicious. Naptime finally went well and once everyone was up and about, it was party time! We got to see "aunt" Lori and her new boyfriend Wes, and lots of other family friends.

Mini-cupcakes were had by all, even Hayden.
I think the best part of the day was after the party when the kids just went crazy having fun. Check out this video as an example... (I had a longer, more fun one, but it took forever to upload, so this one will have to do. I'm still learning the video



All in all it was a GREAT weekend. The kids are getting to be SO much fun. They played the piano, helped wash cars, harassed the dogs and just generally enjoyed life.


Hayden said Happy Poppop (her version of happy birthday poppop) many, many times. I'm not sure she's going to understand that sometimes we say Happy Birthday to people besides Poppop. And everyone even made it home safely with no delays. I'll leave you with one final family picture...
Happy Birthday Poppop! Hope you had a great one! Operation Birthday Complete. Over and out.

Portland Christmas Part 2

As promised, here are a few more photos and stories from our trip out to Portland for Christmas. After the main event of Christmas day, we eventually went back to Grammy and Granddad's condo which is just a few minutes from Jen and Aaron's house. That way, all 10 people were no longer trapped together in one house, without the excitement of upcoming Christmas as a buffer. :) The weather/road conditions were still in play as a rental car was secured and plans were made for Aunt Katie to come up for Eugene to visit. Eventually it all worked out. Aunt Katie got to visit and the DeRousie contigent reconvened for 2 dinners at the condo and the snow eventually melted (at least most of it) by the time we left. We even found a play area in the Philadelphia airport. It was a long way to travel but we had a lot of fun - it was a great trip!

Aunt Katie

We had a great time having Aunt Katie visit. We went to lunch at the Blue Sage cafe (for the second day in a row) - Hayden got her own meal of mac-n-cheese with a huge cup of milk. She didn't like riding on the mechanical horse, but she was willing to pose for a picture on the saddle bar stools.

Back at the condo, after naptime, there was some playing and some picture taking. Hayden learned about marble magic (watching her try to get the marble as it rolled along its course was funny EVERY time).






More DeRousie Family Fun

Even though we'd spent a lot of time together over Christmas, it was still nice to all get back together for dinner a couple times at the condo before we left. The kids had fun playing together (with Uncle Jason too) and we all enjoyed good company and good food. Lucy and Hayden liked helping Grammy out in the kitchen. Hayden even learned to make salad, but she's still not all that willing to eat it.


Making dinner can make you hungry - so all the kids got a little snack to help tide them over till we sat down to eat. One of the best parts of the trip was that Hayden learned a new trick! With all the "formal" dinners, there was some toasting and Hayden learned how to toast. She likes to say "Cheers!" and then tap everyone's glass. In the picture, it's hard to tell but she's even toasting with BOTH of her cups!

The kids really did have fun playing together. And by kids I mean, Lucy, Will, Hayden and Jason. :) I'm not sure who enjoyed the magnetic toys the most! Towards the end of our last evening together, Hayden got on a hug kick and kept hugging Lucy and Will. Of course she stopped when I pulled out the camera, but I did manage to get this funny one of her giving Lucy one last big hug! Hard to believe Hayden might some day be as tall as Lucy!

Snow, snow and more snow

Greetings! It may be 2009, but I'm still thinking back to 2008 as I go through the Christmas photos. There sure are a lot to go through! (surprise, surprise). We had a lovely Christmas out in Portland, Oregon. For those of you that don't know, we had a white Christmas. Well a white, icy, rainy, gray, mushy Christmas - since Portland got their 4th largest snow EVER (16 inches I think?!), right before we arrived, and then proceeded to get a little more wintry mix after we were on the ground. And I learned that Portland doesn't believe in plows. They just wait for it to melt. And in this case, wait and wait and wait and wait, all the while driving with chains across giant ruts of ice because all the snowy mush keeps freezing at night. It was a MESS!! I was thankful for my brother-in-law's giant SUV because it was able to brave the roads and pick us up at the airport in the midst of the snowy mess! But enough about the weather and road conditions...

As I started out saying, we had a lovely time in Portland for Christmas. The yucky weather kept us all inside for some seldom experienced DeRousie family time. There was much laughing, lots of playing, some shrieking, a little tantrum-ing as well as the usual present wrapping, cooking, eating, singing, and unwrapping, playing and sleeping that goes on during Christmas. It was great! Thanks bunches to Jen, Aaron and the kids for hosting us over Christmas.

Now on to the pictures! In the interest of keeping this entry from being super long, I'll just post the interesting pictures and caption them, rather than narrating our play-by-play. Besides the verbs listed above pretty much sum up the holiday! :)

I think Hayden would have been content if we had wrapped up Liesl for her for Christmas. She immediately pointed out "baby, baby" when she woke up after our late night arrival.

Will plays with his Lego people - Hayden liked them too and kept sneaking them away.

Hayden tries out her new felt carrots from Aunt Jen. They go perfectly with her new kitchen (that she did not receive in Portland)!

Liesl checks out her new present - a fun house mirror!

Know what's even more fun than opening presents?! Throwing away wrapping paper! Kept her busy for at least 15 minutes.

The aftermath of Christmas morning.

Hayden and Granddad share Christmas joy.

Hayden shows off Christmas dress #1 - and a possible prop for next year's Christmas cards, a giant candy cane!

Lest you think Christmas with a toddler was all candy canes and sugar plums, there were the occasional meltdowns. Even had one on the planeride home - it was fabulous!

Christmas dress #2 - an awesome find at the resale shop! Unfortunately this is the best picture of it. She was so pretty!

And because everyone had Christmas dresses, but we didn't get to go to church because all services were canceled, everyone dressed up for family photos and Christmas dinner!

Christmas dinner - ROAST BEAST! Hayden wasn't a big fan...or wait, actually she was. She didn't eat much until Jason shared a piece of meat with her. And then he couldn't keep up with how fast she was putting it in her mouth!

After dinner, there was a Christmas pile-on. No holiday is complete without one!

The girl cousins. I love that Liesl - who's barely 4 months old is the only one looking at the camera! Hayden always asked to hold the baby, but once the baby was in her lap, she became completely disinterested. So don't hire her to babysit your infant just yet!

And the last Christmas picture - the whole family. I think almost everyone is smiling- it's a Christmas miracle! Merry Christmas!

PS If you don't feel there are enough photos from this trip, there will be more coming in a future post. Aunt Katie will make an appearance, Hayden learns to make salad, and Lucy gets a great big hug from a little cousin, but right now it's time for bed.

Teek-cull, teek-cull!

So if this works (I'm typing as the upload takes place), this will be a first for Hayden's blog. It's a....

VIDEO!

I know you're excited. You should be. I think I might have used up all of my blog storage space, so watch it lots now, because it might disappear in order to make room for more photos down the road. This video is a little out of order, since I'm skipping over Christmas/New Year's completely. Happy New Year! by the way... But since I got a new camera for Christmas that has video capacity; of course we had to try it out. And since Hayden has developed this really fun game called "tickle, tickle" that is SO cute, it was the perfect opportunity to use the new camera. Note that Hayden says is as Teek-cull, teek-cull. Now the video does not actually capture the true game. The true game of "tickle, tickle" is where Hayden yells, Mama! Tickle!, and runs down the hallway - I chase after saying something about the tickle monster coming to get her. She runs with that cute little toddler running-waddle and I catch up with her at the end of the hallway where lots of tickling and giggling commence as Hayden says, tickle, tickle, tickle. We play over and over again and it is lots of fun!

To set the stage for the video, Hayden has taken the tickle-tickle hallway game and applied to other situations, saying tickle, tickle just about any time or place. She has tickled daddy, mommy, Blizzard, etc. During dinner tonight, she was reaching out to us, with hands covered in cornbread crumbs, and trying to tickle. As expected, once we pulled out the camera, she stopped, so that's why you hear me prompting her. It's not the best video ever, but I just love how she says tickle tickle so I hope you enjoy our very first video!!!! Yay!!!

Other things to note in the video - Blizz waiting patiently for ANYTHING to fall to the floor for eating, Hayden signing and saying all done at the end, and the fact that Hayden has TWO cups on her tray, because she likes to double fist: milk and water. Sometimes she makes a tower with them (and says tower) and sometimes she even attempts drinking while holding them in a tower position. It's great.

And I'll be getting to writing about Christmas and New Year's shortly. Still have to upload photos from the other camera, and sort through to select the best ones. Hopefully this weekend. Check back again soon! Happy 2009 from the rock star baby!