2009 Blog in Review

I thought it would be fun to take a walk back through 2009 through the eyes of my blog, and the BEST posts over the past 12 months!  Over the past 12 months, I have posted more than 225 posts!  That’s a lot of memories, I had a great time going back and recounting my favorites!!  So let’s get started ……

January 3, 2009
 

Introducing EMMALEE PAUL FIELDS

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February 13, 2009 
 

Mission Accomplished ~ Nursing Application IN!

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March 23, 2009  
  

Disneyland Video!!

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April 8, 2009  
   

Life as an Only Child!

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May 25, 2009

Scrapbooking Weekend

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June 7, 2009

Jaime’s Birthday Party

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July 21, 2009

Swimming With snails

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August 23, 2009

Temple Square

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September 14, 2009

WICKED

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October 7, 2009   

Welcome Home Sweet Baby Girl!

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November 17, 2009   

March of Dimes Fight for Preemies

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December 23, 2009   

ANNIKA BROOKE MUNRO

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Wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Christmas Board Game Review

For Christmas I got several board games including Bananagrams, Cirkus and UBONGO.  Over Christmas we learned and played Bananagrams and Cirkus.  And, last night we went to the Harrington’s for a game night and learned how to play UBONGO and they had a new board game, Killer Bunnies, that they wanted to try out.  I thought it would be fun to review the games in a blog post!  Please remember that these are personal opinions, and NOT paid endorsements – haha I saw that on other blogs, thought it was funny!

Bananagrams (2+ Players, ages 7+, great for travel)

This is a fun spin-off of Scrabble!  Each player plays their own individual ‘scrabble’ boards, while trying to be the first player to use all their tiles, plus the ones in the ‘bunch’!

6/6 Benson-Fields gave this game 2-Thumbs Up!

Cirkis (2-4 Players, ages 8+, ~20minutes to play)

This is a similar game to Blockus, where you take turns playing “follow the leader” and placing different shaped pieces around the board trying to complete circles and stars to score points!

The jury is still out on this game, not sure if we like it yet or not!  that being said….1/3 Benson-Fields gave this game 2-Thumbs Up!

Ubongo (2-4 Players, ages 8+, 20-30minutes to play)

This game is a Tetris style game!  Players are simultaneously trying to cover their individual boards with certain tiles before other players and against the clock!  This game is VERY simple to learn, but it would be nearly impossible to master!

We played this game last night with Kim, Mark & Sophia where  6/7 Benson-Harrington’s gave this game 2-Thumbs Up!

Killer Bunnies (2-8 Players – great for large groups)

Let me just start by saying, this game was complicated and took a long time to figure it out, in fact my mom quit halfway through and my dad and Kim never did quite understand it!  The funny thing was after my mom left, Sophia jumped in and took over for her and had no problem figuring out the game!  It turned out to be a pretty humorous game, but did I mention complicated??! 

Overall concept, keep other players from collecting ‘carrots’ by killing each other’s bunnies!  However at the end of the game its a total crap-shoot on who wins, all just luck!  Everyone who has carrots gets a chance to win, and if you have the winning (last carrot chosen) you win!  Alex ended up winning, even though I had 5 carrots and she had 2!

I think this game would be more fun the second time you play it, once you understand the concept and how to ‘use’ the special cards!   However only, 3.5/7 Benson-Harrington’s gave this game 2-Thumbs Up!

The Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach

Last Tuesday night, while in Camano, I went the the Munro’s, Austin & Grandma Teresa to The Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach in Stanwood!  This place has over 1-million Christmas lights!  It was absolutely amazing!  I have never seen so many lights in one place!  There are so much lights they start decorating in July!  I don’t really understand why they would even bother taking them down!!  We also lucked out on weather, the day before it rained all day, but when we went it was clear….but very cold!
 

There were so many activities to do here!  One of our first stops was to see Santa!  Aiden & Connor were so excited to see him and see some of Santa’s toys he had on display!  It was nearly impossibly to get the twins to leave Santa!  Even after their turn was over, they kept walking right up to him (in the middle of other peoples pictures) and reminding Santa of what they want!  The girls were less then thrilled [again] with Santa, so Teresa & I sat with them!

    

   They also had a craft building where you could buy little ornaments or toys and paint them!   The boys made these wheel toy spinning top things (hard to explain) and the girls each made an ornament.  All four of them concentrated so hard when they were painting them! 

The Lights of Christmas also had live music, pony rides, a petting farm, and Polar Express Train rides…PLUS the most YUMMY donuts ever!  They sold fresh hot (we watched them make them) donuts I’d ever had.  Move over Krispy Kreme, these donuts were even better!

     

During one of our stops, Alec & Austin took a breather and were sitting in the stroller.  Mackenzie had fun trying to push them!

And before we left they took some family pictures!  I know I have posted the first one already, but it was to cute not to re-post!

I highly recommend this place for anyone looking for a fun Christmassy evening!  You probably won’t make it this year (closes on the 29th I believe), but check it out next year, well worth the money and driving time!

Kelly would be so proud…

Emmalee modeling in the Victoria’s Secret window!  She loved watching the people walking up and down past the window at the mall!  Not to mention how proud she was being able to stand up!  As was already said….Kelly would be so proud of Emmalee!

MeRrY cHrIsTmAs!

Hope you all had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I know my family did this year!  We unwrapped presents for about 4 hours today, taking turns one-by-one so we can see what everyone got!  Two of the gifts I got were addressed to Kelly & Alex, so they got to open mine…grrr!  Oh well, I still had more then then – ha! 

The stockings were hung by the stairs with care….

Madison & Emmalee checking out their stockings & Santa gifts

Santa brought both girls dolly’s
*Madison did NOT get a baby doll, hers was just a doll* ~ Madison

 
Santa & Rudolph ate Maddie’s cookies & carrot and left her a note!

  
The girls & Zak with a huge pile of presents!

 
Emma spent the start of the morning in her excersaucer, until Alex set her free! 

 
Took her awhile to figure out the unwrapping, but she finally got it….just in time for her birthday in 9 days!

I had a great Christmas….no pictures of me, apparently Brandi went baby crazy, actually I lied, there was a couple of BAD ones of me, not about to share those!  But, I did get presents and will share some of them with you!

• LOTS of clothes: Casual & cruise dressy!
• Games: bananagrams, Cirkus, Ubongo
• 27 Dresses DVD
• Cell phone case
• $100, Oasis Gift Card & I-Tunes
• Television installation in my room
• Autographed Jay Buhner Game Baseball – Alex actually bought the ball and HAD Buhner sign it!  How cool is that?!!

I know there’s more but that’s all that comes to mind at this moment!  I apologize if I forgot your present!  Christmas dinner is shortly and then sadly Christmas is over for another year….but that means that the cruise is coming really soon!  As of today, we have 1 month, 3 weeks and 3 days until the cruise!  It’ll be here before we know it!!

I hope you too, had a marvelous Christmas Day!!

ANNIKA BROOKE MUNRO

It’s official now….Annika Brooke Munro is here to stay forever!  After two years of craziness, it’s finally over and she is where she is meant to be!  I got to be there when Alec & Julia had their adoption hearing….over the phone!  The judge & lawyer called and the whole thing was done on the phone!  Alec & Julia even had to raise their right hands and swear under oath!  It was really interesting!  Anyway, let me introduce….

Annika Brooke Munro

How cute is she??!!

 Remember when they got their Christmas Picture taken?  Here it is, how cute did it turn out?

 This was taken at the Holiday of Lights Park in Stanwood!  I’ll hopefully blog about it in a few days! 

Welcome to the family Annika!  We’re so glad to have you here to stay!!  XOXO!

Pool Fun!

I came up to Camano this morning for some Christmas fun with the Munro's!  I met them at their local gym for open swim today.  I was a little hesitant to go swimming because I assumed the water would be freezing, but boy was I wrong!  As you can see by the photos below, the water was WARM, there was steam coming off of the pool.  It made some of the pictures look a bit ghostly!  Brooke's Grandma Teresa & Uncle Austin are visiting for a few days too, so they met us at the pool for some swimming!

Annika Brooke

Papa & MacKenzie

Connor

"Say Cheese" Mackenzie!

Ghostly Julia & Annika Brooke

Aiden with Grandma Teresa

Julia & Alec with their girls

The girls having way to much fun!

More fun tomorrow.....that's for sure....and maybe something else to share.....hmmmm what could it be......??