The Nashvegas Clores: A Party for Everyone

Alright, I'm back and ready to roll. I've been working on editing and getting photos sent off all this week. Then last night I watched a sweet little 4 week old baby girl for some friends of ours. Now originally when I signed up for this gig, John and I had nothing planned, and we would wrangle the two children together. Nice little trial run if you will. (Oh, and I will). Shortly after I said "we" could do it, John got an email about a work Christmas party. For the same night. Nice.

So instead of putting on a nice little dress and going out for some adult conversation, I got to stay home and facilitate "dentle" (gentle) time with the big Harv and baby Ava. And man oh man, he was a jealous little thing. We're with Sam and MH 4 days a week, but there's something different about a new baby being in HIS home. She cried and he walked over and said "Oh, hi!", like he didn't see her there. Then he "dently" offered her his sippy cup. Very sweet.

However, when she continued to cry for the next hour, he did anything and everything to get my attention. Saying all kinds of words, dancing, playing his banjo, dressing up as Elmo. He did anything he could to a) make the baby stop crying so b) mommy look at me! He sure was hoping this kid wasn't permanent.

And naturally, she stopped crying as soon as I put him to bed. Nice. But really, I probably did have more fun at home with the two of them. Nothing better than snuggling with a newborn.

Since you have to have an official Christmas get together/party for every group you're associated with (doesn't it seem like that's the case this year?!), I decided to follow suite and have a little something for Mary Helen and Harvey. Today we decorated cookies while listening to Christmas music and then we had a fun pizza lunch with cookies. There was supposed to be some fun Christmas crafting in between all of that, but the mess after the cookies----good heavens. After I spent almost an hour cleaning (and doing some laundry) I decided craftiness could wait. Until next week.

Here are a few photos from today. Naturally, I forgot to bring my camera today, but Jenny allowed me to use theirs. Thanks Jenny! :)

So here is what we started with. Pretty darn fancy.

Eagerly awaiting party time. I can just feel the excitement radiating from this photo.

Mary Helen was SUPER into this.

And she was super into sprinkles as well.

The boy needs.a.haircut. Stat.

Up to this point neither of them knew they were working with food. Finally Harvey deicded he's taken a bite of every other art project we've ever done (crayons--check! markers--check! gluey paper--check! finger paint (tastes pretty soapy)--check!), so why not try taking a big bite outta this here craft. And it was magic. Now I'm going to have to work twice as hard to convince him not to eat art projects. "But mom, I did it dat one time and it was so nommy. Gots to see if dis is nommy too."