New Years Eve!

So the Stevens family has a tradition for New Years Eve (I am not sure how far this goes back, but at least back when Kevin was a kid). Anyway, the tradition is to have banana splits for New Years Eve. So of course, when we got married I was all for keeping that tradition alive! lol

So here is our spread. Doesn't it look delish??? YUM!! We had Bunny Tracks (no sugar added) and Strawberry (no sugar added) ice cream. Crushed oreos, sprinkles, whipped topping, caramel sauce, strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce and hot fudge. Plus chocolate chips! lol Yeah they were bad, but for one night, it's okay! :-)

This one was mine, don't you just want to eat it up?!

Our New Years Eve celebration countdown. So Kevin had to go to work and Tye needed to go to bed so I said we would do the countdown at like 8:30pm. Well we missed it! lol So then I said well 8:45...missed it again! lol Finally I said okay 8:50! We got it that time. Here is Daddy and Tye Tye getting ready to toot their horns when the countdown was over!

It's seriously hard to blow those things sometimes! lol

Mommy and Tye Tye! :-)

HAPPY NEW YEARS 2009!

The Wiggle Car

No not the WiggleS, just Wiggle (without an S)! lol

So have you ever bought a present and forgotten to give it to your child (or someone else)? Well that is what happened with the wiggle car. Waaayyyyyy back in March (of 2008) we went to the Strawberry Festival (a large local fair--there will be pictures of us going this year soon....okay you probably won't see them until at least June!!! ROFL!). ANYWAY, at the Festival there was this booth that were selling this cute little "wiggle cars", they are like those Roller Racers from when I was a kid that you sat on the seat and you put your feet on the handle bars and wiggled it back and forth to get it to move (I found a picture of it on the internet, see below). Do you remember these??????
Same exact concept for the wiggle car. ANYWAY (again! lol), we bought it for Tye's birthday. Well we didn't get it put together and I kept asking Kevin to do it, never got done. He said he would do it the day of his birthday. Came and went and all that week he was going to do it and never did. Then we forgot about it. So I was bound and determined to make sure to give it to him for Christmas.

This ended up being his second favorite gift. He got out on the back patio and just wiggled away! (No batteries, all them moving the handle bars!)

Daddy decided to try it out too!! YEP, up to 300 pounds can ride on this thing! And as you can see Daddy really enjoyed it!!

Daddy and Tye Tye riding it together!!!

And yes, in case you are wondering, I did ride it. But I guess we didn't get any pictures of it, which is fine by me! lol

Fisher Price Smart Cycle

For Christmas Oma and Opa got Tye a Fisher Price Smart Cycle. Originally Opa wanted to get him one of those motorized car/jeep things. I was like NO WAY (but didn't tell him that)! Luckily Oma is more practical and she thought about the Smart Cycle. I really liked the fact that it isn't just another video game. He has to "exercise" to get the game going and about 85% of the games are learning games, even deductive reasoning, like which piece do I need to use to make the road go the right way. So of course he wanted to put the bike together fairly soon after we got it home.

Showing off one of the games he got. He got Thomas, Hot Wheels and Dora.
Tye supervising.

Daddy struggling! lol But hey at least he is reading the directions....what a good man! lol

Practicing his driving skills

Getting there

Almost done

In business!!! And we're off!!! This is one of the games on the Thomas cartridge.

Only problem was see that cord running from the front to the VCR? Well it got broken and so we had to take it back and get a new one. Soooo that meant putting it together again (and it wasn't the easiest thing to put together to begin with...I know I helped! lol)

My complaint to Fisher Price is why in the world make it like a cord on a hairdryer??? Why not make it a plug that you plug the cord into the bike and then plug it into the VCR? (Like a normal video game system). That cord is really long so you can put it anywhere basically and still reach the TV. The problem is then you can trip over it and tear the thing out and break it again. Secondly when you put it away you end up having to wrap this GIANT cord around the bike instead of being able to wrap it up and put it in a cupboard. Just a pain is all. But that is my only complaint. Tye LOVES it and plays it quite regularly. At first it was the ONLY thing he played with of his Christmas gifts! lol

THANKS OPA AND OMA FOR A GREAT GIFT!!!!!

Christmas Morning

Whenever we get Tye up on special mornings and I have the camera broke out he acts shy like he doesn't know what to do. So he tends to hide sometimes! lol

He spies the tree with all the presents underneath.
WOW!!! Santa actually drank all the milk and ate all the cookies except one crumb, which Tye promptly finished off for him! lol

OOOOOOO Look at the stockings!

Opening stocking gifts

Helping Daddy check his stocking for any remaining hidden gifts in there!

Daddy happy to get Indian Jones and the Crystal Skull (or whatever it is called! lol)

Mommy is very happy to get Biggest Loser 2 workout DVD! Now I don't have to be on the hold list at the library to get it! I can use this DVD any time I want!

What is this?????

How do those wheels work?

Let's try it out!!! Tye on his new "wiggle car". It is lots of fun and you wiggle and it moves!

His new batting tee set

The kitty decided to hide in the entertainment center!

Silly kitty!

The annual Hess truck! When we wrote Tye's letter to Santa he wanted a bulldozer and a dump truck. Well we got both in this! He was sooooooo excited and still plays with it quite often (he is upset right now because the batteries are dead! lol)

Daddy loves his new Steelers watch!

The Bill Engvall "Here's Your Sign" Christmas card. It sang the "Here's Your Sign" song and was pretty funny!

Tye's ornament he made at school! It has a super cute picture of him in the middle of a snowflake.

Normally for Christmas morning we have Breakfast Casserole (with eggs, sausage and cheese). However, this year we decided to make Sally's Strawberry and Blueberry Buckle. It was DELISH! YUUUUUMMMMYYY!!!!!

Playing with his truck (see I told you he loved it!!)

Christmas at Oma and Opa's

Around noon we went over to Oma and Opa's house (Kevin's parents). We opened gifts and had lots to eat.

Kevin's parent's neighbor, Marilyn, always gets the kids a gift. She is so sweet. She found this large race car for Tye and LOVED it! (Last year she got him a cute LITTLE red wagon...big enough for a stuffed animal, not big enough for a child).

Here is Laramie (Kevin's niece) cleaning up some of the wrapping paper.
Opa and Angelie (Kevin's other niece) playing her Leapster. I don't know exactly what was happening on it, but they kept doing something wrong or the program wasn't reading what they were wanting it to do properly or something. So Opa and Angelie were having a grand time, Opa would act all upset and make this silly face (see below) and Angelie would just LAUGH! Pretty soon she started copying Opa and making the same silly face! lol It was funny to watch them playing together.

Bill (Kevin's BIL) caught Tye and turned him upside down! Tye thought it was loads of fun and wanted to do it again!! lol

Christmas Eve Dinner

This was the first time I have ever made a nice dinner for Christmas eve. But I think we might keep this tradition. Who knows. We'll see. We got pretty much everything for this meal from the SHARE program. If you don't know what it is, it is an awesome program where if you volunteer in your community you can participate. They purchase the food in bulk so everyone gets it for a much smaller price. We purchased the Holiday pack for like $24 and got a ham, 12 bake and serve dinner rolls, sweet potatoes, a can of corn, a blueberry pie and several other assorted fruits and veggies. I am not sure if there was something else included, I can't remember. Anyway, it was delish!!!

Here is Kevin cutting the ham.

Tye is waiting patiently to dig in!
I ended up making the ham with a brown sugar (splenda) glaze on it. Then a sweet potato casserole (that was a recipe from my weight loss site...OMGOSH it was divine!! lol) We had green beans and the brown and serve rolls. Here it is. Doesn't it look yummy! And it was!!!!

Here is the full spread. Thanks for a great dinner Mom! lol