A Few Things...

I need to record before they get left behind. This summer Grandpa Jody completed making a children's train that hooks right onto his lawn mower. It is really quite the creative project!! I'm pretty sure no fuel containers, dollys, and pipe insulation has ever brought children more joy! Ingenius--and the kids think so too. They love this thing. And it can pull the parents that need to ride with small ones. He has it conveniently all packed away, ready to go in a trailer for any family gathering we have. And it is a hit with all of the kids!! It really is cute!

Drew and Madelyn had fun rolling down the hill in the inner tube with Grandma's help.

Cute Lily.

These next few pictures could not go without being documented in some way. One day I was enjoying a moment of respite while Hannah and Lily played beautifully together in the other room. When will I ever learn? Moment of respite= TROUBLE.


Hannah and Lily had gotten into the fingernail polish--climbed up the shelves to find it no less. Luckily no carpet or painted walls were harmed or vandalized in their project. Just a couple pieces of clothing and themselves.

Who was the major culprit? Well, my guess is Hannah who painted an "H" on her tummy and totally gave Lily a makeover. She hasn't figured out that that "H" marking is a dead giveaway..... No amount of scrubbing would take this stuff off, we were just left with time to wash everything away.

I also can't forget Hannah's first love. A little caterpillar she lovingly named Shemo. What started as a mom pointing out the joys of nature, soon escalated into a little girl absolutely losing her heart, loving this caterpillar so much!! We of course had to make him a jar home. She insisted he come everywhere with her--even to the grocery store. I consented and let her. I tried to insist that he stay in his jar, but I would find her in different areas of the house with the jar--lid unscrewed, holding her little best friend.

It really was the cutest thing. We tried to make him as comfortable as we could. Giving him plenty of food.

Finally, we could tell this little guy was slowing down. Hannah knew he was getting sick and insisted we give him medicine. Not knowing of any caterpillar medicine and trying to explain that, she took matters into her own hands and thought that a bit of water would nurse him back to health. Unfortunately, his health went down drastically after that.

We tried to release him back into the wild, but he didn't weather well. Even though it was raining, Hannah took her blanket out onto the porch and stayed at his bedside.

After it was apparent that our little friend had passed on, essentially from being loved too much, I tried to coax Hannah back into the house....it did not go over well. This poor little girl had suffered her first heartbreak.

But Shemo still lives on in her heart, we made little green fuzzy caterpillars out of pipe cleaners. She lovingly named one of them, Shemo.

Intruder

In my somewhat conscious state of sleep, a couple of nights ago, I heard a couple of doors open and close. Finally, one more opening and closing of our garage door did the trick and I was woken up. I looked at the clock and it was shortly after 6:00 A.M. I woke up Jed with a sense of urgency, and told him I heard someone going in and out of our garage!! He took our fire bat and quickly went to check out the scene. I sat nervously in our bed ........ waiting. He came back and let me know that there was no one there. Jed seemed ok with that and headed for the bathroom, but I knew this was for real, so I decided to take matters into my own hands with the fire bat and just make sure our kids were ok. Jed came out as I was approaching the downstairs, a dark figure also came up from downstairs at the same time. A small dark figure. It was Drew-- all dressed for school with backpack, coat, and shoes. I asked him if he knew what time it was and informed him of the time...he just said "oh, I was just really excited for the Christmas party." (The one he was having at school) That made Jed and I smile. He further explained he couldn't find his shoes, so he got his new flashlight...searched the house....and finally went into the garage to check to see if they were in the car. Jed and I just laughed as we imagined what would have happened if we had woken up just a little earlier to see someone going through our house with a flashlight!!! I'm afraid he may have had a very large goose egg on his head! Our little half-size intruder.
Now I'm just a tad worried that Christmas morning will come extra early this year....if he was willing to get up an hour than usual to be ready for school because of a Christmas party!!

Wish us luck!

Pinkalicious Party

I can't believe this girl is six! Time flies.She wanted a tie dye cake for her birthday cake. We thought it turned out pretty fun. We love these colorful cakes because we just frost them white, looking plain enough. Then when we dig into them they just really pop out some bright colors! And it is always a surprise to see how they turn out.

Onto Madelyn's b-day party which I talked a bit about in the post just before this one...these are the party favors we gave out to friends. pink pink pink.

Lunch. I didn't go too crazy and bake my own pink bread or anything....we just did our best to make it pink-ish. I thought the white chocolate pink marshmallows turned out pretty cute though.

Here are a few of the pink party guests.

Here are our pinkalicious cupcakes, Madelyn loved how they turned out.

And here is one of our games, "pin the cherry on the cupcake." All in all it was a great and fun party and it all came together without much fuss!

Birthdays

We've had a lot of them the last couple....few months. Oh my, am I ever behind in recording life's events. I celebrated a birthday in September and some of my favorite moments from that were: the kids making breakfast for me all by themselves--Jed was out of town so they made sure to make me feel special, going on a walk and eating Reed's Dairy--we pretty much go on a walk for my birthday every year..it's just one of my favorite things, I love how the kids were so excited to give me presents. Their excitement kind of rubs off!!

We celebrated Jed's birthday not much later. It was fun....and the sad thing is, when I don't write things down fast enough my brain washes away all memories!! It is horrible.

Atleast I have pictures.

Next was Hannah's birthday, which we celebrated right in the heart of my morning sickness nastiness. So I barely was able to make her birthday wish come true of a "strawberry cake." That was her one birthday wish. And I have no pictures because Lily lost the camera for several weeks. No Halloween pictures either. :( So, I guess, so much for pictures!! She is now 3 and growing up so much. She is still just as full of personality as ever!

Then Madelyn's birthday came next. I had never thrown a friend party for Madelyn before--bad mom huh? So I decided this year was the year. Madelyn and I had a really fun time planning and organizing her birthday. She wanted a "Pinkalicious" birthday party (if you have never read that book, you must, it is very cute). We planned a party with little themes from the book. We played pin the cherry on the cupcake, "pink pink green" as in duck duck goose, and musical chairs. We also read the story at the beginning and asked all of the attendees to wear pink. It turned out fun with a cute little luncheon for the friends too. And it was fairly easy to pull together! Gotta love that. And of course we decorated heartily in pink and made pinkalicious party favors for her friends to take home. I'll put pictures up on a separate post for her birthday, because it is not letting me arrange pictures very easily this time....and I don't want to waste my time!!