Cheese!

Party Prep

I made cupcakes for Lydda's class birthday party celebration.

She of course wanted to help.

 I love those little piggies.

Lydda Turned FIVE!!!

We celebrated Lydda's birthday with her friends and family.

We chose Whole Foods as the venue and enjoyed it. 

They each got to make a pizza and decorate two cupcakes.

Lydda actually wanted a skating party.  I didn't want to be tortured in such a way.

We compromised, and I'm taking them skating one day.

Just so I can say "told you so," we went to my nephews skating party recently, and after struggling for a while, Lydda said, "This is why I HATE skating!"

I just had to include these pictures too.  She is so beautiful.

She had to make a wish before blowing all the seeds away.

She later found another dandelion and excitedly ran to get it.

She ran back to me and held it up triumphantly.  Her little smile dropped as we stared

at a naked dandelion.  All her running caused the seeds to blow away.  We both got a huge

laugh out of it.  She is such a joy!

Valentine's Day Fun

I'm really annoyed with Pinterest and overachieving moms. What happened to spending $1-$2 on store bought Valentine's cards and being done.  Now I feel pressured to be fancy.  Uhhhhhh!

This year we went with the much loved and popular bubble gum theme.  

I think I went with the too expensive version as well.  I spend $30 on these for 3 kids' classes.

Here was the outcome.

Emogene and Hattie worked on adding glue to the top.  This was a bad idea.  

They just fell off later.  I would have used the sticky glue dots if I had any.  

I think that would have worked much better.

 Emogene searched for a hair style a week ahead of time and it turned out so cute.

 She also beautified (reluctant) Hattie's hair.

 I had someone hold her hand still for the picture.

She kept shaking her head back and forth so I couldn't get a good shot.

She is a little booger sometimes.

For my class, I wanted to do something not too expensive but thoughtful and yummy.  

I made love donuts.

 The strawberries were about the size of an onion.  They were HUGE!

I cut them in half and got two hearts out of each one.

I thought this would be a nice treat for my own kids for breakfast one day.

It wasn't too expensive and it is a nice reminder of how much I love them.

I hope everyone else had a LOVEly day!

Disclaimer:  I was assisted with the love donuts by my bestie Melody.  

I gave her the hard and messy parts because she had the first break of the day.

That was totally not my plan.

Art in the Park

On most Saturdays, we head to the park for Emogene and Hattie to take tennis lessons.  

It only costs $2 a kid.  Hey, it probably won't make them Wimbeldon ready, but it gets them active.

This past Saturday, we had a big surprise.  Our park was hosting an event called "Art in the Park."

They had tables set up for the kids to do art projects.  It was a lot of fun.

The nature art was my favorite.  If Bean is a boy, I want to turn their art into a mobile.  

It will match his bedding.

 This was Pollack inspired painting.  They squirted paint onto a piece of paper in a box and then rolled marbles around in it.  It was very messy.

 This was a texture art table.  They made a hamburger.

 They entered a chalk drawing contest. 

 Sadly they didn't win, but they worked very well together.  

That is a HUGE win to me.

 This was collaborative art.

We enjoyed our day.  It was such a great FREE surprise.

Bean is Growing

Since we aren't finding out the gender of our baby, we call him/her Bean.  

Eric and I were so excited to have our big ultrasound and get to see this little darling.

Bean looks fabulous and everything is going great.

1

 (Hahahahahaha!  My mommy is so funny!)

The ultrasound tech told us Bean's mouth was WIDE open as if he was screaming.  

Well, I prefer to think that he was laughing.

Eric took a picture of his loves while we were celebrating Art in the Park.

My tummy is growing!