Summer 2009 - Day 1

I LOVE summer! Yesterday was the last day of school, so last night, Annalise and her bestest buds, Kylie and Aidan had a slumber party. They had a pizza picnic outside, played and played outside until dark, and then came in to take a bath and watch The Tale of Despereaux with a huge bucket of movie popcorn. As Annalise said, they got to stay up soooo LATE! (All the way until 9:30).

The best thing about the start of summer is that Ryan and Uncle Mike work in the yard and get the pool ready. The girls get so excited. So, while they played outside last night, the pool assembly started. The guys got it put up, filled up, and shocked it so it would be all ready for this morning.

The girls slept in (all the way until 7:30), got up and ate donuts and milk, watched Hotel For Dogs while I braided their hair and were chomping at the bit to go outside and welcome the pool into the summer of 2009. So, here they are...the first pictures of summer...now off to get some Popsicles for the beach babes outside!

cute girls in the sun


The girls "getting some sun"


Annalise with the pool noodles


Mia's first year in the big pool!



Mia and Aidan


The whole gang, Kylie, Annalise, Aidan, and Mia

Appreciating Teachers...

I agonize over Teacher Appreciation Week every year (or at least the last three years that I have had a child in school). I have issues with buying ready-made gifts...not that there is anything wrong with them, just because I want to make my own. I am one of two homeroom mom's in Annalise's class this year. The good thing about her school is that every year, there have always been more than one homeroom mom, which helps since we organize lots of parties, and it helps cut down the expense.

So, this year for Teacher Appreciation Week, I pretty much took it over. The other mom had done lots of other stuff throughout the year, especially during the first semester since I was so sick after having Ella. So, I made teacher appreciation week my project...what was I thinking? Seriously, it is not hard for me to find one or two creative things to do...but five days worth?? Mind you, we didn't have to do 5 days worth, but how do you not do every day when it is called Teacher Appreciation WEEK!? So, here is what we did...just in case you need any ideas...

I made all the tags for each day similar...I kindof did "The Five Days of Teacher Appreciation Week" (kindof like the 12 Days of Christmas)-which was an idea I found online...

Day 1:
Have you seen those edible arrangements? I think they are so cool...but SO expensive! Seriously, it is like $80 for a bouquet of fruit!, so I made my own. Granted, it doesn't look like theirs, but it was about 20% of their cost....It was really easy. I just got a cute flowerpot and styrofoam from Hobby Lobby (on sale-of course) and some bamboo skewers and fruit from Walmart. I cut the pineapple into slices and then used a cookie cutter, used a melon baller for the cantelope and then cut the ball in half and stuck it to the pineapple with a skewer. As for the strawberries, I just pulled (NOT CUT!) the green stem off and skewered them upside down. How easy is that?! And sooo cute!





Day 2:
I sent out a note home and collected money for her teacher throughout the weeks before Teacher appreciation week. Then Holly (the other mom) and I got different giftcards that we knew she liked. (I got this idea from someone at church) I got a pizza box and some pizza scrapbook paper that was laminated and put in the box to look like a pizza. Then, I attached the giftcards to the top of the pizza...cute way to give giftcards!





Day 3:
Who doesn't love a movie night? I went to Blockbuster and got a popcorn tub and $5 gift card. Then I went and got her favorite candy and a coke. Everything you need for a movie night at home!





Day 4:
This was my favorite day. I did this for Annalise's teacher when she was in Pre-K and she really liked it. I generally don't like doing things more than once, but I loved this idea, so I reused it! I took pictures of the kiddos and printed them on shrink plastic. I cut out the pictures and punched a hole in the top of them before baking them in the oven. Then I attached jump rings and made a charm bracelet of her 1st grade class. She loved it!






Day 5:
We made a "Why We Love Mrs. Zeaman" book. I took cardstock up to the school a couple of weeks in advance and took the kids a couple at a time out in the hallway. On one page it had a picture of them with their name. They wrote (in their little first grade handwriting and spelling!) the reason the loved Mrs. Zeaman. They also drew pictures and decorated it. It turned out so cute...then I took it up to Kinko's and had it bound. (it only costs about $5). I loved it and so did she...something she can keep forever of this years class!





So, that was it...Teacher Appreciation Week 2008-2009 is done! Now I better get crackin' on next year! Did I mention I don't like to do the same things twice?!

Little Girl on the Go

My baby is 8 months old. The time has gone so fast. It seems like it has been no time at all since August. It is funny how different she is from her sisters. She is doing everything in her own time. Mia was much faster in everything that she did...trying to keep up with Annalise. Ella doesn't seem to care what anyone else is doing, she does it when she wants to.

She is doing lots of things on her own now. She sits up by herself, feeds herself snacks, and now...she has started crawling. It makes me a little sad...maybe it is because she is my last and I want things to slow down...I want time to enjoy every moment of her being little...

It started out that she would roll around all over the living room to get where she needed to go. We would laugh and say that she didn't need to learn to crawl or walk, because she was the fastest roller any of us had ever seen and she got exactly where she wanted to go! Then we went through a time of crawling backwards everywhere. That was pretty funny too. My other girls did that as well. Annalise just scooted backwards and played with whatever was where she ended up. Mia would get incredibly angry because she couldn't make herself go the way she wanted to go. Ella was funny about it. She would look behind her and see where things were before she started scooting, like she knew she was going to go backwards so she needed to aim for whatever toy she wanted.

The scooting days are over...she gets where she wants to go now. She is not incredibly speedy yet, but she doesn't seem to mind. She gets where she needs to be! She doesn't crawl on both knees, she has her right knee on the ground and her left foot on the ground...it is strange...but that is Ella! She kindof looks like a crab... :)


CLICK PLAY

Poor Jacob...

So, it has been nice outside the last couple of days, so it has given us quality outside time! Yesterday, as the kids played outside, I noticed Mia clutching her chest tightly, she was not crying or looking upset, so I just watched her from inside for a while. Every once in a while she would talk to herself and clutch her chest again so I went outside to see what the story was.

"I am hugging Jacob." Mia said.

That is nice, I thought. Mia has a little imaginary friend named Jacob, apparently, and she is hugging the life out of him. That is when I saw it...a little webbed foot flailing anxiously beneath her death grip.

"What exactly is Jacob?" I asked.

"He is my best frog!" Said Mia.




Mia was so very proud of her frog. She carried him around proudly all afternoon, only putting him down so she could catch him again. She called daddy outside so he could see Jacob, and Ryan even picked him up-against his better judgment.




Occasionally, Mia would graciously let her sister hold Jacob, but under her very watchful eye, and not very long, just long enough for Annalise and Jacob to pose for a picture.




Poor Jacob, he was dropped a few times on the ground, but he seemed to recover, and she would pick him up gently and apologize...and....yes.....



...she gave him a big 'ole kiss to make it better!


Click the play button...

Happy Easter

Okay...so a little late on blogging...but here is our Easter. It was a busy weekend. We started on Saturday at the big Easter Eggstravaganza. We went out to Welch Park in Yukon and had a blast with an egg hunt, inflatables, games, hot dogs, etc...the girls had a blast. We stayed there all morning until early afternoon and came home for just enough time to shower and get the girls in their Easter duds...

We went to the park and took pictures in their Easter dresses, because, of course, we were going to have a cold front Saturday night with storms and it would be too wet and cold to take pictures on Easter morning, so we had kindof a dress rehearsal...









On Sunday morning it was rainy and cold. It didn't matter to us...Satan couldn't rain on our parade! We got up and got dressed and ready for our Easter morning. We had a great crowd at church. Annalise and some of the other kiddos sang a song at the beginning of service (Thanks to Shari Z. for working on that with them! It was awesome!). We had several visitors and hopefully those who were there left with what the true meaning of Easter really is.

We came home, ate lunch, dyed Easter eggs, had an egg hunt (indoors of course!). All in all it was a pretty great day!

Happy Easter! He is risen!

March Snowstorm

The crazieness of the weather is about to drive me over the edge! Last week I was so proud of myself. I cleared the girls closet off all winter clothes, and vacuum sealed everything and put them in storage in the garage. I felt so productive and was glad there was NO winter stuff left in the closets since the temperatures had been steadily in the 60s for a while.

Well, since we had a crazy cold front come through Friday night, I got to go out into my garage in my neatly organized winter boxes, un-seal them, dig down to the bottom of the bags, and dig out some winter clothes...so much for my productiveness!! I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of whether or not it would actually get cold...but we woke up on Saturday morning with snow on the ground. The kids were really excited. We started out the week with 60 degree temperatures and woke up Saturday morning with a "blizzard". The snowflakes were HUGE. It was snowing so hard, but the ground was so warm that a lot of the snow didn't stick. Some of it did and the kiddos got geared up in their snow clothes and went out to play in it.

It was really the first time that Mia got to play out in the snow. She had a blast. She was picking up snow and trying to chase her daddy and sister around the yard to pelt them with the snowballs. They made snow angels and stuck their tongues out to catch the snow.

The girls had a great time playing with their daddy in the snow...which, by the way, lasted only until the next morning because the temperature yesterday was near 70! Gotta love the crazy weather! Maybe this week I will re-vacuum seal the winter clothes!

Spring Break Finale

On Saturday morning we loaded the kiddos up in the van and headed to Jenks to the Aquarium. We met a few friends there and made a day of it. The girls had a great time. Mia loves fish. She could look at them all day. She got especially excited about seeing "nemo" and "mr. Ray" because she watched Finding Nemo in the car on our drive up. Several of our friends went, including Ron and Kelli and Mia's best buddy "Khy" They had a great time running from tank to tank and seeing all the different fish. Ryan even took a picture of a "Prawn" because that is what Uncle Ryan calls Mia. It was pretty funny because it was HUGE so it was probably the size of Mia! She also loved the Sting Rays. At the Aquarium they have a petting tank so it is open and Mia liked kneeling on the bench and looking down at the Rays. They would come up to the the side out of the water and splash the kids. They thought it was hilarious!

Aidan was there too! Annalise was excited to go with her buddy. She spent the afternoon reading all the information she could about all the fish. She liked the big sharks when we went into the shark tunnel. She had a great time telling the younger kids what she read about the different fish. She also liked the touch tanks where she got to touch a Sea Star. She had a fantastic time looking at all of the different fish, and the beavers and sea otters too!
Ella was a champ as usual. She hung out on daddy's back in the backpack. She looked around at all of the fish and bright colors. She was a trooper and never was unhappy. We had a great day looking at all the neat exhibits and going to dinner with friends. We are almost sad to go back to school next week. I love it when all my girls are home. I can't wait for summer, when we can all be together all day!