Father's Day...

We had fun celebrating Father's Day this year. We planned some fun surprises for my hubby. I took these pictures of the girls and put them in a picture frame for D to take to work with him. We thought it would liven up his cubicle.

Sunday morning I snuck his Sunday shoes out of the closet and polished them while he was shaving. I tucked one present in each shoe....a new tie, and new Sunday socks. He looked so handsome at church.

After church D got to take a nap while I slaved away in the kitchen making his favorite dinner (a way to a man's heart is through his stomach right!?!). We had homemade lasagna, homemade french bread, and I made a banana cream pie for dessert. It was worth the time I spent because it sure was yummy!

Since D was the king for the day....he he he!

We had fun shopping for some presents for him. We got him some new shirts and some fun stuff you put in a campfire to change the color of the flames. His big present was a 12 gauge shot gun. It was quite the experience buying my first gun. They told me I couldn't because my address was wrong on my driver's license. So I had to go back again....with all four kids both times. It was a total pain. Finally I got through the background check and got to purchase it. They had to escort me out of the store with it. It was kind of fun.
I think he is happy with his new toy. He is excited to try it out. Happy Father's Day sweetie. We love you.

Tooth Fairy Pillow

I made this adorable little pillow for my girls. I had wanted to make one for a long time. Little A's up coming tooth pulling gave me the motivation to get one done. It turned out so cute and my girls absolutely love it. I had to hide it in the closet so it wouldn't get ruined between tooth fairy visits.

Summer Vacation Week #2

We have had another fun week this week. We started out the week doing an art class. We found these little ceramic ponies at Wal-Mart. The girls (especially M) is always begging to paint something whenever I am making a painted craft. I thought these would be fun for the girls to do.

They had a great time, and surprisingly didn't get paint all over the place. I made these little grocery bag art smocks for them to wear so they wouldn't get paint on their clothes.

You just cut off the bottom of the bag and it makes the perfect protective covering. Here are the finished ponies.
On Tuesday I took the girls to the dentist. M got sealants on her molars, and A had to have two teeth pulled out. We were lucky it wasn't 4!
Poor little A has the tiniest mouth. Her two bottom permanent teeth were already up behind her baby teeth. That is why it doesn't look like she has lost any in this picture. There is not enough room for them to come in where they belong. We are praying she has a growth spurt before her next set of teeth start coming. Those teeth are also overlapped into where her next teeth are. The dentist told us that once she gets her 6 year old molars we will probably have to take her to the orthodontist to have them spread things out in there so all her teeth will fit. (That is when I will start regretting that I didn't become an orthodontist!). She was super good when they pulled her teeth. She didn't even flinch. I have never seen a person more excited to lose their teeth. I had just finished making a cute tooth fairy pillow (I will blog about that later), and she was so excited to get to use it first. She was super thrilled the next morning when the tooth fairy had left her $2!!!

We also headed off to the park for a picnic after our dentist visit. I told the girls we would go to a different park every week during the summer. They had lots of fun playing.

Little H has some serious arm muscles. She loves to hang on things. (Check out that little girls cute hair next to her! Her mom was sure ambitious that morning.)

Have you seen enough of my girls' bellies yet? Sheesh! I think we need bigger clothes at our house.

We were going to have water day on Wednesday, but it was raining (hey! I guess it really was WATER day!). So we went to the library instead. We happened to go at the same time as storytime. I wasn't too excited about that. I kind of like having the library all to myself. They were doing some fun father's day books and had some cute paper ties for the girls to decorate for their dad. They really enjoyed it.

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum. The girls had so much fun. We are usually pretty cramped for time when we go, but this time we just wandered around taking our time. We got to play with almost everything. We were there for 4 hours! The girls had a great time though, and I only lost my baby once, and only had the director tell my kid to get off of something once too. He he. I should know better than to let my kid climb on something they shouldn't.

Friday we spent the day playing around the house and getting things ready for Father's Day. That will be the topic of my next blog post though.

Off to enjoy another week of summer. Two down 9 more to go....

Summer Vacation Week #1

We have had a busy week this week. I have been trying to keep the kids busy doing fun activities and classes. We started out the week with a cooking class. We made sugar cookies. I tried a new recipe. The were very light and fluffy. I have never found the "perfect" sugar cookie recipe for us. While this one was good, it was not quite what we are looking for.

We frosted them to look like watermelons. I found the idea somewhere on the internet (I never can remember where I find ideas!). I thought they would be so cute for the first of summer. The girls had lots of fun frosting them. We did it while the baby was napping, or it could have turned into a HUGE mess!

They turned out so cute. We took some to a few other families and they thought they were adorable. DH even had some of his fellow employees comment on them at work when he took them in his lunch.

We have also been doing "Summer Cleaning" as opposed to "Spring Cleaning". I thought I might as well put the girls to work. They have actually had fun doing it. This week we cleaned the living room from top to bottom. It is so nice and clean. We also cleaned out the coat closet.

The girls had fun trying on all of their winter stuff to see if it still fits. It took us a little while to get everything cleaned out, but it looks so nice now.

My oldest wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love. She was going to wait until school started again, but we thought it would be better to do it at the first of summer instead so she didn't have all that hot hair on her all summer long. Here she is before:

She donated 12 inches of hair. The stylist was surprised at how thick her hair is. M said her head felt much lighter after the cut. She has such pretty hair. We get comments on it all the time. It is the most beautiful auburn color. Women pay a LOT of money to try to get their hair that color. Here she is after:

I think the cut makes her look older, but she will always be my little girl.

It has been raining here almost all week. The girls haven't minded one bit since that meant we couldn't go out and do all the weeding I had planned. We did finally make it out to weed all the flower beds in the backyard last night and dead head some flowers. All this rain will surely bring out more weeds next week though.

We have had to be inventive with activities to keep the kids busy while it was raining. One day we made a fort out of sheets and furniture.

The girls played in their little hut for 3 hours straight! They love playing "house". They also had fun reading in there.

The girls have been doing tons of reading. Probably because I am bribing them! They get to earn a little Twillerbaby and a Twillerbee doll. A has to read 500 minutes to get her Twillerbaby, and M has to read 1000. To get their Twillerbee doll A has to read 1500 minutes and M has to read 3000. They are already well on their way. A has read over 180 minutes this week alone.

We have done other fun activities as well. We went shopping and got Dad's presents for Father's Day. We had a girls night last night while Daddy was at scout camp and watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua. We were going to paint nails too, but decided to wait and do that today since Dad will be gone all day. Poor Dad will be taking the scouts on a 20 mile hike today....in the rain. I am sure he is going to be really happy when he comes home!

We have had a great week. I hope I have the energy and ambition to keep up on all the activities and fun things I have planned. I want the girls to make lots of fun memories this summer.

One week down Ten to go.......

My new apron...

I bought the pattern for this apron several months ago. I am finally finding the time to make it. I have been totally on a sewing kick lately and whipped it out pretty quick. I love how feminine it is. It is double sided and can be tied in the front or the back. The only problem is that is it so cute I don't want to get it dirty!

If you are interested in the pattern go here.

Mother's Day...

I had a great Mother's Day this year. My hubby got up and made me breakfast so I could take the extra time to curl my hair cute. It ended up taking longer than I thought, so we didn't get to any presents in the morning. My little K was sad because she got me a bracelet and necklace and wanted me to wear them to church. I got to wear them the rest of the day though. She has pretty good taste for a 4 year old.

My DH had mail ordered me some flowers. They didn't look all that great when they got here, so he went and bought two dozen roses to go with them. They were beautiful. Even the mail order flowers purked up and looked nice.

I got lots of nice presents.....new capri pants, shirts, and enough Scentsy to keep my house smelling lovely for the next year (speaking of, I should really put one in today....that post pork roast smell isn't really doing it for me today....gag!). My hubby also made me a bench for my front porch. I had seen one I loved at a consignment shop. I stopped one day just to *see* what the price was. GASP!!!! $120. Well I wasn't going to pay that for it, so I took a picture and designed one of my own. I don't know what we spent on wood, but I am sure it wasn't any where near $120. I used left over paint from our family room in a house we live in 7 years ago. (We never throw anything away...even if we have to move it 3 times before we end up using it!). So here is my cute little bench that D made for me. It is perfect for my front porch. I made a few cute little pillows to go on it. I have started reading the mail here everyday while the kids ride their bikes. I love it.

What a difference a year makes

We have now lived in our house for one year. I was looking around this weekend thinking, "Wow! What a difference a year can make." We now have our house decorated all cute (if it wasn't such a mess right now I would have taken pictures to post). I still need to do the girls bedrooms though. We have been working on the basement, but put it on hold for a while. We have spent a lot of time working outside the last three weeks. We were going to wait until fall to put in our front yard (so we wouldn't have to mow the grass all summer), but a guy from my husband's work needed some grass taken out and told us we could have it for free if we rented the sod cutter and came and got it. Who can say no to free grass? So after a lot of hard work (especially by my husband) we have our front yard in. We also happened to pay too much to our escrow account this year, so we got a nice check back that we used towards some shrubs and plants for our flower beds. It will take a little while for things to grow and fill in, but it will look absolutely fabulous when it does.

I thought I would share some pictures of our backyard too. To go from just dirt to this in one year is pretty amazing. My hubby has been working on our sitting area and fire pit this weekend. Once he gets the cement all done our backyard will be done. We might add a few more plants, but all the big stuff will be done.

I really can't believe it has been a year since we moved here. It was kind of funny this weekend because My husband went and helped a good friend move this weekend. It just happened to be on the exact same day that they came and helped us move in last year. What are the chances of that!?!

We have enjoyed living in our house here. We have lots of memories here. We have learned lots of things, laughed over some and cried over others. I often think of memories from the past. I can always figure out when things happened because I remember the place we lived in when it happened. We have happy memories from all the places we have lived. We have learned lots of things, and grown a lot, we have made lots of good friends, and said good-bye to many people who have touched our lives in one way or another. I hope this house will be a place for us to create many happy memories, make new friends, have friends for our kids, and be a place that they will remember throughout their lives.

Here's to another year of adventures!

Iris....

These are what are blooming in my yard right now. Aren't they beautiful?