I Blinked and now She is 4

When I was pregnant with B, everyone said, "You blink and they grow up." 

Well, I blinked.

She is at such a fun age, though. And I feel like every year I say, "Time just stop right now" 

But I really mean it now.

She is silly.

She is sassy.

She thinks she is 12. 

She is loving. 

She is enthusiastic. 

She no longer takes naps.

Her first gift was an apron.

She loves to help, so she got to help with breakfast.

Waffles. 

Then she opened up a few gifts.

She opened up the one gift she has been asking for since Christmas.

A choo choo train.

She said, "Mom look Santa brought my choo choo train I asked for!"

Umm no, child we are taking the credit for that one. 

Food!

 And she got sticker earrings.

They were all gone by dinner.

Everyone got to wear them, including the dogs.

 

Her birthday outing choice:

The aquarium. 

There is a rope bridge she loves to go on.

However,  she was wearing flip flops, and she got stuck. like really, really stuck.

and did I mention she likes to do things "by myself" now?

So I had to somehow get around 9 year old boys to get to her, while carrying another toddler.

It took skills.

Also this rope bridge is in the South America section. 

I was already sweating. 

She thought it was hilarious.

It was her birthday, so I was happy to make her day.

 My friend, and mother of one of B's best friends, started doing nails. So we stopped for lunch and got her nails painted.

She requested a Baymax cake.

After scrolling through Pinterest, we settled on Baymax cupcakes.

She was thrilled.

I don't look forward to the day when she isn't so easily to make her happy.

 What You're Like At the Moment

Vivacious, independent, silly, empathetic, sassy.

Favorites: Nightgowns, water, riding her bike, your dogs, "huggies", playing with friends, coloring.

Favorite Toys: Playing with blocks, in your kitchen, princess dresses, outside (yes everything outside), your bike

Favorite Shows: It changes every day

What you want to be when you grow up: A mommy, a vet, and a teacher.

Favorite Meal: Pink Pasta (Pasta in a tomato cream sauce)

Dislikes: Soda, jeans, pjs with the legs that ride up, worms 

It's Been a Good Month

It's been a good month for family visits and reminiscing with old friends.

First up, this girl. 

She and her little family have carved themselves a beautiful life in Alaska.

She brought her pregnant self to the main land for her sister's wedding, 

and I got to spend time with her. 

One of my favorite people of all time.

Then this family of sisters came into to town at the same time and we got to see them!

 My cousins thought it would still be ski season here so they came for what they thought would be a ski trip. They were able to ski but it was pretty pathetic snow. 

So we played at the pool.

Then Brad's sister came into town, and we finally got to meet this handsome baby boy. He's got dimples that will melt your heart.

 

"Baby"

Brad and his sister Janna.

Couldn't have asked for a better month.

I love family, I love friends!

My Ol' Girl

B's new thing is to take my phone and take a gazillion pictures. Now my phone screams at me daily that it's running out of storage space, so I have to go through my phone and delete photos of the dog's noses and paws, and pictures of plants and flowers, and let's not forget furniture. 

However, in this new found past time she did capture this one:

And I kind of love it. 

This was after Sydney had minor surgery. 

She has an incision on each side and one on her stomach. 

During a teeth cleaning we asked the vet to remove some fatty lumps she developed from age.

One was cancerous. I am glad we asked.

I may have taken it harder than I should have. 

I cried.

 Like just had to say good-bye to my mom after I had a baby cried. 

The cancer was removed, I am relieved.

But it was just a gut wrenching reminder to me that she is old.

 Her body is old. 

My very first dog.

My constant companion, my loyal friend, and my family's protector. 

I pat her a little more now. I hug her a little bit longer. I tell I love her all the time.

 I don't know if she understands, but after 12 years she must know, right?

Easter Ham

 

Happiness is giggles, curls and sassy little girly girls.

 The early part of the week of Easter we headed downtown.

We looked at the flowers, sniffed the flowers, and some of us tried to pick the flowers.

 

In the fountain picture my first born is taking her shoes off and had I not physically picked her up she would have gone swimming in there. The little one just wasn't quite tall enough or she would have happily joined in on the shenanigans. 

Who needs an expensive double stroller?

 

 

Then the awaited morning came, and the Easter bunny found us. 

In our house the Easter bunny went under new management. 

She isn't complaining.

However, due to new management there were 60 eggs for the Easter Egg hunt. 

Pfft. Show off.

 The littles thought it was the greatest. 

But in all honestly they think everything is the greatest.

Then we had our feast.

I made my first ham, and I will toot my own horn, it was good.

I used this recipe.

if you do try this I followed the suggestions. 

i didn't use whole cloves, only did 1/4 tsp  of ground cloves to the honey sauce

only used 1 cup of honey

substituted the corn syrup for brown sugar 

and at the end added brown sugar then set the oven to broil and let it form a crust

And the Easter bunny, under new management, did such a good job we will keep him.

Easter Eggs and Easter Bunnies

  

I saw this cute bunny banner on pinterest, 

I pinned it thinking you needed one of those fancy schmancy paper cutters to make it

 so I pinned it thinking "one day", 

but when I finally looked at the tutorial I learned it's just the good ol' fashion trace and cut! 

 You can find the template here at the 504 Main blog

 B sang the song "Little Bunny Foo Foo" the entire week before Easter. 

You just sang it didn't you? 

Good luck getting that one out of your head. 

 Then we colored some Easter eggs with our special guests (Carrie's family).

 Pretty proud of her egg she did all by her big girl self.

Water Color

Brooke, a former college roommate of mine and artist extraordinaire. 

(Seriously, on multiple occasions I would go to bed and Brooke would be in the living room staring at a perfectly blank canvas, when I would come out in the morning she would be passed out of the couch with a work of art sitting on the easel - she said her best work happened during the night). 

You can find her workshop here:

During the month of March she had a special on water color portraits. 

And, well, I couldn't help myself. 

She is one of the sweetest and most gentle human beings I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, so I was happy I could give her my business and support her.

And look at what a marvelous job she did.

I wanted the dogs included in the portraits but they aren't exactly toy-sized dogs, so we thought to make them the girls stuffed animals... and I am in love. 

She included so many details I didn't realize were important until I saw the portraits. 

For example, Sydney's bent ear and the tip of Dixie's tail. 

I am so pleased and thrilled with these, I shall keep these forever. 

#TheGoodLife

Teaching The Littles

I consider myself a spiritual person, and because of that if there is holiday that has a spiritual or religious side to it I try to teach (or attempt to teach) it to my children.

The Happy Home Fairy 

has a great spiritual lesson for toddlers about Easter, she calls it "Resurrection Eggs". 

And it was a hit in this house.  We did this on Monday night. 

I am a strong believer that you don't need to omit the fun just because it's the spiritual lesson. 

Why can't we have both? Well, in the house we can.

There are 6 eggs, and inside each egg are things that symbolize what Christ did. 

Ex: Piece of bread = Last supper ; Cross = He died on the cross;  Rock = a stone was placed in front of the tomb etc. 

I filled the eggs and hid them around the back yard.

 

Then let them loose on the egg hunt.

 They thought it was great.

The spiritual lesson was 2 minutes, and it ended with candy.

The last egg is filled with candy because the sweet surprise is Jesus is alive- pretty awesome yeah? 

They thought so.

Parenting success!