A party, car wash, and destruction- oh, my!

The past few days Bri and I have had lots of fun!  It started with going to an end of the year party my friend invited us to.  Bri and I have been watching her baby since she went back to work.  She’s a teacher, so she invited all of us to an end of the year party her 6th graders were having.  We ate lunch and did some dancing.  All the 6th grade girls couldn’t get enough of Bri, and of course she loved the attention.    Here she is having fun at the party.

They also had a little photo booth set up with a black backdrop and lots of fun props.  Bri was super excited to dress up for a picture!

Once we got home and put the little one down for a nap, Bri and I went out to wash the van.  It was actually a really nice day for being outside- not too hot, but hot enough where we could spray each other with the hose and have some fun.    Here’s my little helper hard at work!  The look on her face is quite mischievous- she sprayed me a few seconds before this picture. 

And now for the destruction part.  I went to check on her and found this.  First I was understandably upset, but then I had to laugh- how can you be angry at rainbow butterfly stickers and hearts?  lol.  She helped me clean the door up, and luckily it all came off. 

Life with Bri around is sure fun!

New Year’s Eve

Today was a fun day full of cooking!  The kids were allowed to stay up to ring in the new year, so Kyrie picked out some snacks from one of her new cookbooks and helped me cook.  Here she is crushing up some Oreos for a pie crust!

We ended up making Space Potato Spuds (twice baked potatoes filled with different toppings), mini tacos (they had a cutesy name, but I can’t recall what it was!) with guacamole for dipping, deviled eggs, and an Oreo pudding pie for dessert.  Here’s our spread!  Kyrie did the majority of the work – she’s getting to be a real pro in the kitchen!

We threw a table cloth down on the ottoman in the family room and ate our yummy food while we watched a movie.  The kids were so excited. 

After the movie we burned our Christmas tree.  The kids have been looking forward to this for days and even started asking about it on Christmas.  That thing went up in flames crazy fast and then burned out just as fast.

I caught this picture of Derk….he’s a bit of a pyro!    As soon as that bad boy lit up, he started dancing around the fire like this, moving his arms up and down with the flames, screaming, “Yeah!!!  Yeah!!!!!”  haha

After that, we pulled out the laptop and let the kids watch the ball drop in Times Square.  Poor Bri was super exhausted by this point, and Derk was just sick of having the camera in his face.   

 

Bri crashed right afterward, but Kyrie and Asher managed to stay up until midnight.  Just before midnight we went outside to watch the fireworks from our driveway.  We counted down the seconds on our phones, and then the kids went crazy shouting, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!” at the top of their lungs.    Here are Kyrie and Asher watching the fireworks.

It was straight to bed for all of us after that.  A very busy but fun day!  We’re excited to see what 2012 will bring for our family.  We wish everyone a very happy new year!

Raindrops and reindeers!

It’s always such a big deal here when it rains, and we’ve been fortunate enough to have quite a bit of it lately! This morning we woke up to it pouring down, and Cambria couldn’t wait to go out back to check it out. We always love going out on the covered back patio when it rains. It’s so peaceful to stand out there, listen to the sound of the rain, and smell that wonderful clean air smell, while staying totally dry despite the torrential downpour.

Bri wanted me to take some pictures of the rain out the front door, too. It pretty much floods our front walkway.

A kinda cool shot I took.

After we were sufficiently bored of watching the rain (which I fully admit took a while!), we did a fun Christmas craft. The kids made these handprint/footprint reindeers last year, too, so I thought it would be fun if they made them this year and could compare how much their hands/feet have grown in the last year. The other kids were at school, so their reindeer pictures will come later.

We loved our day full of rain/rein!

The hunt for the best chocolate chip cookie

Those who know me well know that I don’t do chocolate (or candy, or sweets in general…).  But for my family’s sake, I have been on the hunt for THE best chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I have tried numerous recipes, and every time the results are “meh.”  Well, I found one floating around Pinterest a few months ago, and today was the day we tried it.  The consensus is that it’s definitely the best thus far.  So is it THE one?  I don’t know yet.  But at least we’re getting somewhere! 

The girls had a great time helping me make the cookies!

While we baked, Jonathan slept!  He was up ALL night (?!) and finally crashed. 

Such a handsome devil! 

Jonathan!

My brother is here visiting us for a while, and we are having a great time!  Unfortunately I forgot to take the camera to the airport when he arrived on the 22nd and have basically slacked in the picture department.  But I did get a few today. 

He and Derk were sitting on the couch together, each on a laptop, and I thought they just looked so cute and snapped a couple pictures! 

Then tonight Jonathan got into my camera and had some fun snapping pictures!  They just crack me up (Kyrie is sucking on an ice cube in the bottom one, lol).

Here’s a really cute one of Jonathan and Cambria:

Then he insisted I get in a few!  Here’s the most decent one of Jon, Kyrie and I:

 

 

My bro and me!  I’m only showing this picture because to show how handsome he is (I look dreadful!).  I love him so very much and am SO glad he’s here!!

Shopping carts, water colors, and Zelda – oh, my!

Today started off with Cambria giving Zelda a ride in the shopping cart! 

 

After that, we decided to do a craft.  I bought a bunch of coffee filters to use in our crafting, and I gave Bri a couple and let her paint away. 

I was completely floored when I walked by a few minutes later and saw what she’d painted!  I didn’t think she’d done it on purpose, so I didn’t ask her about it because I didn’t want to influence her creativity.  When she was done, she excitedly came and found me and said, “Look, Mommy!  I painted the Earth!”  Um, why yes, you certainly did!

Is anyone else as amazed by that as I am?!  Insane! 

Zelda stayed put in the shopping cart for most of the painting, and then she decided to curl up on the rug instead.    As annoying as these cats are, they sure are cute.

Homemade play doh

Before we bought our house, play doh was NOT allowed.  The reason for that is because in every other place we’ve lived in, there has always been carpet in the dining area.  And of course you know that play doh and carpet do NOT like each other.  Since moving here, though, we’ve been able to finally have fun with play doh.  I don’t know why it took us so long to try our hand at making our own, but we finally just did it today, and it turned out great! 

I got the recipe from this website.  It requires about 10 minutes of constant stirring, and your arm WILL feel like it’s going to fall off.  But the play doh turns out super soft and pliable, and it’s really easy to do.  Bri loved helping, and her favorite part was working in the food coloring at the end.  What I really loved is that you cook it on low, so the play doh doesn’t need very much time at all to be cool enough to handle (like maybe 5 minutes tops). 

Here are some pictures of our play doh fun! 

Spring Break sleepover

The kiddos are on spring break this week, and they asked if they could have a sleepover in the living room. So we blew up the air mattress for Asher and Bri, and then Kyrie had the whole couch to herself. They got to eat snacks and watch a movie, and they had a blast. I went out to check on them and just had to take a picture. They were all just so sweet!!

Finger painting!

Bri woke up this morning and decided she wanted to do some finger painting. I love how she just totally spread out and took up the entire table.

Cookies and games

A couple of days ago after we walked Kyrie and Asher to the bus stop, Cambria asked if we could bake some cookies. I thought that was a great idea, so that's what we did! She thought it was way cool that we were baking cookies first thing in the morning! :-)

After baking (and an outfit change for Bri, as per usual), we decided to play a game. Today she chose to play Caterpillar Color Race by Discovery Toys. I just have to put a plug in for Discovery Toys. They are SO great! I'm going to get the kids several more games for Christmas/birthdays this year. I have been able to find them for much cheaper on eBay as opposed to buying them directly through the Discovery Toys site. We played several rounds, but in these pictures, Cambria is the winner!

It was REALLY hard getting used to having Kyrie and Asher gone during the day. The house was far too quiet at first, and it took Bri and I a bit of an adjustment period to get the hang of all our free time. But now we really enjoy our mornings together! She's such a neat little kiddo, and I'm really glad I have 2 more years before I have to send her off to school.

Making the most of a business trip

A couple of weeks ago, Derk told me he had an upcoming business trip to Phoenix this weekend. I spent the next few days doing some research online to see what fun things I could do with the kids for those 3 days. I decided we'd do lots of fun homemade things that we don't always have time to do.

We started the weekend off by having a spa night! Even Asher wanted to participate. I did some research and found a site that had some pretty easy and cheap looking recipes. The only thing I had to buy was an orange -- I had everything else in the pantry and fridge already. The kids all did a face scrub made from cornmeal and orange juice, then they did a face mask made from yogurt and honey, and they relaxed with cold cucumbers on their eyes. Asher changed his mind and thought it wasn't very cool after all. ;-) After that, Asher played a game while we painted our nails.

We kicked off Saturday with a yummy biscuit breakfast. I've been making biscuits for several months now, and we all agree that they are much tastier than store-bought. After that, we cleaned up a bit, and then we made our own crayons. I've seen this on blogs all over the place and have been meaning to try it forEVER but keep forgetting. I just barely replaced the kids' crayons, and it was really fun to be able to re-purpose all those little broken bits from the old ones. I don't remember what site I used, but it's super easy. Just Google "melt crayons in a muffin tin," and you'll come up with lots of results. It was super fun, and the kids thought it was SO cool!

We were sure glad when Daddy came home, but we had a fun weekend!

Rice Krispie Treats

My kids have been begging to make these for the past week or so. I decided it would be the perfect thing to do together tonight. Derk is gone on a business trip to Phoenix until late Saturday, so we needed something fun to do. They all were great helpers and didn't fight at all when it was someone else's turn to help. We ate them while we watched Monsters, Inc. They got to say up late, and I'm quite surprised they went to bed at all considering how much sugar they consumed! ;-) I think it helped that I bribed them with saying goodnight to their dad. Whoever got in bed first got to be the one to call him, so that was definitely a motivator to run to bed. It was a nice night, and I'm hoping the rest of the nights until Daddy comes home are just as fun! We sure miss him, though.

Dominoes

We had a super fun game night tonight. First we played a few rounds of Sequence for Kids and then dominoes with all of us, then Phase 10 with Kyrie after the others went to bed and then Derk and I played a Lord of the Rings game that we've had for 8 years and haven't ever played. ;)

As we were waiting for Derk to finish doing the dishes, the kids and I had some fun with the dominoes. :)

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