Mid-Winter Break

Last week the kids had a mid-winter break from school. On the first day we visited our friends the Hart's who live 45 minutes away. We went to a fun tractor museum with them and Nathan was in heaven. The girls, however, got bored quickly and just kept asking when we would leave. Seems like that is the case for almost every activity, with some kids enjoying it and others begging to leave. Here Nathan is on a kid-sized John Deere tractor. I think he is looking at the entrance to see if he can make a getaway attempt on the tractor.

Super excited Nathan and very cute Melissa posing with vintage tractor signs. Trying out a big old tractor outside the museum. The steering column is just long enough...

On another day we went to lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe at Southcenter mall. I had been wanting to try this resturaunt ever since a friend told me about it several years ago. Unfortunately, the food wasn't that good and our kids don't like waiting for their food. Luckily we did have some coupons. Eating out with a family of seven can get expensive real quick, so we don't do it often. I think we will have to stick to fast food resturaunts for the time being. Currently, we are big fans of the Dominoes 5.99 large pizzas. Nathan was quite frightened by the mechanical gorilla-robot that kept pounding its chest (it did look kind of Plant-of-the-Apes freekish) so Scott had to hold him (Nathan) the whole time. Of course, once we returned home Nathan kept pounding his chest like the gorilla.
Holly and Emily enjoyed looking at the fish tank behind them though. I think all kids automatically look for 'Nemo' whenever they are near a fish tank.

I took all five kids with me to Fred Meyer and all the girls decided that they each wanted a mini pillow pet. Feeling bad that our break consisted of a tractor musuem they didn't like and not so good food at a resturaunt, I paid for the pillow pets. They were thrilled. Nathan was happy to get a big rig pez machine (see yellow truck in front of him).

The big girls did make good use of the break to clean their rooms. Here is Holly posing in her clean room with the bed made.

And Emily. I'm glad that they can clean their own rooms.

Today I am thankful that

*It is sunny and snowy outside. Silly that we are having a snow day though with only 1 inch of snow, but more will fall this afternoon.

*Holly can make lunch for everybody.

*Emily and her friend keep us entertained by singing their talent show song for us.

Creativity is in the genes

My mom is very creative. She has always been a crafter and is now a terrific quilter. This is a Valentine quilt that she recently made.
Here is a photo of my mom and I from a year ago. Yes, we end up dressing alike often.

My daughter Emily is going to be a in a school musical next month. When I met with the other moms to decide on the costumes I volunteered to make headbands for the bird girls. I'm not sure what I was thinking because I really struggled with how to make the headbands. Luckily my mom came to my rescue with her great ideas. She went to JoAnn's fabric store with me (and my complaining kids-really, do any kids like fabric stores?). We found some supplies and got to work. Here are the supplies before I made the headbands: feathers, some tutu material, black fringe, plain headbands and black felt.

And here are the completed headband decorations. My mom sewed the tutu material and black fringe onto a circle of black felt and then we decorated the middle with feathers and a button. There are five bird girls and each one is a different color.

Here is Megan modeling a completed headband. I covered the headbands with black duct tape and then I glued the decoration onto the headband.

Another mom made the girls tutus and we each bought black leggings, a black t-shirt, black gloves and 2 boas in our girls' assigned colors. Here is Emily modeling her completed outfit. Pretty cute!

Today I am thankful that

*Scott has had a few days off of work and has been very helpful at home.

*Valentines day is over so I can finally take down all the decorations.

*Nathan slept through the night (which rarely happens).

Bunnies and Some Inspiration

Last spring we noticed some wild bunnies in our yard. There were two of them and we would see them early in the morning. We thought they were cute and one day I was able to snap this picture of one of them.
Unfortunately bunnies poo in your yard and eat your plants. By the end of the summer I was not so fond of them. I hoped with the change of the seasons that would be the last we'd see of the bunnies. But then in January when our flower bulbs started sending up shoots I found that the bunnies had returned, DRAT! Each morning when I go outside I can see another bulb that has been dug out of the ground and eaten by a bunny. I just planted these bulbs in the fall and had high hopes for them to be beautiful someday.

So Nathan and I decided to gather rocks from the backyard and put them around each of our flowers in hopes that the bunnies won't be strong enough to move the rocks away and dig up the bulbs.

He is very handy with his wheel barrow (a great garage sale find). You can see the rocks around the flower greens. I wish the bunnies would be scared away by this owl decoration but it hasn't worked yet. I read online that if you get get pet rabbit poo and put it in your garden it will scare away the wild rabbits. Now where do I get my hands (or shovel rather) on a pile of pet rabbit poo.

Now onto the inspiration--I was looking at my cousin's blog this week and she had posted a picture of a big pantry. She lives in an apartment now but would love to have a big pantry in her future house. This picture really inspired me because I do have a big pantry but it looked nothing like the clean spacious pantry my cousin posted. Mine looked more like a dumping ground. Our pantry is also our laundry room and is the walkthrough area between the garage and kitchen but it should look nice. Here is our pantry looking in from the garage.

And looking in from the kitchen. Yes, we had to climb over everything to get food from the pantry. Real dreamy right?

So that very night while Scott was watching Scooby Doo with the kids I decided to clean out the pantry. I got rid of lots of boxes, the old telephone books, took the DI stuff out to the garage...and I could see the floor again. This is the new view from the garage.

And from the kitchen. The bags are things that need to be returned (I am always returning things). And the paint, what do you do with cans of paint that you don't want anymore? The four wheeler, oh how I wish I had a 3 car garage to put it in.
I am quite proud of myself. Now hopefully I can keep it this clean. :)

Today I am thankful that

*I got to go on a lunch date with Nathan and Melissa to McDonalds.

*Holly made this nice poster for Melissa and hung it above Melissa's bed

*It has been sunny for several days in a row!

Fun times and New Stuff

Not only does Nathan like tractors and tow trucks but he loves balls. He found this Texas Longhorn shirt (one of his baby presents I had forgotten about) and insisted that he wear the "basketball shirt". He quickly found a big basketball and agreed to pose for a picture. My little boy is growing up fast.
Megan celebrated Chinese New Years at school. All the first graders were in a parade showing off their Chinese New Years projects. One class had chinese masks to show, one class had made lanterns, one class was a big dragon, and Megan's class had posters. Here she is pracitising her parade walking skills in her classroom.
Next came the waiting for 9am exactly when the parade would begin.

Big sister Emily was lined up in the hallway with her class and all the other classes to watch the fun parade.

In other news we bought a cute side table and lamp for our family room. This was to replace a standing brass lamp with a broken lampshade--a definite improvement.

Melissa continues her artistic streak with new projects everyday. This is a dog on a leash.

Megan began gymnastics at the Little Gym. She has been wanting to be in gymnastics for quite a while and I finally signed her up. There are about 12 first grade girls in her class. She is walking on the balance beam in this picture. One of her coaches is an older gentleman named Robin. Turns out he is the founder of the Little Gym. He came up with the idea 30 years ago and now 200 Little Gyms later he works at the Little Gym we attend. Pretty cool I think.

I guess that explains why there is a fancy Maserati car in the parking lot. It belongs to him.

As I type this post I have a little visitor keeping me company. Kids really are fun.

Today I am thankful for;

*A mom who tends my kids so I can volunteer at the school

*Fun Beehives that I get to associate with as their leader. Last night we decorated headbands with ribbon and zipper ribbon. Not as easy as it looked!

*The mini muffin tins that I got for Christmas. We have made banana muffins, brownies and blueberry muffins in them. They look cute and kids love them.

*Your sweet comments, thankyou for the ones you've left and leave more-I love comments!