Kid's Day

Back at the beginning of May, sometime before Mother's Day, Molly decided that since there is a day to celebrate mothers and fathers there should be a day to celebrate kids. She chose a random day of July 22nd. She hasn't forgotten this day and once July hit she's been anticipating the 22nd. Well the day is here. She expected to not have to do any work, be in charge, choose dinner, and have dessert. 

We celebrated the first Kid's Day by going to kaleidoscope and eating lunch at Fritz's. The kids did have to work (of course I reminded them that I still work on Mother's Day and Matt works on Father's Day). They chose hot ham and cheese sandwiches with chips for lunch and ice cream for dessert. Matt made them a card. When I prayed at dinner I made sure to thank God for them (Molly was thrilled with this gesture).

I hope the day was all it was supposed to be. 

        

        

        

        

     

    

Pinterest mess yet success

I found the idea for banana pops on Pinterest this morning and decided to give it a go during Miles' nap. I'm so glad I excluded him from this activity because it didn't go as so nicely described in the blog. http://we-made-that.com/frozen-yogurt-banana-pops/. 

Here they are, almost gone (don't mind the dinner dishes on the table). They were yummy but a pain to make. I used vanilla greek yogurt and straws instead of cake pop sticks. The biggest problem was the bananas fell off the straws as soon as they were dipped in the yogurt. I don't see how cake pop straws would have been any better but maybe they would have. So now there's a banana in the yogurt. The banana was put back on the straw and then I had to sprinkle the sprinkles instead of dipping. I was hoping the girls would be able to do it alone but not this time. Next time I will freeze the bananas for a bit to see if they stay on the straw. Or maybe I'll splurge and by cake pop sticks. 

      

      

The girls thought they tasted like popsicles .

     

Miles preferred to just eat the sprinkles. 

I will make them again. Fun snack that just needs some tweaking. :)

Art Fest

Recently, Molly and Sophie put on an art show. They're always crafting and displaying art but this particular show had different motives. Money. They wanted me to purchase their art. They were pretty confident I'd give it to them also because Molly was disappointed when she had to settle for a quarter. Nice try, girls! It's not that easy to make $70 and $30. :) 

      

(I wish i could figure out how to flip the picture.)

Sneak is back!

The girls have been so anxious for Sneak the elf to return. Molly remembered he's always arrived on December 1st and was up at 6:15 searching for him. She woke Sophie up in the process. I came downstairs to find them writing a plan to search for him since they couldn't find him.

You see, Sneak forgot where he was going and showed up at grandpa and grandmas house. He was sitting in grandpa's chair. I casually checked my email shortly after getting up and showed the girls this picture. They found it hilarious! 

  

Then, while they were at gymnastics tonight Sneak arrived and perched himself in our tree with his new friend, Glivert. Glivert was purchased at silver dollar city by my parents as our family ornament for the year. Sophie named him. 

The girls didn't see him in the tree until I said, I he's here, in the living room. It didn't take long then. They jumped up and down with excitement and miles kept exclaiming, "sneak". 

Welcome home, Sneak!

The first snow

Sophie has been anticipating snow since last Friday. They talked about it at preschool and she was really excited to see a little on the slide in the backyard. Molly wanted to build a snowman and was disappointed there was only a dusting, if that. Nonetheless, they went out before we took molly to school to see the snow. Molly quickly brought a small handful up for miles to see. He was not impressed and wouldn't touch it because he was so cold. Molly ran inside cold before I could snap a picture of her. Sophie made her snowball and came right in also. We've got some adjusting to do to this cold air! 

      

         Sophie making her snowball

      

          Miles yelling no because he didn't want to touch the snow. 

Kerplunk!

I found the game Kerplunk at a local thrift store in perfect condition for $1! It's the kids' favorite game right now. Even Miles loves to play. He likes to lose because it means more balls (marbles) fall when he pulls a stick. The girls are perfectly fine with this. Winning is a big deal. 

       

       

    

Funnies

Molly: my baby's name is Caroline but her nickname is carol.

Sophie: my baby's name is hosanna and her nickname is hose.

Molly: like the garden hose?

Sophie: (kinda laughing) no

        

        

Molly brought home her pizza certificate from the library for completing the summer reading program. It's for a local pizza establishment and Sophie was remembering Molly received Pizza Hut coupons for the book-it program last year. She couldn't remember the name though and kept asking when Molly was getting one from huts peas! Ha ha

Miles came upstairs carrying a ball in a pan with a spoon saying, "cook ball". He then proceeded to take the ball, place it on the spoon and play baseball.

         

    

Sophie

One of the things I love about Sophie is her usually care-free spirit. She's not overly concerned with how things look or are done. She doesn't have to do things perfectly and is okay when things don't turn out quite the way she expected (most times anyway). 

It's fun to do projects with her because of this. The other day I asked her if she wanted to do a project while miles napped. She said she wanted to make a monkey and that the monkey would have her hands and feet.  She focuses hard when cutting and her little tongue goes back and forth across her lips. It's hilarious to watch. While cutting one hand she accidently chopped off the pinky finger. She looked at me and said, "this hand just isn't going to have a pinky." I laughed out loud at the way she said this. Later she decided we should trace a new hand that had a pinky. :)

                     

Here's her finished monkey. She was so proud of it and cracking up at how silly it looks. I love that she has her own sense of creativity and enjoys the things she makes. 

                    

This is life right now...

Miles and I have been up since 6:45, the girls since 7. This. Is. Early. We are a stay up late, sleep in kind of family. I love not having to stick to a schedule of strict bedtimes and just play it day by day based on moods and what we have planned. This thing called school gets in the way of my spontaneous nights and mornings. See, if the kids just stayed little we wouldn't have to worry about this.  Anyway, Molly starts 1st grade (sniff) on Wednesday, Sophie starts preschool (sniff, sniff) next Monday, and Miles is 18 months old today (sniff, sniff, sniff). Matt switched shifts at work so he's now working overnight and sleeping during the day so I can't rely on him to take the girls to school like last year. I had it made last year. This is better though because he will be awake when Molly comes home from school and we will have evenings together like a "normal" family (if normal really exists). 

I usually don't "practice" getting up early for school. I mean, the more days I can sleep in the better but I have to transition Miles to an earlier nap time, resulting in an earlier bedtime (hopefully). So, here we are up  at 7. Everyone has showered, dressed (except Miles) and eaten breakfast by 8:10. We are in good shape to be on time to school this year assuming all mornings go as smoothly (yeah, right!). Molly hates being rushed around and told to hurry up so I'm trying to allow for plenty of "take your time" in the mornings. 

The challenge today will be keeping Miles awake until 1 which, will be almost impossible because we are meeting friends at the park later on this morning and he will probably fall asleep in the car, and keeping Sophie in good spirits without taking a nap. 

Happy Monday!

That moment when something's supposed to go great and it doesn't...Christmas cookie edition

Today I planned to make christmas cookies with Molly and Sophie. We do it every year and it's something we all look forward to. I thought everything was going to go great. I found a wonderful sugar cookie recipe on bettycrocker.com and set to make them during Miles' nap. We made the dough. It was wonderful raw...with 4 sticks of butter and 3 cups of powdered sugar almond and vanilla extract what's not to like? Fast forward  2 1/2 hours and the dough is chilled. We've eaten dinner, Miles was happy; let's make cookies! Wrong! The dough is hard. When I tried to press the rolling pin, it crumbled. So I let it sit out for a bit. Now it's just as hard only dry. So I added milk (not in the recipe by the way). Then it was sticky. But with a little (or a lot) of extra flour to roll the dough out they worked. It was a slow process though because I had to keep reflouring and rolling the dough out for the girls. They tend to roll too thin and well, thin and the whole sticky dough thing don't work well. 

            

            

I also have to add that this time Miles was not happy. He cried, screamed most times, throughout. 

           

Needless to say, my nerves were shot. But the cookies are done (and the best sugar cookies I've ever made). I just hope frosting them goes smoother....

          

But this is life. And I'm glad that we finished. I did have a fleeting thought pass through my head that we could just buy Santa Christmas cookies. So glad I didn't entertain that thought. Making christmas cookies is one of my favorite christmas memories growing up and I want to pass that along to my children too.

Shout out to firefighters

      

Firefighters really are great people. We frequently see them at hyvee when we grocery shop. Matt says firefighters have to be good cooks because they are always buying food to cook at the station. Lots of practice. Today was no exception. While putting our groceries up on the conveyor belt Sophie accidentally dropped a jar of baby food and it broke. She felt so bad about it and started crying. It was no big deal and we just went right on with our checkout process while a helpful employee took care of the mess. The firefighters saw it and as they were leaving the parking lot (I was loading the van at this point) stopped by the van and gave Sophie a roll of stickers to help her feel better. Way to go KCMO fire department!

Of course, our favorite firefighter is uncle Aaron. He frequently brings his truck over when we have family gatherings and he is working. Here are some pictures from thanksgiving weekend at my nephews first birthday party. 

        

             

                 

         

                 

                 

                

Fun alphabet match turkey

Sophie worked on a fun lower and uppercase matching project the past couple days that is a perfect thanksgiving decoration also. I wasn't sure if she knew all her lower case letters so I thought a little stamping would be a fun way to find out. I cut out turkey feathers and she set to work stamping. Come to find out, she knew all the letters! 

                             

Then we assembled the turkey. Sophie got some good cutting practice in as well cutting out the turkey body, head, and legs. Here is her turkey, named Gobble!

                             

don't be a chicken...RUN!!!

molly and sophie participated in their first organized run this morning at the Deanna rose farmstead in overland park. I was excited that they were able to do this as it was a perfect starter race. sophie ran 1/8 of a mile and molly ran 1/4.

before the race there were games for the girls to play as well as different vendors handing out free stuff! they decorated a water bottle, picked up a coloring book and beach ball and received candy, notebooks and pencils. of course we had to stop for a photo with the chicken. we have a picture with a cow also but it must not have made it in my download.

 

 



 after the star spangled banner everyone did the chicken dance. it was cute watching the girls try to learn how to do it.

they didn't quite grasp all the moves...we'll have to work on it before next year slowly and work our way to song speed.

miles hung out in his stroller most of the morning. fortunately he didn't seem to mind. look how red his hair looks! and it's a bit eddie munster-ish too....got to remember to fix that. :)






sophie's race was first. she started by the chicken coop and ran the loop by the apple orchard and small playground. I wish I could have seen her run but I hung back to see the finish. matt and molly missed it too because they weren't sure which direction she was running. it was a bit chaotic and lots of camera crazed moms (I was one) trying to capture the moment.

 she was one excited girl finishing 5th in her age group! a 5 place finished guaranteed her a trophy and a medal. really, sophie would have been happy with just the medal because it brought her medal count up to 3 but the trophy did make her extra excited. she kept asking me if I was proud of her and told me she was a fast runner.

 

molly was in a very large group of 5 year old girls. I knew finishing in the top 6 would be tough for her but kept telling her to just do her best, run hard and not think about how tired she was feeling. she did just that. she was tanked at the end of her run. poor girl was hopeful she was number 6 but i had to break the news to her that she wasn't. she did finish in the top 10 which we kept telling her was wonderful. it's always a little harder to swallow when your little sister gets a trophy and you don't.



 **it's really hard to see molly but she's behind the girl with her hand on her head.

after all the races were complete we had the awards ceremony. sophie wasn't shy at all about going up to receive her trophy.

 

both girls with their medals

 

and two tired runners (they'd been up since 6) on the way home.