As A 4-Year-Old Sees It

I haven't downloaded pictures off either of the kids' cameras in a really long time, but they haven't been playing with them much lately.  But yesterday Mackenzie was trying to take a picture and it wouldn't work.  We discovered that her memory card was full so I downloaded them all and found these gems!

Her puppy on the bar stool

Her puppy on the toy tool bench.

Daddy doing push-ups - he must have burped out loud.

Crazy Daddy!

Mackenzie's cars, posed on the bannister.

This was in the tent when we "camped" in the backyard.  I'm not sure if Rylan was faking it for the picture or if she really did snap one of him early in the morning.

His toes and his bunny bear.

Looking straight up at the house.

Babies posing specially for the photo I'm sure!

Daddy supervising the horsey ride.

The roof of the car. (there were a lot of these)

The roof of the combine

The floor of the combine with a mummy mask and Grandpa's foot.

Combining with Grandpa

Fake-sleeping in the car.

Cousin Ella

Jake and the Neverland Pirates on the iPad

Kitties!

A random truck through the window of the car

Her sticker collection - on the headrest of the passenger seat.  Neither of my kids likes putting stickers on paper, they think they should go on walls or toys or furniture.  I've tried to find other places to put them, and this turned out to be a pretty good place.  The stickers they especially treasure are the ones we get at the Dr. office or Target - when we're out and about and it's an unexpected treat.  They never last until we get home to save on a paper, so I started allowing her to stick them here.  They come off easily, she gets to enjoy them every day and she has a limited space!  A win-win for all!

My Pinterest Record

Obviously, I'm a fan of Pinterest!  I love finding new ideas there and I love having a place to keep all those good ideas until I'm ready for them.  But, like many, my attempts at a really neat craft or recipe don't always live up to the inspiration.  Click the link below for some hilarious Pinterest fails.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/newu1085/17-pinterest-fails-654m

Since I've tried many ideas I've come across while perusing others' boards, I thought I'd post some of my final products along with the original and let you be the judge!

First up, the paper covered glass doors.  Here is the original:

http://evanstonfairtrade.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/fair-trade-design-window-panels/

When having a bunch of company, we needed to use the toy room for sleeping quarters, so I wanted to create some privacy in there.  So I measured 1 pane and started cutting.  Here is the result:

Not bad, but obviously you can see light around the edges.  I guess every pane isn't the same size - oh well.  Good enough for me!

Bleach screen printing - the link for this photo no longer worked, so I have no site to link it to.  I thought this might be an easy way to make a customized t-shirt - looked easy enough.

Cutting out the image on the contact paper was the hardest part - what a pain.  No one has worn this yet.  

Fish cupcakes! Even now, these look ridiculously easy.  

http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2012/01/cute-fish-cupcake.html

So why don't they look the same?  The tails were droopy and the faces were weird.  I guess taking the easy way out with white frosting was my problem.

Edible fish aquarium

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/desserts/edible-art-00100000064492/index.html?xid=checklistnewsletter-01-23-2012

These were probably my biggest disappointment.  Not that cute and so totally NOT edible - sprite jello does not taste good.

Checkerboard cake

http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Checkerboard-Cake-1

I actually expected this one to be a fail.  Here was my first attempt on Rylan's 4th birthday.

And my second attempt on Mackenzie 4th birthday.  Second time around was much better but not sure why, I don't remember doing anything different.  Oh well, they both tasted good!

Star cookies

http://www.etsy.com/listing/119781434/dora-the-explorer-cookies-18?

These were for Mackenzie's Dora party last year.  I see it now, the eyes are too far apart!  I won't be selling mine on etsy, but Mackenzie loved them.

Tooth Pillow

http://www.etsy.com/listing/70911842/navy-blue-tooth-fairy-pillow

I shocked myself with this one - I'd say I did pretty darn good!

So my attempts aren't usually as good as the real thing, but that's not stoping me from trying more projects!  

Birthday Videos

Here are some videos of Rylan's birthday party - blowing out his candles,

and trying his new pogo stick.

Mackenzie's Skating Video

I forgot that my mom had taken this video on her iPad, so here is Mackenzie's skating performance!

Right at the beginning, she is the one being carried out by her teacher, she's the only girl with a helmet on.  She did a great job!

You'll be getting more old stuff for a bit as I haven't been feeling well the past couple days - believe me, you don't want me to blog about that!

Quite the Morning

I'm not a morning person - never have been and I don't pretend to be.  So it surprises me too that twice a week I get up to go to my Zumba class at 5:30am.  But anyhow, on non-Zumba days, I would love to sleep in until 7:30am!  It never happens but a girl can dream right?  For the most part, the kids have figured out that it's better to wake Daddy in the morning rather than Mommy.  I won't lie, if someone wakes me up, I immediately get crabby.  And I stay crabby until I get my coffee.  Especially if it's before 6am.  So last week we had quite the morning one day - but it was so ridiculous that it's funny to me now.

I was sound asleep, cuddled up warm in our bed when I wake to, "Mommy, Mommy, I peed in these." I opened my eyes to see Mackenzie dangling her wet undies inches from my face.  I'm sure I scowled at her and then I asked if her whole bed was wet.  She said no, just her panties, so I sent her off to put new ones on and go back to bed.  She skipped away and then I looked at the clock - 5:18am.  Damn - way too early!

I rolled over and in 10 minutes I was almost back to sleep when suddenly someone is poking me in the eye, "Mommy, Mommy, Mackenzie peed in her bed and she's not going to tell you!"  Now it's 5:30am and Rylan is waking me to tattle on his sister.  Nice.  I told him (in probably not too nice a tone) that she already did tell me and it's fine and he needed to go back to bed.  He left, but now after having been woken up twice, my neurons fired up.  What if she really did wet her whole bed?  What are the chances that they'll both go back to sleep?  Should I go check things out?  Is it really 5:30am?  Why is this happening!?!?  Is Nick really still sleeping after all this?  Jerk. (sorry honey, but you know how I am and you understand right?) :)

So I got up, getting crabbier with each step and headed upstairs.  Mackenzie was indeed putting her pajamas back on and getting into bed and Rylan was in his bed.  I tucked Mackenzie in and told them both that it was still the middle of the night and that they needed to go back to sleep.  I don't know why I always think this will work, it never has.  I should know better than to get my hopes up.  But I went back down to bed thinking I would still get another hour of sleep in.

Nope.

10 minutes later, I hear the loudest "whispering" you've ever heard, "Wylan, Wylan - let's go play!"  In 3 seconds flat, they were both in the play room playing dodgeball, running and screaming.  Now I was crabbier than ever so I marched upstairs to scold them and send them back to their rooms.  I stomped back downstairs and dramatically got back into bed.  Despite Nick's claim that he doesn't understand me, he understood loud and clear that I was not getting up again - and I didn't have to say a word.  A few minutes later when we heard the next noise from upstairs he got up and I covered my head.  I never did fall back asleep, but at least I got to stay in bed until 6:30am.  Thankfully not every morning is like that and I can laugh about it now!

Birthday Boy

My sweet boy is 7!!!  6 to 7 seems like a big jump to me - not sure why, but it just does.  Luckily he didn't suddenly grow up and he's still sweet as pie!  Well, he has his brotherly moments when he's less than thrilled about his sister, but what kid doesn't?  Rylan is kind-hearted, playful, funny, inquisitive and full of character.  His favorite part of school is music class and he wants to be a professional golfer when he grows up.  He is getting sneakier when it comes to getting his way and he rarely just walks - skipping or running is much more fun.  He sleeps with his favorite pillow, blankie and bunny bear every night and isn't afraid to give me a kiss and tell me he loves me when I bring him to school every day.  He is constantly asking questions about the world around him and he loves to learn new things.  We hope he keeps all these wonderful qualities and we marvel at the little boy he has become in 7 years!  We are so proud of him and know that he has a bright future.  We love you Rylan!

He wanted an Angry Birds party this year, so that's what we did!

The fruit bowl!

Angry Bird balloons! - I found this site that has free printables for the bird faces - so easy!

The kiddos - Mackenzie, baby Ty with Katie, Luke, Ella, Claire, Jocelyn, and Rylan

Feeding time!

Reading cards

Grandma Mac

Grandma Merrilee

Sweet siblings

Great Aunt Patti

Grandma and Grandpa from the farm

Brad and Barb

Katie, Brian, Ella, and Ty

Renee and Jocelyn

Grandpa Randy

I always have fun making the birthday cake, but it was a nice little break from the decorating to serve angel food cake with strawberries and whipping cream as per Rylan's request.

I'm still wrapping my head around the face that I have a 7 year old!

Angry birds game in real life!  I wrapped shoe boxes in brown paper and found colored balls at the dollar store.  The green balls used to have pig faces on them, but after being played with for a while, the pieces fell off.

A water balloon slingshot from Menards was the perfect bird shooter!

The aftermath!

One more before Grandma and Grandpa had to leave.

My birthday boy!

And my sweet girl!