Egg-cellent!

It just wouldn't be Easter if we didn't color some eggs. It also wouldn't be an easter project if I didn't take too many pictures. We did the traditional bright colored ones and then tried some tie-dye ones. The tie-dye ones looked cool but were really messy and the girls just did one each before deciding they would really rather do the bright colors. The faces really add character don't you think?

Waterfront

When I say I want waterfront property this isn't what I mean. (Those boards in the lower right is the kids swingset.)


I was picturing a beautiful lake or pond. NOT the woods next to my house flooding because of massive amounts of rain and melting snow The pictures really don't capture the full effect, mostly because I refused to leave the shelter of the porch. You can't tell from the pictures it is pouring rain and windy and cold. Normally in the spring there is a little vernal stream that runs through here maybe six inches wide. As you can see it is a wee bit more water than that right now.


And here is my goofy dog who doesn't seem to care that it is windy, rainy and cold as long as he can lie right down and chew on a bone. Gross story to go along with that bone he is chewing on. It is part of a deer leg that mysteriously showed up in our driveway earlier this week. And when I say deer leg I mean hoof, skin, fur all still attached. And It really isn't a mystery, I think the dog found it in the woods somewhere and brought it home to snack on. We disposed of the leg but he found this smaller piece that he's been chewing on and as long as he doesn't bring it in the house I really don't care.


I'd like to walk out back to the big river and see how high that is but did I mention it's cold, rainy and windy out and I don't think it would be very much fun.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake

I got a chance to Volunteer in Mackenzie's classroom this morning for a fun activity. They read the book If You Give a Pig a Pancake and then they got to make pancakes. But not just any pancakes, they were green pancakes in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day.

The class had been working hard all week doing testing, and this was such a fun way to end the week. The even made cute little piggy masks. The class was also saying good-bye to one of their classmates who is moving away. This is my favorite little piggy!!

Bag Lady

I have this thing for bags. Not purses but bags. And nothing fancy, schmancy or designer. Some of them are freebies from magazine orders. Some I have just picked up here or there. None were very expensive but they all serve a purpose. I have so many in fact my husband has started making fun of me. In fact the other day he asked if I have a bag of bags. And yes, in fact, I do have a bag of bags. My bag of bags are the ones I take to the grocery store with me and obviously they are much easier to carry if they are all in one bag.
Then I have a big waterproof bag for the beach or boat to fit towels, sunscreen, change of clothes etc.
I have two bags for the kids to pack stuff in when they have sleepovers.
I have a bag for the kids to pack stuff in when we go visit someone just for the day.
I have four camera bags all in different sizes depending on how much camera stuff I want to bring with me.
I have a bag for all my knitting stuff.
I have a bag I use as a purse.
I have a bag for my ice skates, who sadly have not seen the light of day in years.
Then I have several more bags 'just in case', cause you never know when you might need a bag.

I have never thought of it as an usual amount of bags, but maybe it is???
Here is one of my camera bags.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

I have a Banana Bread recipe that I got from a good friend. It is a favorite of Rebecca's.
Last week I decided to switch it up a bit and added 3/4 of a cup of mini chocolate chips and poured the batter into muffin tins. Making them the same but different and also another big hit with everyone. So I thought I would share the recipe.

Esme's Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 smashed bananas
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease pan with butter or cooking spray.
Cream butter and sugar. Add bananas. Add eggs one at a time. Beat in flour and baking soda.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 mins. or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Now if you want to make the muffins add 3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips and pour into muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Now this would make a good muffin recipe without the chocolate chips but who doesn't like chocolate chips?

Wacky Winter Weather

About two weeks ago we had some crazy weather that included snow, rain, flooding and hurricane force winds. The winds were the worst part uprooting trees, bringing down power lines and blocking roads. We got lucky and only lost electricity for about 16 hours and with a generator it wasn't really all that bad. There wasn't any damage to any trees around the house. There are several branches down but nothing to cause any trouble. A trek out to the river and we found a tree blocking the trail as well as several more branches. We'll have plenty of clean-up to do once the snow melts!



Here is a picture of the girls on Valentine's day sitting on an ice jam on the river.

And here is the same spot two weeks later after some warm weather and rain!



The river is usually just a trickle over these rocks, actually you can't really see most of the rocks.
These are the same rock that are in the blog title for comparison!

Here is an almost perfectly rectangular piece of ice that washed up on the shore of the river. It shows just how thick the ice was at one point.

A Girl and her Purse

Mackenize loves clothes and loves to put together her own outfits. This is one of those outfits complete with scarf and purse.

Curious as to what a 7 year old carries around in her purse. I had Mackenzie show me. There is a map that she got from a box of scrap paper in art class. It just happens to have Vancouver on one side(Go USA!) and the United States on the other. There is also a fortune that reads 'Go above and beyond your duty. You will benefit from it.' Also you can see there is some money and other various knick knacks including a marble with that looks like the earth.

These are truly essentials for a girl on the go!

Valentine's walk

On Valentine's day we took a romantic walk through the woods. Okay, with two kids and a dog involved it wasn't very romantic but it was fun. The girls and the dog enjoyed what was left of the snow and had even more fun once we reached the river which was almost entirely covered with ice. About a month ago we had a warm spell and a bit of rain that caused a lot of melting and ice jams in the river. These ice jams have since been covered with more snow and ice making some sections thick with layers of ice at least a foot deep in some spots.

Here is a picture of the girls sitting on one of those huge glaciers.

That is all ice beneath them.

Becca hanging onto part of an ice jam that had refroze into the snow.

Cool designs in the ice along the river's edge.

Kenzie sliding around on the ice.

Boomer grabbing an icy snack.

Love Bugs

I found this cute kit at Michaels's last week to make these cute little love bugs. You don't need a kit to make them though. All you need is some pon-poms, googlie eyes, craft foam and glue. You can print out a little saying to go with them too. Just by varying the colors and the craft foam you could make some up for any holiday!

Valentine's thoughts

I like to celebrate all the holidays. Maybe it's just an excuse to make crafts and bake yummy things, or maybe because I love theme related things or maybe just because it's just fun. I don't go crazy decorating for valentine's day just a scattering of a few things here and there.
There are some people I know who don't like to celebrate what they like to refer to as "Hallmark holidays." Those would be the holidays created by the card companies to sell more cards. Unfortunately for me, (or him depending on how you look at it), I married one of these people.
And it bothered me for awhile. I admit I used to dream about being romanced by the love of my life on Valentine's day. But alas, reality set in as I soon realized the love of my life despises anything to do with Valentine's day.
"Why do I need to set aside one day a year to show you I love you when I do all year long? It's all a scam to sell more cards and chocolate." he insists.
True.
But it's still fun.
And in defense of my loving husband, he has given me gifts on Valentine's day, he would just prefer to ignore it all together. It took me awhile but now I'm okay with that. I realized it wasn't any fun for me to have to ask him or guilt him into getting me something. That's not what love is all about. And he does let me know he loves me in little ways all year round. I've found that getting a bunch of flowers on a random Tuesday in April was much more fun than getting flowers on Valentine's day when you would expect it.
So I enjoy crafting and baking with the kids to celebrate because it's fun for me and though he might not admit it, I don't think my husband minds that I include him in my celebrations with goodies and love notes.


And this picture has nothing to do with Valentine's day I just like to include pictures with my posts and this one is kinda funny. I think the expression on the cats face mirrors what my husband thinks about Valentine's day. Hee-Hee.

Birthday Stash

Yesterday was my birthday and armed with a gift certificate and some birthday cash I headed to Barnes & Noble and Michaels. I spent an hour in Barnes & Noble, the second week in a row I've done that, and it is pure heaven to just wander around. If it wasn't so far away I'd be there everyday I think. I ended up with four books for myself (could have easily bought 40) and one for each of the girls. Becca has been reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. She got the first one for her birthday and is already on the third. I think I want to read these too. Kenzie is quickly becoming a little bookworm too. She is currently enjoying the Jigsaw Jones series.

Next I headed to Michaels and enjoyed wandering around there too. I had been holding off getting into the whole clear stamp thing as part of my scrapbooking but just before Christmas I used some of my sister-in-laws and really liked them so I wanted to get some for myself. As luck would have it there were several on clearance. So I got some.... or a lot actually. I only got one set that wasn't on sale and that was the Valentine's set and because I thought it was really cute. So it was fun and I even have some money left over!

Now that the holidays are over and most of the birthdays, I am ready to jump back into crafting and blogging again. I've got lots of cute Valentine ideas bookmarked and plan on sharing them here but for now I have to sign off and go clean up the house. I took the day off from housework in honor of my birthday and boy does it show!

Sled 'n Slumber Party

Today is Rebecca's 10th birthday, but we had a party on Friday. She decided she just wanted to invite her two best friends (and of course her little sister) for a sleepover. So Friday afternoon her BFF's came over. We celebrated with pizza and cupcakes and made tie-dye t-shirts. The following morning they all headed outside for some sledding in the backyard. We have a big tube with three seats that all four girls fit on. The weather was in the 40s and beautiful for sledding!



Here are the girls showing off their t-shirts!


I made little "sleepover" cupcakes one for each of the girls and some extras of course!


Piling onto the tube!

Cute Critters

We've recently added two new critters to our little menagerie of pets. Two 8 week old gerbils.

They are really fun and entertaining to watch. The girls have named them peaches and fluffanutter, though Dom and I like to refer to them as peaches and cream.

I didn't really intend to add anymore pets but Kenzie kept asking even though I had hoped that the zhu-zhu pets she got for Christmas would satisfy her.

They did.

For approximately 2 days.

Dom had insisted he didn't want any rodents for pets other then the rabbits, so that was good. Then while he was at the pet store picking out a new fish for the tank with Becca they were looking at the gerbils and he thought they were cute. Sooo... he said he wouldn't mind getting them since they were active during the day and fun to watch. But it was up to me since I, of course, would become the primary caregiver. And I, of course, being a sucker for cute and fuzzy animals said okay which made the girls very happy. So we now have 2 gerbils, 2 rabbits, 1 dog,

1 cat, and 4 fish!

Holiday Concert

On Monday Kenzie had her holiday concert at school. It was very cute. There was a huge turnout, standing room only in fact. We ended up sitting way in the back and had a little trouble seeing but I did sneak up before the concert started and get a couple of pictures.

Here she is at home. She loves to dress up!




She looked at me and waved then turned away before I could snap the picture!

And finally a smile...sorta.

First Snow

Saturday we got our first real snow of the season. It definitely made it feel more like Christmas. As soon as the ground was covered the girls wanted to got out and play in it.

This is the "I've got a snowball and I'm not afraid to use it" face.

Kenzie tasting the snow. Just watch out for the yellow stuff.

And here is Boomer who loves the snow too. That is not an orange he is eating. It is one of those mini pumpkin gourds. We threw then into the woods and guess who found one. Apparently they make a good snow day snack.

My little helper

When making a wreath for your front door it is important to have help. Especially if said help is furry, has four legs and likes to attack anything that moves. Earlier this week I set out to make a wreath for the front door and put all of the materials on the living room floor so that I could spread out. I didn't intend to provide entertainment for the cat but that is exactly what happened. Lucky for me the camera was close by so I could catch some of my "helper" in action.


Being curious as most cats are she came right over to check out what I was doing. She found it very interesting and proceeded to "help" me attach the colored ball with wire. Of course any moving object is fair game for play, right?

Then she helped choose which color should go on next. But first she had to chase it around the room for awhile to make sure it was just right.

Anyway despite the fact that it took me twice as long to complete the project because of my little helper here is the finished project. Thanks to the dollar store the whole project cost less than 10.00 and I think it looks pretty nice!