Lego Love

I have been a lover of legos since I was young.  I have many fond memories of building things with my legos.  My best friend Tracy and I spent hours playing together with our legos.  I still enjoy playing with legos and lego sets have come a long way since I was young.
Lending to my love of the colorful bricks is their teaming up with some of my favorite movies and creating sets and video games with little minifigures from the movies.  This includes
Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Also finding out via the internet that there are many other adults who share a love of legos and some of these very creative people create photos, blogs, videos starring the little minifigures.  I only just realized that there are collectible minifigures, along the lines of trading cards, you don't actually know what you are getting when you buy a little package but it is kinda fun all the same.  The girls and I are kinda late getting into this as they are already on series 5 but it is fun opening the packages to see what you've got.
I plan on using this online inspiration to create some photo scenes with the minifigs.  One of my favorite lego blogs is the one where the guy did a lego picture a day.  He did a great job and though I do not want to go to that extreme you can expect to see some lego pictures popping up as inpiration strikes.
So here is the first one.........

Even pirates are afraid of clowns!

SnowFall

 We had our first fall snow of the season last night.  I do not get excited about snow before Halloween because it usually means we are going to be reallly cold for trick or treating.  It also potentially mean
an extra long winter, as if it isn't already long enough here in the northeast!  We got a couple inches and it will probably melt before the end of the day but there is a winter storm watch in effect for the weekend which could drop up to 6 inches and that just might stick around!
On the bright side I went out to try to capture some of the prettiness of the moment.  Guess it's time to bring in that lawn furniture...

Rolo Cookies

These are some super easy, super yummy cookies. All you need is a box of chocolate cake mix, 1/3 cup oil, 2 eggs and a bag of Rolo candy.  Mix together the cake mix, eggs and oil.  Use just enough dough to cover the Rolo into a ball.  Bake in  a 350 degree oven  for 8-10 mins.  You get a yummy cookie with a chocolatey caramel center!

Wordless Wednesday

Halloween Craftin

I enjoy crafting and one of the great things about the internet is the amazing amount of ideas you can find.  That is also a downside because I then have tons of bookmarks on my computer, in no particular order-yes I know there are ways to be more organized but I just don't roll that way.
Anyway I found this very cool website called pinterest where you can keep track of all the cool ideas you find and the website itself offers you the ability to see and follow what other people are pinning.
Now I just go to the website click on the idea and it takes me right to the idea.  With a special download button you can pin anything on the interenet wether it is crafts, fashion, decor, quotes, recipes-anything!
So I have collected a bunch of cool Halloween ideas and I will never use them all but while looking at other peoples holiday wreaths it inspired my own creation.It is a straw wreath with some fall leaves added and a spider web in the middle. Through pinterest I also got the idea to glue
magnets to the backs of little plastic spiders and bugs and stick them all over the front door.

I also found the idea for the cute picture frame covered with googly eyes. That inspired me to make the black frame with just a few eyeballs and ghost.  Both were really easy to make. Directions for the googly eyes one are here. 

For the ghost one all you need is a wooden frame from Michaels, black and white paint, wooden ghost cutout, googly eyes, ribbon and hot glue.  Paint the frame black and the ghost white.  Glue googly eyes in several spots around the frame.  Add some ribbon at the bottom and glue on ghost. 

Once I have pictures of the girls for Halloween I  will add those to each frame.

Go Bruins!

Around here we are always waiting impatiently for hockey season to start, but when your team is the defending Stanley Cup Champions you get even more excited. This was the case last week when the Bruins season officially started.  Dom declared Bruins day and told me to do my thing.  The girls again jumped on board with our theme day and wore their Bruins gear to school.  I made a Bruins dessert of chocolate and vanilla layered pudding cups and added the Bruins logo to the cups.
Dinner was homemade pizza where I used pepperoni and black olives to  make the Bruins "B".  This was a little bit of a stretch but if you know what you are looking at I think you can tell.
I even gave myself a Bruins inspired manicure!

Pumpkin Picking

We had some amazing weather this past weekend and it carried into the week.  Dom took Tuesday off so we could take out the boat for the season and after the kids got out of school we took them up to Butternut Farm to pick out some pumpkins.  The girls loved the little pumpkins and both picked out one.  But they also picked out a big one for carving.  They even let me take a photo without complaining!

Unfortunately the next day Tuukka decided to  have a little snack- on Kenzie's mini pumpkin!

Wordless Wednesday

Star Wars Family fun night

With the release of the Star Wars movies on blue-ray my husband declared Star Wars day in our house for family fun night. And me, who loves any sort of theme, enjoyed planning it even though I was only given one days notice.  The main entertainment of the evening would of course be the movies, but while I was buying the movies I found a Star Wars Lego Movie and Mad Libs which of course would add to the fun.  And yes I wanted the lego movie because it came with a cute little young Han Solo.
I wasn't able to come up with a fun Star Wars themed meal but did buy some star wars plates
to serve pizza on and for dessert we had brownie bite pops that I attatched some
cut outs of Lego Star Wars Characters.
Upon returning home from school the girls jumped right into the theme by playing lego star wars on the wii.  Once dad got home from work there was an epic light saber battle before dinner followed by some funny Mad Libs.  Then we all settled in for the Lego Star Wars movie-the Padawan Menace which had us all laughing.  We ended the evening with the viewing of episode one-The Phantom Menace.
With the opening night of Hockey tonight we gave of course a Bruins theme going on today!

Mckay Visit 2011

 Last weekend we had the joy of hosting the McKay family for  a visit.  We started  the visit off with a
campfire in the backyard where the girls entertained us with dance routines and Luke entertained us with his stories and curious chatter.  Once it got dark the we sparked up the entertainment with some fireworks.
 The following day the fun continued with a trip to the lake.  The kids braved the cool temperatures to do some tubing and then we took the boat to our favorite ice cream shop for lunch and dessert.
We ended our visit with the Mckays trying out Kenzie's go-cart.  It was a really fun time and hopefull we'll get a chance to visit with them again soon!

Luke gives the thumbs up before taking a turn on the go-cart!

Caitlin quickly gained confidence and was soon buzzing around the yard.

Scott didn't want the kids to have all the fun so he took a turn on the go-cart too!

Earthquakes and Hurricanes-Oh My!

So we've been a little busy with everyday life, you know earthquakes, hurricanes, starting school.  You know the normal stuff.
Okay, some not so normal stuff.
Here in the northeast earthquakes are not very common and to tell you the truth I didn't feel a thing.  I didn't even know we had one until Dom called me from work and asked if I had felt it.
As for the  hurricane.  They aren't unheard of but still not common and it is the summer version of a nor'ester as far as I am concerned.  Now Irene made her presence known with lots of rain and wind.  No damage to our property except a lot of leaves and branches all over the yard.  There were lots of downed trees and power lines in our area and we were with out power for approximately 53 hours.  Not that I was counting or anything... 
We were actually quite well off since we have a generator.  We had  TV, hot water and showers and the refrigerator was kept cold.  The weather was beautiful the day after Irene passed and it was strange to have such beautiful weather and no electricity.  The kids got an extra day of summer vacation when they delayed the start of school by one day due to the storm.  The kids thought it was kinda fun for about a day.  Then they were ready for the internet to come back on.  I have to admit it is really quiet where we live and though I was very grateful for the generator the constant noise it creates started to get annoying.

I've got a few before and after pictures of the mad river to share. The top two are obvious the before.  The after pictures aren't that great because they are taken with my ipod because it was raining and I didn't want to bring my good camera out in the nasty weather.

So at about four int he afternoon, the night before the first day of school we got power back.  It made for a memorable first day of school.

Wordless Wednesday

A Day at the Races

Last weekend Dom and I got to check out the Indycar race at NHMS.  We had a great time and even got a chance to go in the pits before the race.  That was cool because we were down there while the drivers were practicing and we even got to see some of the drivers close up which I thought was cool.


Here is Danica getting ready to get in her car before practice and then taking practive laps.

And here is Dario Franchitti talking to his crew after practice.  A short time later he went zooming by me on a moped,like close enough I could have reached out and touched him.  I was in fact facing the opposite direction and didn't even know he was coming.  Had I taken a step to the right he probably would have run me over!

We will definitely go back next year.  As much as I have enjoyed Nascar in the past if Jimmy Johnson wins again I think I may give up on the sport.  Nascar has ruined thesport in my opinion and it is no longer as fun to watch the races.  I may become a full time Indycar fan instead!

Kenzie Cooks

Kenzie is always willing to help out in the kitchen and she is a great little helper.  So last week, inspired by a friend I let her pick out a recipe and make the cookies all by herself.  I  helped with the oven and stove and intervened a bit because the recipe that I had never made either, seemed to be missing a step.  Together we tweaked it a bit and the end result was a yummy cookie!  Kenzie was very proud of herself and I was very proud of her too!
Since she was on a roll in the kitchen, I had her make the pizza dough for dinner and when she decided she didn't want pizza for dinner she went on to make her own mac and cheese(from a box).

Wordless Wednesday

Helpful or Not...

This is Tuukka looking all cute and helpful like he's going to water the flowers.  He is of course not really going to water the flowers.  He did spend a good 15 minutes just carrying this around the yard.

And this is Tuukka after sticking his face in a bucket of charcoal, which is not really helpful.  But it does make for a goofy photo opportunity.

Keepin' Cool at the Pool

It has been really hot and humid around here these past couple of days and to beat the heat we've been to the beach.  Today the girls wanted to switch things up and requested a trip to Uncle Mark's pool.

The girls always have a good time swimming in the pool and wanted to bring their good friend Annie along to join in the fun.

The girls had a great time as usual.  It is interesting to me that in the pool setting the girls are much more comfortable trying new things and it is a great confidence builder for their swimming skills.

Kenzie worked on going underwater and realized how neat it was to go under with the goggles so she could see underwater.  Annie and Becca worked on swimming underwater without holding their noses, as well as taking the first steps in learning how to dive in.  I am super proud of all the girls and I enjpyed watching them practice their new skills.

Wordless Wednesday

Beach Day!

 

Last week we got to meet up with some friends at Great Island Common. The gaggle of girls had lots of fun was  patroling the tide pools and the water for hermit crabs, perwinkles, shells and other treasures.

The water itself was extremely cold, and there wasn't much swimming going on but the kids kept themselves occupied anyway!

Wordless Wednesday