Trio Robot

I know I've said it before, but Paul LOVES his Trio blocks, he is always building something with them. He's built a Ferry boat, which I'm still kicking myself for not taking a picture of, it was pretty rockin', a sword, multiple other things and his newest creating was the Trio Robot. He amazes me with his creativity!

Personalized Beach Towels...

My mom made these hooded beach towels for the kids for Easter. They LOVE them! So do I!! I told her she should make them and sell them on Etsy! I love that she monogrammed them all for the kids too, using letters cut out of towels from the hoods. They are so excited to use them in Duluth in a couple of weeks!

She started making hooded baby bath towels when Adeline was born, using a pattern that I had gotten from my girlfriend Jodi and she decided to make them beach towels using a half of a hand towel for a hood instead of a wash cloth like she does on the baby bath towels.

Daycare activity

Last Thursday my new daycare girl started, so I thought I'd plan an activity for them to do, it kept them busy for about 15 minutes! They decorated baby food jars with foam stickers and then they planted grass seed in them. Everyone had a great time putting them together!

Here is Paul helping Adeline put her dirt in hers.

Rainy day fun...

We are tired of winter at our house, ready for some nice dry grass to play on. And all of the rain we got yesterday didn't help, between that and the melting snow, we ended up with water in the basement which is where the playroom is located so I haven't been letting them play down stairs because they'll just play in the water instead of with their toys and actually part of the carpet in their play area got wet, so we're drying that all out too. A few weeks ago I found these cute little canvases at Michael's in their dollar bins and picked a few up as I thought they'd be great for daycare, turns out Paul and Addie loved painting them, even though Paul wiped his off because it wasn't how he wanted it to look, so he now has a blank canvas to paint over again. But it kept them busy for a half hour or so. I'm going to have to pick up a few more the next time I go to Michael's.

Future Picasso?

Mr Serious. That's a tattoo on his cheek from St Patty's day...not dirt!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Happy St Patrick's Day  In the past we've always had a party, but that was when we only had two kids! We haven't had a big St Patrick's Day party since 2008. So this year we decided we'd make it a family event and host a St Patrick's Day dinner. I cooked corned beef, potatoes and cabbage, and it turned out really well, especially since it was the first time I've ever made it. We had bought 9 pounds of corned beef and we maybe have a pound left at most. I'm going to have to write down exactly what how much we made and how many we served so I have an idea for next year, because heaven knows I won't remember that!

Our kids gearing up for the party!

Love this!

Getting to be such a big girl!

The kids painting their leprechaun masks

Addie showing off her mask

My shamrock cake...before the frosting

After the frosting...

the cake cut...beautiful shade of green. white cake with Wilton food dye color "Kelly Green" frosting is Wilton's food dye "Leaf Green"

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've posted pictures of the kids and since I'm trying to clean-up all the pictures on the laptop and get them organized so I can back them up on the external hard-drive and I came across some cute pictures that I haven't shared! I currently dislike Facebook's picture downloading system, so I've only been posting pictures here! Most of them you will notice are of Adeline. Because currently she is my ham, whenever I have the computer out, immediately she looks at me, smiles and says "CHEESEBURGER!" So enjoy!

Yesterday I couldn't find her and she was being pretty quiet, so I was looking around for her. Well Amelia currently is sleeping on the bottom bunk since Addie is still in her crib, she asked to sleep on the bottom. No biggie. But as you can see...she sleeps with a LOT of stuff! These days Addie is big into picking out her own clothes, and she loves to throw on hats and say she's "Santa Claus" or she's going shopping, etc. She's very imaginative for her age, which I love, she keeps me on my toes all the time! Anyway, she blended in with the bed. She was laying down, but by time I grabbed the camera she was already sitting up!

Peeking over the top of my computer while I was doing some paperwork!

Baby Stella! We're still not sure what color her eyes are going to be, I'm almost positive that they aren't going to be blue. They actually look a little hazel and have brown specs in them, hopefully she'll have brown eyes like her big brother! She's still sweet as ever!

This is Amelia on the morning of her spring pictures, she's modeling on of my tutus for my Etsy Shop-Stella Adelia, she happened to have a 2 hour late start, so I had her try this on for me before heading to school so I could get a couple pictures for my website!

When we were up north for my niece's Baptism in December, we picked up my Grandpa's old snowmobile from my Grandma's house. We plan to restore it, but for now, it's running. It's an old Skidoo TNT 440 or something or other...don't ask me! I'm not real sure. It hasn't run in almost 30 years, and when we hosted all of my family for Christmas in January, some of them got a chance at riding it around. Kevin is giving Amelia a ride while we were waiting for all of our company to arrive.

This is Pauly and Addie after his Lego Duplo order arrived, he cashed in his piggy bank and saved his Christmas money to buy these Duplos, he's been busy with them ever since!

Hopefully I'll have more pictures to post soon!

DIY Christmas Ornaments

I had three drop-in's yesterday for daycare during the day, and I thought since it's December it'd be a good time to make these for a project. The two littlest ones didn't make them because they are under 1, but all of the other kids made them with assistance from me. I squirted all of the paint in the ornaments because I'm a control freak like that. Actually I was trying to eliminate a mess on little fingers and clothing! They had a great time making them and after the paint was swirled inside, I wrote their names and the year on them with a paint pen. It was a super easy craft and fun to make. Just have to be careful because the ornaments break easily if dropped.

The supplies---clear glass ornaments and acrylic paint

• Remove ornament top
• squirt paint in ornament
• replace top
• turn ornament to swirl paint and cover the inside

Finished product.

Ornaments the kids made---except for Stella---I made hers. Amelia didn't get her name on hers before I took the picture.

Paul has two ornaments because he insisted when the big kids got home from school that he needed to make another one and he wanted to write his own name on it. He did a pretty good job despite the "u" being upside down.

Super Stella

I made Stella's Halloween Costume this year, she was going to be a "Peapod" but we decided we wanted her to be something more girly and something we could buckle her into her carseat in. She has gotten the nickname "Super Stella" at our house because when we hold her up out in front of us, her legs always go up straight behind her and she looks like Super Man flying, so I decided she could be "Super Stella" for Halloween. I used things I already had at home so her costume basically cost me nothing. I took a long sleeve bodysuit, some fabric that I had bought over a year ago to start a "blanket" for Adeline, it was a remnant and still rolled up and in the Hobby Lobby bag from when I purchased it. The white fabric is something left over from our wedding. Her leggings are a pair of "Baby Legs" that I had purchased for Adeline and they happen to match the pink stripe! I cut out the cape, sewed all of the edges and then sewed it onto the back of the bodysuit. I cut a circle out of the fabric and cut out an "S" that I had printed from the computer and sewed that onto my circle and then sewed the circle on the shirt. I don't sew, I've had a sewing machine for almost 5 years now and this is the first "real" project I've done with it. The costume is nothing fancy and I wouldn't let anyone look at it up close, but I like it and it'll work for her first Halloween!