Easter cookies

Another holiday...another set of Easter cookies to decorate!!! :) We attempted to decorate St. Patrick's Day and Easter cookies at the "big house" but never got the time to do that...so those cookies went in the garbage can. The kids spend Thursday night (3/20) at Doug & Doran's since their daycare was closed on Friday (3/21). Doran had made the cookies before, and the kids got to help make the frosting, decorate the cookies, and of course taste a few things too! :) Ryan didn't last too long. It was too nice out (not that nice...but nice enough for HIM!) to stay inside (he wanted to swing, play basketball, etc). Hailey stayed inside and helped. She is quite the decorator now! Requesting frosting in bags with different tips (my aunts would be so proud of her too!!). She just loves it :)

Here is Hailey with one of her special cookies...a tulip. And, the second picture is of the 5 cookies that Ryan helped with, and the last picture are the ones that Hailey did.

St. Patty's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

This has to be one of my favorite little holidays with the kids!! We always have green shirts to wear (and check out their socks too this year!!) and of course a super fun GREEN breakfast!!! This year they had green muffins, green scrambled eggs, green grapes, and green apple juice! They had fun watching things turn colors and helping make the breakfast this morning. :) Fun way to start off the day (and week)!!

Here are my CUTE kids!!!


And of course pictures of their breakfast!! :)


And, here is a St. Patrick's Day greeting/wish from the kids (all I did was ask them to say "Happy St Patrick's Day", and they remembered it was Kari's birthday and put that in there too! :))

And here is a song they have been singing all the time...super cute!!

At the end of that video, Ryan asks if you want to hear the "Shamrock song". They have never sang this song for me before...and I can see why. :) Hailey tried, but just couldn't remember all the words...but she tried and made it through. :)

"The Big House"

Last weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to stay at the "Big House" in Lead, SD with my family. Despite the bad weather...and a minor accident by me...it was a fantastic weekend. If you want to see great pictures of the place, check out "big house". It really is an amazing house...and we could move in there RIGHT AWAY if they would let us! Here is a little picture show of some of the fun we had!! :)

First, just look at this house!!! Here are the main living room, dining rooms, and the fireplace in the main room.


Here is the basement....pretty!


And the room we stayed in (in the basement) with the bathroom too. The 3rd picture is of the loft area (also had 2 bedrooms up there as well).


We had craft time (painting Easter eggs, perler beads, coloring, etc)....and of course games (playing trouble!).


It was fun being all together on Sarah's birthday too! Happy 2nd Birthday sweetie!!


On Friday, the kids all went outside to help clean off the deck...and throw snowballs at me (behind the glass door!!). Then, they went down and went sledding too! There was SO MUCH SNOW!!!


A few miscellaneous fun pictures of the kids. (1) Allison, Ryan, and Hailey on the top bunk playing. (2) Hailey's make-up done by Allison! (3) Ryan decided to use the marker on his nose instead of the paper!


We even had an Easter egg hunt! This was a lot of fun for everyone....especially Sarah! She was so cute and had a great time finding the eggs! Ryan, on the other hand, just wanted to sit and open his eggs one at a time and wasn't worried about getting more. :) The "big girls" did great too! They had their own area of the house for their eggs.



On Saturday night the kids also got to go in the hot tub. They all loved that...and the big boys had more than their share of fun (I won't post pictures of that!!).


And, in the basement was a Foosball table....that was FUN too! Ryan of course loved taking all the balls for the game and playing with them, so it was an adventure trying to find all 4 of them before we left!

We also used the self-timer on our cameras to get some pictures of our family!

What a great weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rollerskating

On Saturday, February 23 Hailey's preschool class went ROLLERSKATING!! She did this last year and struggled at the beginning, but at the end was going by herself. This year...she took right off!! I could not believe how well she did after not wearing roller skates for a year. We went around together one time, then she told me I could go sit down! She spent almost the entire 2 hours our there rollerskating. She had no time for breaks!! :) Now, I will say, she wasn't "rolling" too much..but was getting a good work out in! Take a look at the video to see what I mean. :) I was very proud of her!!

Girl Scouts

Hailey had Girl Scouts again last week (sorry for the late updates!!) and had a BLAST!! For the most part they just played, but she enjoyed being around new girls, and participating in the Girl Scout activities too. She is proud to tell everyone that she knows the Girl Scout promise now too!! :) That's my girl. :) Here are a few fun pictures from the meeting .....

Hailey ready to get started (the troop decided to just decorate their own pink t-shirts instead of buying the daisy items); saying the promise (notice the 3 fingers up on the right hand :)); reading a book about "responsibility."


The girls practicing the "Girl Scout handshake"; playing after the meeting; and a group picture of the troop.

Bikes

This week we have had some absolutely BEAUTIFUL DAYS!!! It was in the upper 50s again yesterday, so we picked up the kids early from daycare and did something we haven't done in quite some time.......RODE BIKES!! They were so happy to get back on their bikes and going around the streets. Hailey was telling us that her bike is a little too small for her since she is hitting her knees. And, Ryan is still on his trike. Hmmm...might need to talk to the Easter Bunny! ;)

Weekend update

Last weekend, we of course went to the cabin! It was a nice, relaxing time there. On Saturday, Chris' dad and his grandma came up for the day. It was Great Grandma's first trip to the cabin...and we think she enjoyed our way of "camping!" The 4 of us went to bed early...and woke up to find about 8-10" of new snow outside on Sunday morning!! If we would have had a car ... we would be STUCK! However, since we did have 4 wheel drive, it was time to go SKIING! Hailey was already asking to go on Saturday, but they were full. So, she had a lesson on Sunday morning again...and did GREAT!!!! Chris did go skiing again too. :) Ryan and I watched!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Not a whole lot going on, and I have been sick for the past week too. Hopefully regular updates happen again soon!

Also...random thought from Hailey. We were playing "Trouble" at the cabin and she said "I want to go to Disneyland sometime soon." HUH!??! I have no idea where that came from, but now I need to talk her out of that! :)

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

from Hailey & Ryan!!!

Our morning started with a homemade Valentine from Hailey. Last night she put one on my nightstand and one on Chris' and told us not to look at them until the morning! How sweet. :)

After both kids were up, we had breakfast. The menu today consisted of pink heart pancakes and pink apple juice! Yummy!!

Then the kids got to take a few pictures. It is so much easier now that they are older. :) Of course Ryan just wants to use this cheesy smile now!! The picture below is the result of me asking "who are the cutest kids in the whole wide world??" Of course I agree!!

Finally they got to open their little gift bags. Ryan was happy he got a rose this year too! They also both got these CUTE penguin headphones (thanks Rainya ;)). Doesn't Ryan look adorable?!? :)

And, finally, a video message before they were off to daycare. Not to self...don't turn on Ryan's favorite show "Gladiators" before trying to make a video message! Still cute even though he could care less!!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!!!