as seen on tv

Still catching up on our Easter activities. :) Have you seen the Rice Krispies commercial where the mom and kids are oh so happily making rice krispy treats for easter? Well, it was one of those "Duh! Why didn't I think of that?!" ideas and we decided to try it the Friday before Easter.

Step 1: Make the general recipe for rice krispy treats. Growing up, my mom always just went ahead and doubled the recipe because, well, YUM! :)

Step 2: Spray the inside of some plastic Easter eggs and squish a spoonful of krispies into the top and bottom of the egg, making a dent in the center of each with your thumb.

This is a great texture lesson - the smoothness of the cool, greased, plastic eggs contrasting with the rough stickiness of the warm rice krispy treats. :)

Step 3: Count out/choose your color of m&ms (or whatever candy you want).

MH took this part very seriously. :)

Step 4: Place your m&ms inside the bottom part of an egg.

Step 5: Gently squish the top part of the egg so that it sticks to the bottom part.

Step 6: Shake the egg to see if you can hear the m&ms rattling inside...just like on tv! :)

Shannon and Jonathan also made these the same day, only theirs didn't rattle when they shook them. I'm not sure what the difference was...we seemed to make them the exact same way! Oh well. :)

Step 7: You know you have to eat one right away! :)

I saw on another blog where they added dye to the marshmallows as they were melting to sort of make the eggs different colors...but that sounded like too much work and too many pots to wash since you would have to do a separate pot of marshmallows for each color... but as they were, these were easy and simple to make, and so fun!

zoo day!

I might love them... just a little bit....... :}

I love that these two and their mommies are often up for spur of the moment outings!

I also might love him just a little bit too........ :}

My three little monkeys!

Ha! This next one is my favorite from today.....

Teehee!!! So funny and cute. I love that the zebra is wearing Buzz Lightyear sunglasses!! ;)

two!

So as usual, I'm a little behind in my blogging. Last Wednesday we went to Leah's birthday party. Laura always does SUCH a great job of decorating and letting things up!! And we all had a lot of fun just being together again!

The birthday girl. She now answers "two!" whenever you ask how old anyone is - herself, my kids, Mommy, Kiki.... :)

Laura did a nursery rhyme themed party because Leah is very into nursery rhymes these days. She had set out spiders for the kids to color and stickers to decorate them with.

Little Miss Sunshine here is going to make a great babysitter in a couple years! She loved getting to hold Annie for a couple minutes. :) I think Annie liked it too. :)

Ok, seriously! Check out these peanut butter sandwiches - in the shape of a clock!! (Hickory Dickory Dock...) So cool!!

I should have gotten more close up pics, but each snack had a nursery rhyme to go with it! And if you have read my blog for very long...you know who did that cake there in the middle. Do you know the nursery rhyme that goes with it?

"Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds,

baked in a pie......

...When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing;

Wasn't that a dainty dish

To set before the king?"

(Cake by Leah, of course!)

"Leah, say 'Cheese!'"

Isn't it funny how so often the other people around will "blow" the candle out with the birthday person? :}

Jonathan here LOVES birthday parties. But there MUST be balloons. And cake. And presents. Of course. He couldn't wait for Leah to open her presents and finally it was time!

Great job on the fun party, Laura!! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEAH!!!

even more kid quotes

I realized that it's been a long while since I did a kids' quote post, so I'm going to get caught up. I love looking back and reading through them...they make me laugh. :)

Conversation during math earlier in the year:

Kiki: "Color the circles red and the triangles blue."

LMG: "So I color the circles red and the triangles blue?"

Kiki: "Yup!"

LMG: "So...I need a yellow and a blue crayon?"

Kiki: {{blink, blink}} oh my heavens.

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A feeling-sick little MH trying to explain how he was feeling:

"Kiki, my tummy feels like there is a vampire melting in it! and a ghost too!"

Hmm...that doesn't sound too good!

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Listening to LMG make up her own song while she played:

"Jesus! Jesus! He is wonderfuuuuul....He is sooo wooonderfuuul!!"

Love it. :)

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LMS: "Kiki, how do you turn a circle upside down?"

Hmm...Good question!

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MH at the playground in early March when it was still cold:

"Kiki, I'm freeeeezing!!!"

"Why don't you put your hands in your pockets?"

"Cuz the cold got into them!"

I hate it when the cold gets into my pockets, don't you?? ;)

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I had to send MH to sit on the stairs in time out one day and realized a minute later that he was sitting there singing to himself. His song of choice? MJ's "I'm bad".

Oh my.

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MH: "Kiki, you're not a grown up yet."

"I'm not?"

"No."

"Am I a teenager?"

"Ummm...no."

"Then what am I?"

"Uhh...you're a nanny!"

Ah. I see.

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MH ready for a snack:

"Give me some crackers, Kiki!"

(shocked look from kiki) "Excuse me?!"

"Pleease??"

"I was about to ask where your manners went!"

"Oh. They went to the store. Just real quick. To buy me a new heart!"

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MH wiped his runny nose on the back of the white couch and when I gave him a "what were you thinking?!" look, he explained:

"It's just soo far to the bathroom!!"

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Going over a few letter sounds with MH one morning:

"G says guh"

"ok,...what does H say?"

.....split second pause.....

"H says, 'Boy am I stinky!!'"

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Kiki:

"We're going to make something really cool...and mommy is gonna die when she sees what we're making!"

LMG: (thinks for a moment...)

"Kiki! Don't make it so cool!! I don't want mommy to die!!"

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Mr. Happy one rainy day after playing with play dough for a while:

"Kiki, is it a rule that whoever gets out a toy has to clean it up??"

Hmm...interesting question since technically Kiki got out the play dough...! Lol!

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LMG this morning to mommy:

"Can I make a lemonade confession stand?"

bloggy friends :)

I see that someone from Chattanooga, TN has discovered that I updated my blog list! ;) I have my guess as to who you are....

But, anyways, yes, I have a list of blogs that I follow regularly and while I keep up with most of them through Google Reader, I know a few of you use the links on the side of my blog sometimes so I thought I'd share some more of my favorites with you. :)

And if you have never discovered Google Reader, and you read a list of blogs regularly, oh my. You need to check it out! I had heard it mentioned off and on for a while but never really knew what it was and didn't think much about it until Rebekah told me I would love it and to check it out. She was right. And if you already have a gmail account, then you have google reader already, you just need to add the links of the blogs you read! Then it tells you each time you check it which blogs have a new post and you can read it right there! Sounds kind of confusing. It's really not. :)

Anyways, I could tell you lots about the blogs on my list over there but I don't want to bore you too much. So I'll just mention one. Pleasantburg. This sweet little blog is written by a friend of mine, Mrs. T., who used to live close by and is now a few hours away. She has a little boy who is just a couple weeks younger than Mr. Happy and she also home schools her older kiddos. Her last few posts have talked about ideas for what to do with your littlest ones when you need to focus on the older ones' schoolwork. I love how she stresses that our little ones are just as important too and that we don't want to just push them aside but use their time wisely while working with older siblings.

So go check out her blog - she also has great organizational ideas too! Mrs. T. - will you just come organize my house for me?? :) Oh, and we tried out one of your ideas this week....

He thought it was a brilliant idea!! :)

(sorry...really bad cell phone pic...!)

little bo peep

Had to get these edited and up tonight because I have another photo shoot tomorrow evening! :) Just pray the rain will hold off until afterwards!!

Here are *some* of the rest of Leah's 2 yr birthday pics. I had come here to explore with Michael a few months back and couldn't wait to come in the spring when everything was green and flowering! It was definitely beautiful!

She loooves "circle flowers" and oh boy! were there plenty of them here!! She "shake! shake! shakes!" them instead of blowing them. Very effective! :)

We knocked on a lot of doors trying to see if Aiden was behind any of them. He wasn't. Aw, nuts.

She loved these red chairs! And mommy and Kiki were happy to beat the belly dancer over to them who was also there having her pictures taken. Ha!

Ooh, how I wish I had a video of this! :) She was holding this little chick toy and singing to it: "Rooock a bye chiiiiick....."

Soo. Sweet!!

Pausing to hug the tree during our peek-a-boo session... :)

And then Aiden came for a few minutes!!

They are so funny together! Aiden was peeking through the V in this tree and Leah wasn't quite sure of the point of this...although she did try it too. :)

And of course, I couldn't not take a pic of this little cutie! Can you just barely see her new accessory?? Here...you can see it in the one below...

She got her ears pierced!! She is just so fashionable! :) And yes, she's a pro at blowing bubbles! lol :)

Next we found a great tree to climb! By this time it was dark enough that I had to turn on my dreaded flash! Bleck. I do not like having to use it. but oh well. These two pics make me smile! :)

Flash again...ew. But look! Little toddlers holding hands...tooo cuuute!!!!

Some day these are going to be engagement pictures.

If these two can overlook the fact that little Leah would have the same name as her mother-in-law.... Teehee! :)

peek!

Just a sneak peek...

...and a peek-a-boo!

:)

This is who I did pictures of tonight since her 2nd birthday is coming up soon. More to come soon after I edit...just thought I'd put up one to show her mommy. :)

hangin' out

This past weekend and part of this week I've been hanging out with this little guy...

Very blurry, bad cell phone pic...sorry. :) Catrina and Steve escaped for a few days so I stayed with Lauren, Reegan, and Maddox for part of the time. We always have fun hanging out and Maddox did a good job of cracking us up most of the time!

Yesterday the came with me for the day and played with my kids. By later in the afternoon everyone was getting waaay stir crazy being cooped up in the house on a chilly, rainy day, so since the rain had stopped, we grabbed coats and went to the playground across the street, wet ground and all! It was cold, but so good to get some fresh air and let the kids run around!

Oh and Maddox got a hair cut last week...and now his hair is perfect for doing this with:

Lol! So cute!! :) He is 16 months old now and starting to talk some. Some of his favorite words are bye bye, dog, more...and batman! :) If you sing the first part of the batman theme song he will finish it with "ba ba!" :) So fun to get to stay with them! I know they'll be glad to have mom and dad back though!

just sayin' hi :)

Lauren hung out with us for the day yesterday and played for a while in the kids tree house and took this crazy cute picture of Mr. Happy. :)

I am now on my way to stay at her house for a couple days while her parents go out of town. What are you up to this weekend?

Whatever it is, enjoy! :)

model pose?

Just a few more pics from my photo shoot with the girls...Lauren suggested a pose looking like models...you know, with serious, focused, model looks on their faces.

Ahem. This is what happened.

Emily couldn't stop cracking up! Which of course made Lauren start laughing and then...eh, it just never happened!! But we got some funny pics out of the deal so I'm happy! :)

chillin' with my peeps :)

Some of my favorite girlies are in town this weekend!! I usually get them to come stay at my house when they come to see their grandfather, however this time I got to have Melissa spend the night with me last night. She is running in a marathon relay tomorrow (pictures to come...probably) (lol...lauren...) We hung out and scrapbooked and pretty much talked nonstop from the time she got here until we finally went to bed somewhere around 1am...then woke up this morning and continued until noon. It was so great to hang out just the two of us and catch up on life! Mel, you have to come back for an entire weekend sometime!

Oh, and while usually her kids would have been pretty jealous that she was here and they were not, Evan got to have his daddy all to himself for the night, and the girls all went over to spend the night at Lauren's house! So it was a win-win-win situation!

Today I picked up the girls + Lauren to hang out for the afternoon because, hey, I couldn't just let them come for the weekend without hanging out at least a little bit! :) It felt pretty great outside so we went downtown for lunch and for a mini best-friend-photo shoot....

She's so cute. :) And is g.r.e.a.t. at posing for pictures! A total natural! :)

Mmm...yummy sunlight....

Love you girls!