MaryKate's Dolly

I am so proud of my MaryKate. Last fall when we went to Utah for a family reunion MaryKate picked out a sew-your-own-ragdoll kit at the church museum in Salt Lake City. Over President's Day we finally got out my sewing machine and she got her first lessons in sewing. I did all of the hard seams (curves basically) but she did all the stuffing and sewed all of the straight seams herself so she made the dress and apron almost all by herself. She also braided the hair herself and it turned out perfect! She did amazing for her first sewing experience ever.

Sara Helping in the Kitchen

Sara likes to stay within eye sight of me at all times so I come up with creative ways to keep her occupied when I'm working in the kitchen. Here she had been playing with cereal boxes, rearranging them, stacking them, putting them in and out of cupboards, when she discovered that this one had fallen open, she carried it around for the next thirty minutes, getting a snack whenever she felt like it!

This is my own personal favorite, I was trying to bake something that had to get done. Kevin was gone and Sara was plain under foot. I got her her own plastic bowl and put only about 1/2 cup of flour in the bottom. It was well worth the good vacuuming then mopping my tiles needed to clean it up to have her this entertained for this long. Kevin eventually came home and shocked, said "Do you know what kind of mess Sara is making!" when I said yes he has learned enough to just let it go.

Happy Actual Birthday Nikolai!!!

Since we had cake for Nikolai's party the Saturday before I made him an enormous chocolate chip cookie for his actual birthday celebration. I wrote in white chocolate chips "Happy B-day NEO" We were almost out of candles but I found three trick candles in the cupboard. Since Nikolai is learning multiplication I told him it was 3X3 and he totally got the joke.
We got him a remote control lifelike T-Rex. It's a cool toy. He had asked for a reptile pet to keep in his room and specified a snake or maybe a turtle. We weren't ready for any more pets in our house and flat out said no to a snake but this dinosaur was a perfect addition to our family.

Roaring at each other...

This is oh so funny, the video of Nikolai not blowing out his candles...

Happy Birthday Nikolai!!!

My little guy is 9 years old!!! He wanted a pirate themed birthday party and this is what I came up with. I love his goofy approval grin over the cake...

And here is a close up of how the cake turned out (this was RIGHT after I finished, I didn't even wash the counter off yet, so sorry for the messy background) If you can't tell it is a treasure chest.

And here Nikolai is blowing out the nine candles... one at a time. Isn't there a rule about not getting a wish if you do it that way? Oh well, we didn't tell him.
For an activity I designed a treasure hunt all around the house and yard where the boys had to find clues. The treasure at the end was their goody bag to take home, which actually ended up being eaten as we watched "Pirates Who Don't do Anything", a Vegetales movie to round off the party.

We kept the numbers small, Nikolai had invited one more boy from school who couldn't come but here is MaryKate, Braxton Bogle, Michael and Austin Cox, and Nikolai.

Everybody was required to come in pirate gear. I love MaryKate in her getup with our puppy Spot, both sporting an eye patch.

Nikolai and his best friend, Braxton, playing on the trampoline before everybody else arrived.