My Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Sarah!

I can't believe my little girls is FOUR!!! Holy cow, where has the time gone?

Oh well, what can you do but take lots of pictures and try to enjoy every moment.

Here's her birthday offering... I mean cake.

Don't laugh, I'm not very good at making cakes, but it turned out pretty cute. 

I love how Sarah's birthday is right after valentines, so I can get killer deals on girly colored candy.

On to presents.

Here's Sarah with the kitty I made for her.

 She loves it. It wasn't that much of a surprise because she caught me working on it a couple of times, and then found the finished product in my crochet bag, but it has been tucked away for a week or two, so she got very excited that it was hers to play with. 

This was the first time that we did "Heavy, heavy hang over" before Sarah got her presents. 

She did pretty good. 

I was wished to get a new present, she wished that Abby could get a new flower, and Ryan got a whole list of things I can't remember, but I think he also had new presents and a flower in his wish. 

Abby gave Sarah a pair of swords and a little barn for her farm animals.

 I love Abby in this picture... adoring the kitty. 

Sister love!

And then on to open the big present from Mommy & Daddy.

 A horsey for her Samantha doll. She has been begging for a big horse, just like her cousin Hallie's. Hallie got one for Christmas and Sarah was nuts about it. It was fun to see her open it. 

On to the cake. 

Yes, there are five candles on there, we always add "one to grow on" 

The cake may not have looked spectacular... but it was yummy. 

 At least the critics all gave it two thumbs up. 

Had to get a couple pictures of mom and the birthday girl. 

 No matter how tired I looked. 

 Never too tired to be silly though. 

 Once the girls' faces had a good chocolatey coating it was off to bed. 

Not before a quick duel, of course. 

Oh, and the reason behind my dark circles and tiredness?

I stayed up to finish making these.

I lined a valentines shower curtain (from target's clearance) with blackout fabric (on mondo sale for president's day at JoAnn's) for some curtains for the girls room. I love the bright colors. It looks less like a circus tent when you look at it with their whole room. I'll try and get a picture of that later, I was too lazy to switch out my lens. 

Well, I hope you had a wonderful Birthday Sarah. 

I sure do love you, and can't believe how big you are getting. 

Sarah's 4th Birthday Preview

This past Saturday we celebrated Sarah's 4th birthday with a Puppy Party. 

Her first birthday party with friends, so fun!

It was so much fun. I asked my cute friend to take pictures at the party, so here is a preview of the event with some pictures I took before and after the party. 

Okay, I have been really in love with the red & teal color combo, throw a little pink in for Sarah and it was just what I wanted. So when I found these "dog bowls" on clearance at Target I was stoked! They were perfect.

We made little bags of puppy chow...

 and puppy treats to put in the bowl.

 We also found these dog shaped silly bands

 (okay, one is a bear, but it still was perfect!)

Cute little combination, don't you think?

I think the kids were excited to each get one.

Our decorations were pretty lame, but we did make this dog house for the guests to walk through when they came in, we also used it for musical dog house (a variation of musical chairs... kind of chaotic with 12 kids, but it worked). 

 Sarah loves her dog house, we have it tucked away in a corner of the house still for her to crawl in and out of. I'm glad she loves it so much. 

My sad little dog house cake... so sad. 

I thought I'd be creative and make it out of rice krispie treats. 

Well, my frosting was drippy and it just looked like a bumpy blob house...

Oh well. And the "pupcakes" were pretty funny looking too. 

 Don't they look like little bat dogs? haha... whatever. 

Abby took her nap during the party, but she had fun playing with the puppy ears afterward.

 Each kid got a set of ears, dog collar and their face painted (if they wanted). 

Oh yes, and she also had fun climbing on the table after the party (when mommy crashed on the couch for a power nap) and ate all of the faces off of the remainder pupcakes... she loved that. 

Anywho...

It was a fun party. Can't wait to get the rest of the pictures so I can show you the mass of kids we had at the party. A lot of crazy in a tight space. Fun, fun, FUN!

Hello again Zoo!

We had a little spring tease. So we took up the opportunity to go to the zoo with a few friends. It ended up being a little windy that day, but the kiddos still had lots of fun running around. 

The kids were so funny. Here we are at the zoo, with lots of interesting things to look at, and often we would turn to find them poking sticks in the left over snow... not like they can't do that at home or anything.

Measuring up to the baby elephant. 

Our zoo has been a little birthing factory, it had a baby elephant just a few months before we came, and since we've been here it has had a litter of painted dog pups, a couple of baby sea lions born, and just recently a pack of tiger cubs. Pretty cool! 

Like most zoos they have wandering peacocks. 

 Of course Sarah decided it would be fun to chase one down. She got really close to this female and she actually ended up raising and fanning out her feathers. I didn't think females did that... apparently Sarah scared her good.

Abby checking out the fish that are bigger than she is.

 Do you love her hat hair?

I love this picture of Sarah and her good buddy Josh.

Amy and Sarah we saying hello to this donkey and were thrilled when it came over to say hello. 

 Until it started to EAT HER SHOE!!!

 Psycho Donkey!

Here is one more picture of Abby.

Her face here makes me laugh.

It was a fun little trip to the zoo, can't wait until it really warms up and we can go lots and lots!!!

Bring on Spring.

Two lil' Kitties

Still crocheting...

 I go in waves with crafts... but I think this is the last thing I'm crocheting for a while.

I'm burnt out.

But aren't these little kitties cute?

I love them.

For those of you interested, I used THIS pattern to make them... with a few tweaks. 

It still February, right?

So I'm a little behind on my blogging. What can you do. But it is still February, so I'm going to post about our Valentine's.

Here are the things I love...

That Sarah was able to make her own Valentines this year...

 Look how focused she is, I love it. 

 (She traced the letters I wrote, but she did an amazing job)

 She did however glue the hearts together all by herself, I was impressed how well she lined it all up. Great job Sarah!

I love that both of my girls hair is long enough to do fun things with. 

Here are their little Valentine's Day Do's

 Do you see the little hearts in her pig-tails?

I'm often asked "how do you get her to sit still?"

Want to know my secret?

Food. 

I do it while feeding her breakfast, keeps her good and distracted while I'm tugging on her hair. 

Sarah's heart braids. 

 Kind of looks funny from the front. Oh well. 

I love making sweet treats... even if Abby climbed on the table and took a bit out of them all, thus preventing us from sharing our hard work *sigh* 

 Maybe she was helped a little by her big sister. 

We love packages. They are so fun to open.

 Abby just loves eating the treats. 

 Check out her devouring a S'mores pop!

I Love how Sarah learned how to write her name. 

Sarah had a friend over and I quickly folded some paper and cut out some hearts so they could make some valentines while I got some things done. Later that night when I was cleaning up I opened her little card to find that she had written her name in it All. By. Herself! Love it!

The cutest part is that she wrote it first in pencil (just like I had done for the grandparent's cards), and then traced it in marker. 

 I love the sunshine that comes through our dinning room windows in the morning.

 And who doesn't love Hershey's chocolate milk?

Speaking of Chocoalate...

I love these chocolatey brown eyes that I get to look at all day long.   

 All silliness included.

I love our cute new matching coats. Perfect combo of cuddly and warm. 

I love valentines. Such a great excuse to say an extra 'I love you' and eat lots and lots of chocolate. 

Life couldn't be better.