Happy Birthday Madeline!

Maybe it's a little early (her birthday is the 30th), but in order to have the dad around and to avoid holiday parties, Madeline had her 4th birthday party today. Centered around a pond theme, the party included pinning-the-duck-on-the pond (no blindfold for 4-year-olds), fishing for frogs, treat bag decorating, and constructing paper bag duck puppets. The party was a hit, but the highlight (next to the chocolate rocks on the cake) was the "surprise guest" who came to join us--a ride-on stuffed elephant. (She is sitting on him on top of her chair.)
Madeline had a blast!

Madeline's birthday invitation

Madeline helped me design her party invitation. And, I successfully convinced her to let us ask for donations to the local food bank, not presents, from friends. (The grandparents and parents will still shower her with gifts, of course. . :) We've done this a few time before, but now, I'm pretty sure that this is going to be the rule in our house from now on: If you want a party, you asks for donations to the charity of your choice instead of presents.

Happy Halloween!

This year the girls were "spider witches" using some Halloween costumes I found on clearance last spring. I spent a while looking for witch hats for the girls with no luck. . .until I went to our ward's Halloween dinner and trunk-or-treat! The table decorations were purple witch hats with spider patterns that matched the girls costumes. Well, I revealed my scroungiest side when I grabbed the hats off the table, pulled the newspaper stuffing out of them and plopped them on my kids' heads for the parade. :) Afterwards, the provider of the decorations insisted that we keep them. . .thanks!


Sophia got to be a little pumpkin thanks to a costume Kristina left for us last Spring. It was wonderfully warm that cold night. Our trick-or-treating lasted 30 minutes since I forgot to bring Madeline gloves and she insisted on riding her "motorcycle" (tricycle). Needless to say, our candy haul this year was tiny--the girls didn't make much money off me selling candy. It was wonderful: the girls had a great time and we minimized the bouncing-off-the-walls time.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Blessing Day, Sophia!

Yea, we waited until she was 4.5 months old to bless her--but, that was the first fast Sunday Nathan was able to do it. :) Of course, it makes for better smiles in the pictures. . . Here are a couple of pictures of our cutie in her dress.


Brenda made the dress, so for those interested in a a slightly better view of the whole dress. . .


We got only a couple of pictures in the nice lighting outside since it was only 40 degrees at the time of pictures. And, of course, Sophia refused to smile wearing short sleeves at that temperature. The mom had a sweater, though. :)

Happy 4 months Sophia!

Bugs, bugs, bugs. . .

Bugs are inundating our lives.

As part of the insect unit in Camille's 2nd grade class, she had to make a model of an insect of her choice--she chose a caterpillar. I challenged her to try to make a model of an actual species. How do you think we did?

The cecropia moth caterpillar.
(We saw the moth under our deck about 1 month ago.)

The huggable caterpillar

Now that the stuffed caterpillar is finished, Madeline has asked me to make her a stuffed ant she "can hug" too.

We are all honing our insect catching skills as we try to keep our pet praying mantis (that sits in the middle of the kitchen table) well fed.

And, next week we get to enjoy a 2nd grade production of the musical "Goin' Buggy"

bugs, bugs, bugs. . .

Sisterly love--HELP!!!