Soy Sauce!!

 Miller Outdoor Theater put on a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie in April and since it's like one of my favorite musicals EVER, we took Megan and Jared to go see it. Amy Christensen and Abby and Molly came too. What a fun night!

Although, I do have one question. Why are rich girls always so flat chested? ;)

School Carnival

The school had a carnival this spring. We had a lot of crazy fun.

Both Megan and Jared tried climbing the rock wall. Megan was a little nervous, but Jared scaled it like a spider monkey.

Megan got her hair sprayed blue and a Firebird painted on her cheek.

Jared got injured and required medical attention. It was touch and go for a while, but he is tough and pulled through. 

Kate wasn't too interested in the games or activities, but she liked running away from us and she liked it when daddy made her a cape out of William's blanket and let her wear his sunglasses. (William slept in the stroller the whole time. I didn't get any pictures. Sorry. Use your imagination.)

These two can be loud and crazy and drive me batty, but I am sure glad they are mine!

Sing Us a Song, You're the Piano......um....Guys.

Let me just preface this post by saying that I have the best husband in the whole world. Not only does he have really good taste in women ( ;) ), he has really good taste in music. He got tickets for us to go see the Piano Guys while they were here preforming at the House of Blues in Houston.

Wait. What? You aren't familiar with the Piano Guys? Get thyself to YouTube, my friend. I'll post a few of my favorites at the end of this post, but you really should watch all their stuff. It's fabulous.

This one is my favorite:


Wait, no. This one is:


Okay, this one is really it:


Or maybe this one:


If I have to choose, we might be here a while. Just go check them out.

Teacher Appreciation Week

I know this post is a little late, but I guess better late than never, right?

This year, the kids were asked to bring a little something for their teachers each day for Teacher Appreciation Week. In years past, I've made myself CRAZY trying to figure out something to do, staying up way too late making things for the next day, etc. This year I got smart and made everything at once. It was great to just tuck little things into the kids' backpacks each morning.

I used PSE and Melissa Renfro's Inspired Child Collection from Scrap Girls for all the tags.

On Monday, the kids were supposed to bring flowers. I had seen these really cute pencil vases on Pinterest, but I didn't really follow a tutorial. I just laid a strip of masking tape, sticky side up, on the table. I laid out pencils side by side on the masking tape (I used 36 pencils). I wrapped the masking tape/pencils around an empty soup can, overlapping the masking tape to hold it all in place. Then I covered the masking tape up with a piece of ribbon. Easy-peasy, and the teacher can take it apart and use the pencils later. The tag says "I think you are just WRITE."

On Tuesday, the kids were bringing a sweet treat. I knew Jared's teacher liked skittles, so that's what we went with. The tag says "You are better than any treasure found at the end of the rainbow."

On Wednesday, it was office supplies. I bought a couple of packs of sticky notes for each teacher and put them in cellophane bags. The tag says "Stuck like glue on you!"

On Thursday, they brought a salty treat. We chose boxes of microwave popcorn. "It's no Secret that I think you're great!"

On Friday, the kids were supposed to bring a note for their teacher. I had them each make a card and I added a note at the end. We slipped the notes inside these journals.

The kids also wanted to do something fun for their Specials teachers (Art, Music, and PE), so we made bags of Hersey's Nuggets for each of them and the tags say "I think you are as good as gold!"

Megan's Fairy Garden

And as the seasons come and go, 

here's something you might like to know.  

There are fairies everywhere:  

under bushes, in the air, playing games just like you play, 

singing through their busy day.  

So listen, touch, and look around - in the air and on the ground.  

And if you watch all nature's things, 

you might just see a fairy's wing.  

~Author Unknown

 

 Megan's been planting a Fairy Garden. It's not quite done yet but she is having a lot of fun creating it. We got the little house at Hobby Lobby, and Megan painted it. She chose the flowers and I taught her how to transplant them. We've been looking for a ground cover. She wanted moss, but the flowers all need full sunlight, and the solar lamp needs direct sunlight, and moss likes shade. So we'll keep looking. She'll probably plant another one with shade loving plants and moss. She and her friends love to play in the pots with little toys.

Hurricane Kate turned 2

Kate's birthday fell on Memorial Day this year, so we got to spend the whole day celebrating.

We opened presents in the morning. (Well, Megan and Jared opened presents. Kate really wasn't very interested.)

Later that day we had friends over for a BBQ and to play in the water. I was a bad parent and didn't get pictures of any of the mayhem, but it was really fun. Thanks to the Thomas, Christensen, and Breinholt families for coming over and getting wet! (Sorry about the fire ants! Ouch!)

We had been practicing with Kate so she'd know how to blow out the candles on her birthday cake and she was getting really good at it. Unfortunately, blowing out a candle with just the family around and blowing out two candles after a room full of crazy-loud people sing at you are to very different things. She got a little case of stage fright. (It's always good to make your kid cry on their birthday. Give's'em something to talk about in therapy later, right?....)

Eventually she did calm down and blow out her candles.

And got to enjoy her ice cream in peace.

Happy birthday Kate! We are so glad you are part of our family!

Jared's 7th Birthday

Jared turned 7 on Thursday. We only do big friend parties on the years that the kids turn an even number, so we just had some family stuff planned. On Wednesday night, he started throwing up, so we had to shift our plans around a bit.

Since he was "sick" (he felt fine), he stayed home from school. Originally I was planning to make him wait until Travis got home from work before opening presents, but since he was bored silly, I let him open them in the morning. He spent the rest of the day watching a new Harry Potter movie (the second one), playing Harry Potter on the Wii, and rearranging his room. For his birthday, he had asked to get rid of Starwars theme and redecorate with Harry Potter, so we hung curtains and put out new bedding and moved all his furniture.

We finally had his "birthday dinner" (chicken legs and baked potatoes) for dinner on Friday. We ate in the living room while watching Harry Potter again (are you sensing a theme here? He's a little mad for Harry Potter right now). And then tonight after dinner, instead of having cake and ice cream, he requested we go to Ritters as a family. He wanted a candle stuck in his ice cream cone instead of cake. (Who am I to complain? That's some awesome parenting right there. I'm such a good roll model!) We had a great night.

Happy birthday dude! It's been fun to celebrate all week long!