Someone Turns 58

March 13th this year marked my Dad's 58th birthday.  We all got together on Sunday to celebrate.  We met at Julie and Kevin's house to play and open presents, then we ate dinner at Red Robin in Des Moines, and then went back to my sister's house again for some yummy cake.  It's always fun getting together and as usual I took lots of pictures.

Ava and Isabelle playing in the princess tent.

My Dad looking at the cards that Ava and Isaiah made him.

Ava watching Grandpa open his present...a J Crew gift card.

Miss Isabelle was helping Grandpa open a Disney shirt, Mickey Mouse coffee scoop, and magnets from her.

Three adorable cousins!

The rare picture of Julie and myself.  We always seem to take all the pictures and very few with us ever make it onto our blogs. 

Ava and Isaiah love putting their car seats into Isabelle's car when we go places.  Isabelle loves having her big cousins ride with her. 

At Red Robin, Isaiah was impressed by the onion ring tower.  That kid loves his onion rings!

My parents have this tradition that they make a chocolate twinkie cake for each other every year.  I think they heard this recipe on the radio years and years and years ago and ever since have made this for EVERY birthday.  It's really good!

Make a wish...

...blow out the candles!  Happy B-Day Dad and Grandpa!

These little ones were loving the cake and ice cream!

Me and my Dad!

Apparently everyone likes changing into pajamas later in the evening...so that's what Grandma, Grandpa, Ava, Isaiah, and Isabelle did. 

How cute are these two munchkins!

Ava wearing Aunt Julie's Minne Mouse "honeymoon" headband that she wore when they went to Disney after their wedding.

Isaiah goofing around with Uncle Kevin

Miss Isabelle wearing Grandpa's Dale hat...I'm sure you've heard of the two chipmunks "Chip" and "Dale."  Here's a bit of trivia for you...do you know how to tell one from the other?  Chip as a black/brown nose like a chocolate chip and Dale has a red nose.  You learn something new every day!

Isaiah showing off the Dale hat too!

Grandma being silly with Isaiah

Another great birthday! Happy 58th Dad!

**My Three Happy's are on the next post.**

The Trap is all Set so We'll Patiently Wait...for One Sneaky Leprechaun to take the bait!

We're ready!  Tonight I talked to the kids about how around this time last year we put out Lucky Charms cereal as bait to attempt to catch our first leprechaun.  They asked me if I thought the leprechaun would come tonight.   I said, "I'm not sure, but we can set up the trap and put the cereal out to see."  Tonight the kids decided they wanted the trap on the table.  We also used a "rope" instead of a ladder this year.  They figured the leprechaun could climb the rope to get to the top of the box.  The kids are SOOO excited so see if this little green guy tip toes around our house tonight.   We'll just have to wait and see!

Earlier this week I brought home the pattern from school of a leprechaun craft.  We used paper from around the house to make a similar one.  We added shirts, shorts, and a belt.  How cute did these turn out!  Ava's is on the left and Isaiah's on the right.

Tonight Isaiah said, "Take a picture of me standing between the two leprechauns."

Ava and Isaiah getting Lucky Charms cereal out to scatter around the table and on the trap.

I think we're ready...we'll see what kind of mischief this funny green man makes tonight!

My Three Happy's:

1) 75 degrees...are you kidding...and maybe even warmer in the direct sun!  We spent the ENTIRE day outside.  We went to the zoo with my sister and Isabelle and then went back to her house to play afterwards.  The kids were soaked from the water table and from playing with the hose. Yes...it was that warm!  Pictures of our zoo trip coming soon. 

2) My 5:45 and 6:00 early risers are sleeping in!  I know...it's going to be a horrible transition when we go back to school soon...but I'm loving it!  We've been letting them stay up a little later and they've both been sleeping until 7:45 or 8:00.  Ahhh...this reminds me of summer!

3) The robins are back and it's light out after dinner.  Is it safe to say that winter is over and we will have only nice weather from here on out?  Hope so...this entire week is supposed to be in the upper 70's...talk about a perfect spring break!

**An extra 4th Happy: I can't begin to tell you how much I LOVE being home with Andy and the kids.  Every day has been filled with something fun and we've pretty much spent every waking moment together.  Sounds a little cheesy...but I love my family and treasure every single second we get together!

Happy Days!

Saturday was just one of those relaxing days...the weather was amazing, no one had a care in the world...it was just plain simple and most importantly was spent with family.  My Aunt Barbie had come up earlier in the week and my Uncle Dave drove up Friday night too.  We spent Saturday playing dress up, playing Frisbee and tag in the yard, going on bike rides, grilling out, and catching up.

I knew there was a reason why my Mom kept all our old dance costumes.  Ava loves trying them on and playing dress up. 

Isaiah of course wants no part of that!  He had just woke up from a nap and was relaxing on the couch with his new Build a Bear "Darth Vader."

Another beautiful day for a bike ride in the neighborhood

We all went for a walk too.

Isaiah took this picture of us on the hammock in my parent's backyard.

Andy and Isaiah were wrestling for the Frisbee in the backyard.

I have SOOO many more pictures so I made a mini slide show of all the other snapshots I took.  I can't even tell you how nice it is to be on spring break.  What a relaxing week it will be!

Happy Days!
(click on the "Happy Days" link to see the slide show)

Have a SUPER Monday!

My Three Happy's
1) Celebrating my Dad's 58th b-day yesterday.  His "real" b-day isn't until tomorrow, but we got together yesterday.  I'll post all those pictures soon too.
2) We just rented our jogger stroller for Disney World...just another reminder that our trip will be here before we know it!
3) This week it's supposed to be in the high 60's and low 70's.  What awesome weather!

Time for a Break!

 Today marks the first day of our spring break!  We have been waiting for this day for a long time.  This year our break backed up to conferences.  Andy and I have been busy at school teaching all day and then had conferences from 12:30-7:00 both Wednesday and Thursday night.  But now...it's officially over and I can put school on the back burner for a while and concentrate on having fun with my family.  I can't tell you how nice it was to wake up this morning and not rush out of the house.  Everyone still has their pajamas on...life is good!  Since we've been missing in action this week I had a few random pictures from last week to post.  I'm sure I'll be blogging much more this week since we're home. 

Andy's grandpa is a member of the Ames Kiwanis.  We went to Ames to enjoy their annual pancake breakfast.  Isaiah insisted that he was going to eat 10 pancakes and Ava wanted to eat 8.  I think it was more like 3 and 2 but they had lots of fun. 

I thought since I took of picture of Grandpa "relaxing," that I should probably post one of him working too. 

After an early lunch we went to Lowes to get the washer and dryer.  You know summer is right around the corner when Lowes brings out their mowers.  The kids love playing on these.  I was trying to tell Isaiah about the different parts of the mower and he said, "Mom, I already know all of that."  He was even telling me where to put your water bottle and fruit snacks when you mow.  Ava gets a kick out of him too and always looks at me, smiles, and says, "Oh....little brothers."

I love when he says, "These are John Deere ones.  See it says, John Deere."

On Sunday evening Ava had yet another birthday party for one of her classmates at school.  Her little friend Blake invited her whole class to The Playground, the same place where Ava had her party.  She had a blast.  I took a few pictures of Miss Ava.

Ava's best bud is Miss Reagan.  Ava is the one in the purple Micky Mouse shirt and Reagan is to the right of her.  They are so much alike and just love being around each other.

Well...now that it's break, what's on the list of things to do??
**Shopping, going out to eat, going to The Lorax, the Science Center, inviting friends over to play, and playing at friend's houses, seeing family more, celebrating my Dad's b-day, getting together with The Vermeers and The Browns (family friends with kids), and just plain old relaxing...the weather is supposed to be in the upper 60's this weekend so I'm sure we'll be outside quite a bit too.  We have no BIG vacation plans...we're just going to do little things that we never have time for during a normal school week.  I can't wait!  Oh...and maybe I should TRY to pick up the house...just a little.

My Three Happy's:
1) My Aunt Barbie came up from Indiana to visit.  We love when she comes back and my Uncle Dave will be back on Saturday.  It's so nice to see them again!
2) Doing nothing and having no "real" schedule.  We'll be busy doing lots of fun things...but we don't have to rush around!
3) Being with Andy and the kids!  There's nothing else I'd rather do!

A Seusstastical Supper

It's 6:30 in the morning and I've already fed two hungry children, indulged in my yummy, warm cup of coffee, showered, and let the dog out.  The kids were both up at 5:15...OH MY!  But after my coffee and a warm shower, it doesn't seem so bad.  They are happily eating their breakfast and watching Franklin as we speak before we get ready for church. 

This week as been nuts!  I feel like school has consumed my "extra time."  I've been getting report cards ready, conference materials organized, and had to be on the committee that was interviewed by the state at our school's site visit this week.  Talk about pressure...but it didn't turn out to be as scary as I thought.   With all of this stuff, I still NEVER let it take the time I have away from the kids.  My blog time has been taken over by other things lately...but spring break is coming up this Friday and I will have my personal life back!!  Yeah!
 

If you're in the education field or follow children's literature, you may know that Dr. Seuss's birthday was on March 2nd.  On Thursday night the kids wanted breakfast for dinner "Seuss Style."  We made green eggs and ham, green butter for our toast, green syrup for our pancakes, green peanut butter (looked terrible, but Ava ate it on her toast), green juice, and green milk.  I suppose you could say it was somewhat of a St. Patrick's Day theme too.  Here is Mr. Isaiah mixing up the eggs.

In went the green food coloring.  Of course he wanted to "multitask" and eat slices of cheese while stirring.

Yeah, I know...it looks like of yucky...but it tastes the same.  I'm making this for my class on Tuesday to go along with the story Green Eggs and Ham.  There are so many fun activities to do with this story.

Miss Ava is our picky eater...but she actually tried everything and liked it. 

Isaiah loves anything food.  He's always loved food since he was a baby.  This kid will try ANYTHING!  Lately he's really started liking fish and shrimp.  We will be going to a fun seafood restaurant in Disney World, Captain Jack's, and he's already told me he wants to order shrimp.

After dinner Ava told us all about musical chairs.  She told us everything from what we need, to how to set it up to play.  I bet we played for about 30 minutes or so.  The kids got a kick out of watching Andy and I get out of the game. 

The kids galloped, marched, clapped...you name it.  What an easy game to play and they had so much fun!

Here's the  next stage of the leprechaun house.  It's pretty cute now.  We just need a little ledge for him to stand on so he can climb the ladder and "fall into the trap."  One more week until that sneaky guy visits our house and makes all kinds of mischief. 

In a previous post I talked about how the kids wanted to make Star Wars droids.  We made the droids out of construction paper and markers.  Isaiah loved that this guy stands up by himself.

Ava working on hers...

...and the finished product.  These are both hanging on the kid's bedroom doors now. 

My Three Happy's:

1) My sister, Kevin, and Isabelle came over to play yesterday and to eat dinner.  How terrible is it that I completely forgot to take pictures.  Isabelle has really grown up and is turning into a little lady!  They left with this big car race track thing and a giant tiger that Isabelle can ride on...less stuff for us and more to add to their house. 

2) Our dryer broke the other day...the heating element went out and it was going to be pretty expensive to fix.  We just decided to buy a new dryer.  The washer has been acting weird too so we found a good deal at Lowes and got them both.  We really liked the front load ones...so that's what we got.  They come Monday and I can't wait.  How sad is it that it will be "fun to do laundry again."

3) Andy and I stayed up until after 11 last night watching a movie called Courageous.  This is a Christian based movie about a father who finds his faith in God after his daughter dies in a car accident.  He realizes that he wants to be a better dad and husband to his wife and son.  What a tear jerker!  It was an amazing movie with a powerful message.  One thing it makes you think about is that your job and hobbies will be worth nothing when you leave earth, but the souls and character of your children will reflect you and how you raised them.  What a powerful movie...a must see!