S'Mores!

We got a fire pit!

I got it for free as part of Amazon Vine. Basically, Amazon sends me things for free in exchange for a review.  Not a bad deal. 

So, normally on Saturdays I bribe the kids with ice cream to get them to do their chores quickly. Usually, we set a time limit between an hour and a half to two hours. If we get all the chores done in that time period we will go out for ice cream. This Saturday, we changed the reward to s'mores. The kids were highly motivated to be able to roast marshmallows and finished everything. 

Hanging out on our back patio roasting marshmallows. 

 

S chowing down on his s'more

We had a fun time roasting marshmallows and getting ooey gooey s'mores all over us.

Dance Recital

MK had her big dance recital Thursday.

All the good pictures were taken by R with his spiffy camera. I was in charge of the video camera. I haven't figured out how to get the video onto my computer yet. 

But, this was how darling she looked in her dance outfit.

MK

Her dance group did three dance numbers. My favorite was to "Jailhouse Rock." MK shook, rattled, and rolled. It was awesome! 

One of the dance numbers was "Heigh Ho" from Snow White. The dance teachers asked each student to make their own dwarf costume for that number. I asked my mom if she could help us out and she made the cutest costume for MK. My mom took MK shopping to pick out the fabric, and MK was very adamant on what she wanted. And it turned out great!

Field Trip to the Dairy Farm

MK's preschool had a field trip to the local Dairy Farm. I signed up to go along and help out. It was a lot of fun.  We got to see a LOT of cows, how the cows are fed, what the cows eat, how the cows are milked, and more. The kids were able to feed the baby cows and pet them. At the end, they were all given some chocolate milk that came from this farm. 

MK in front of the Tractor

MK standing on the tractor wheel

It was a fun field trip. Honestly, I had forgotten all about it. MK and I dropped of the boys at school when she said "Mom, I'm supposed to wear my preschool shirt today. Miss Stacey said so." I told her we'd check the calendar when we got home. Sure enough, the calendar said it was the field trip. That's when I remembered I was supposed to chaperon. 

WIP Wednesday #6 - Pillow Pets

I made another pair of pillows.

Zebra Pillow, Hippopotamus Pillow

A friend of mine is having a baby boy. I was trying to figure out what to get for her baby and could never decide on anything. For about an hour I thought of making a super-quick baby quilt. Then I thought of these pillows that my kids just love. I still had a lot of fabric left over, so that decided it. 

And since I was making 1 pillow I decided it'd be just as easy to make it 2. Another friend had a baby boy 6 months ago. I didn't have time to put zippers in these pillows...zippers take me FOREVER!

I'm not technically done. I still need to hand sew the pillows closed. 

Dance Recital Preview

MK had dance pictures on Thursday. 

(No. This isn't the official picture. This is the "before we left the house" picture.)

MK

We got her all dressed up for her group and individual pictures. She LOVES this. She loves having "pretty hair." She loves putting on make-up. She loves dressing up. 

Next week is her big dance recital, and she is so excited. 

Lost Tooth

S lost his first tooth on Wednesday. He was so excited!

 

Current Quilting Issues

 

This is how I feel about my "Fractured Flowers" project.

Fractured Flower Quilt Block

I feel like I can't start another project until this one is done. But because it's on "Time Out," I haven't worked on anything. Part of me wants to just get this frustration over with and out of my WIP pile, but then I start to think about how much more I'll hate it if I do finish it in its current state of disarray and have to live with all the mismatched seams. What to do, What to do.

WIP Wednesday #5 - Framing the Basement

What have I been working on lately? No, I haven't had time for quilting because I have been doing this:

 

 

While R was in Australia I cleaned out the basement and framed  it up with the help of my dad. Okay, let's be real about this. My dad was the main muscle here and I was his minion. We were able to frame up the entire area in 1-1/2 days. My dad is part machine, part man. After working for 9 hours my body just gave out. I couldn't do it anymore. I could barely hammer anymore. My mom and I had to convince my dad to stop for the day. I was SO sore! He came back 2 days later, and it only took us 3 hours to finish up the rest.

Before we framed, I spent 2-3 days cleaning up all the junk we dumped downstairs. After we framed, I spent another day organizing. I've also made 2 trips to DI, 1 trip to Habitat for Humanity, 1 trip to Kid to Kid, and had a pick up from Friends of MS. 

I didn't tell R I was doing this. He had no idea. Once he was home I had MK tell him I needed his help with something downstairs. He came through the door and his jaw hit the floor. 

Next step is to frame around the ducting, then do the electrical and mechanical. I do bookkeeping for a drywaller. I've told him not to pay my current bill as I will want to trade it out.  Woo-Hoo!

Blast From the Past

Look what I found while I was cleaning our basement?

Baptism Dress

My Baptism Dress!

I can't believe I still have this.  I loved this dress. 

I remember going to San Francisco to the Gunne Sax Outlet to buy this dress.

(I found it next to my high school cheerleading uniform.) 

The Cardboard Box

I've been taking some time to go through all our stuff dumped in our basement. I've thrown out a lot of stuff, including tons of cardboard boxes. The kids immediately commandeered some and have had hours and hours of fun. C grabbed his box of Makedo Freeplay and duct tape and started to make a car. 

 

 

 

The last couple mornings, I'll come out to the living room and one of the kids will be sitting on a chair they've placed inside this cardboard car watching cartoons. It always just looks weird. 

They have made so many things with cardboard this week, it's crazy. 

The Cruise

On Tuesday, I took the kids to the movies. They have been wanting to see "The Croods." So, the night before, as per our normal family routine, we talked about what were going to do the next day. This is how our conversation went:

Me: Tomorrow we are going to go to the Movies. Then C & S have piano lessons. C, you have baseball practice in the evening.
S: What movie are we going to go see?
Me: We're going to "The Croods."
MK: *Super Excited* The Cruise? I can't wait to see Mickey and Minnie! And I can go to Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutique and be a princess!
Me: Oh! Um, no. MK, we're not going on the Disney Cruise. We're going to see the movie "The Croods."
MK: *sobers* Oh.

Ice Cream

The kids and I have been have a lot of fun while they are out of school for Spring Break.

Unfortunately, it can't always be all fun and games and some chores do need to happen and errands need to be run.  I had a few chores that needed to be taken care of, which they did SUPER fast. So, during some errands, we stopped for ice cream from Super Sonic. (We had coupons for free ice cream. SCORE!)

The kids loved how the waitress brought them out to us wearing roller skates. 

S, C, MK enjoying ice cream

Easter Day

Easter Day was a fun filled day. 

We started off our day by visiting Grandma Great. We bought a Spring Cactus for Grandma Great on behalf of Mimi. I saw this and immediately thought of Grandma Great. It has beautiful hot pink flowers (she loves fushia) and it's a cactus (she grew up in Arizona.)

The kids and Grandma Great

And one picture with bunny ears for Easter

We then drove to my parents house and went to church with them. 

While there, the Easter Bunny visited us. 

C and S were running too fast for me to get a picture, but I did get one of MK collecting Easter Eggs.

MK hunting eggs

S, C, & MK with their Easter buckets

The kids received sidewalk chalk for Easter.

They spent a couple hours drawing a mural.

S drawing the Easter Bunny

And of course, going to grandma and boppi's house means a trip to the park.

This time, MK was too busy and fast for me to get a picture of her.

S crawled into the monkey bars. He is part monkey.

S

C on top of a slide

We spent the night at my parents house. The kids were VERY upset that we were only staying one night. We've already decided to have another sleepover the following weekend.