Summer's Here.....and a giveaway teaser!

 Finally! We've had some crazy weather this year, but it's finally starting to heat up.

We've been enjoying the clubhouse pool, as well as the slippy slider (as Jackson calls it). There's been lots of bike riding, garden planting, friend playing, and lazing about.  I LOVE SUMMER!!

And speaking of summer, swimming, and such- you are NOT going to want to miss an amazing giveaway tomorrow! Right here on my little ol' blog. 

The suspense is killing you, I know.....

School's Out!!

 

The wind thwarted my plans to have the banner outside for the kids to run through when they got home from school. We had to improvise inside, which was not as ideal. Taking pictures inside on sports mode results in crappy photos. Ah well.

Dance Festival

 This year's dance festival did not disappoint! The Kindergarten dressed like California Raisins. I could never get a good picture of Lincoln, but you'll see how cute they looked in the video!

The Fourth Grade teachers talked me into choreographing the dance for the fourth grade. They picked Celebration by Kool and the Gang for their song. At times I regretted saying yes! It was a lot of work, but in the end it was fun, and hopefully turned out okay (they had it down during practice, but had a few problems with spacing during the real performance. Oh well!).

Kensie, Brynne, and Pierce having fun before the Finale started

Miss Ladybug

Kensie's class put on a production of James and the Giant Peach the last week of school. They worked so hard and it turned out great! Kensie played the parts of Mrs. Trotter and Miss Ladybug.
 Kensie's teacher, Miss Russell, is such an amazing person. We will both miss her! Kensie's secretly hoping that Miss Russell moves up to teach 5th grade next year! It's not often you find a teacher like her!!

 Centipede, Miss Ladybug, and Old Green Grasshopper

(aka Peanut, Kensie, and Lauren)

Aunt Spiker, Aunt Sponge, Centepede, Ladybug, Grasshopper, Narrators, and James

And speaking of fabulous teachers, Lincoln had one as well. Mrs. Melzer was so loving and cared for Lincoln like one of her own. Lincoln tries not to show his emotions, but I could tell that he was very sad to say goodbye to her.

 

Zoorassic Park

We had fun at the zoo on Jackson's birthday. The kids especially loved the animatronic dinosaurs that are situated all over the zoo right now. The spitting dinosaur was a favorite!

Look Who's Four!!

 Jackson was somewhat confused when his actual birthday arrived, but he was excited to have "another birthday"! He had a sleep-over at G-ma & G-pa Young's the night before, spent the day at the zoo with the cousins, and had his requested Snake Cake that evening. The next day he went to dinner with G-ma & G-pa Holbrook and picked out a present.

He is such a funny kid! He's definitely the comedian of the family, and always keeps us laughing. He can remember EVERYTHING, especially random quotes from movies. Just name a movie and he can tell you his favorite part!

Here are some of his "favorites" at the moment:

• food- apples
• animal- elephant
• song- High School Musical
• cartoon- Spongebob
• movie- Star Wars
• person- Landon
• color- blue
• toy- trucks
• game- Mario
• place to go- Arizona
• book- Twinkle Twinkle
• treat- chocolate
• thing to wear- a jacket
• dinosaur- T-Rex
• shape- triangle
• number- 4
• eyebrow- the surprise eyebrow. I told you he's funny. When I was asking him these questions he said "don't you want to know what my favorite eyebrow is?". In case you're wondering what the surprise eyebrow looks like this is it:

BlogHer Book Review

I was recently able to participate in a book club review for BlogHer. Hopefully this will be the first of many. The book chosen was A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz.

Click on the button below to read my review:

More How-To's from the parties....

 Instead of a table cloth I covered a folding table with butcher paper (found at Michael's) and set out a bowl of crayons. The kids had fun drawing, and guests got to write birthday messages to the birthday girl and boys!! Best part- no washing the table cloth afterward!

recipe for Marshmallow Fondant HERE

 THE best buttercream frosting. EVER. Recipe HERE

 

Cake Pop Ice Cream Cones

What you need: 

1 Package of any boxed cake mix  (Baked as directed on the box) 

1/3 cup of your favorite frosting. Canned or homemade 

1lb. Package of candy melts. Any color (or almond bark)

Any type of edible decorations 

Wax paper

Kid Cones (found at Walmart)

To make the cake balls:

Bake cake and allow to cool completely (about one hour). 

Crumble cake in large bowl and add frosting.

Put cake mixture in fridge and chill for 30 min or overnight

Shape dough into balls, place on wax paper and flash freeze for about an hour.

Melt candy melts or almond bark according to directions. Dip the top of the cone lightly into melted chocolate so there is a ring around the top. Quickly dip the bottom of a cake ball in chocolate, place on top of the cone and let the chocolate set so the cake ball doesn't fall off. Once set, dip the cake ball completely into the melted chocolate so that the cake is completely covered. Add sprinkles and let chocolate harden.

Balloon Wreath How-To

 

This wreath is super easy to make. Here's what you need:

3 bags of 72 count ballons (1 1/2 to 2 inch size). 

2-3 greening pin packs-found at Craft stores in the artificial plant section.

 a straw wreath -leave the plastic on so it doesn’t shed.

 *I found everything but the wreath at Walmart

 Thread a balloon through a greening pin so that the pin is in the middle of the balloon. Stick in in the wreath (make sure it's in tight) and repeat a gazillion times until your wreath is covered. Voila! The perfect celebration wreath!!

My One Year Old

One Year Stats:

Weight: 19 pounds {20th percentile}

Height: 28 inches {40th percentile}

It's hard to believe that my baby's a year old. I hate that he's growing up so fast, but he's at such a fun age. He loves to eat (don't let his stats deceive you). His favorite things to eat at the moment are goldfish and frozen waffles. I'm a great mother...

He blows kisses, waves hello and bye-bye and even waves when he's ready for "night-night". If you ask him where your nose is he will point to it. He loves looking at books and carrying around socks {guess who leaves them lying about...} and "cleaning" things with them. He points to everything and babbles on and on like I should know what he's talking about. Most of the time I do.

Being the youngest of four Landon really knows how to make himself heard, but on the whole he is such a mellow, easy-going kid. Like his siblings, his binky went bye-bye on near his first birthday. We had a few tough nights, but he's doing great now.