Jayden Sings :: On Thanksgiving

Since the girls of this house suffered from the flu all day yesterday, we've postponed Thanksgiving for a day. So, instead of Thanksgiving pictures here is another song from Jayden (which I think is just as good!). I am loving all the songs Jayden is bringing home from school. :)

Happy Birthday, Willow and Mom!

Today was Willow's 2nd birthday and my mom's....well...my mom's birthday!  :)  It has been a busy last couple of days, and today was no exception.  I totally planned today to just be whatever we wanted, no plans, what the kids wanted to do we'd do, but I was hoping for a laid back, kinda lazy day.

Royal got up this morning and went to go pick up our turkey, then the turkey guy was late, so Royal came back home to wait about an hour, then drove back out to get the turkey.  Meanwhile, at home, I was making homemade breakfast sausages, and chocolate chip waffles and the kids were playing with some of Willow's new toys that she got to open.  Then we popped 2 big bags of party poppers, Willow popped a big helium balloon that Papa sent to her along with flowers for her and Nana, Royal finally came home with his arm full of flowers - some for Willow, some for my mom, and some for me, so mom and I set about getting them all in vases, then we loaded up in the car and (I know, you'll never guess) headed to the zoo - which is what the kids wanted to do.  We had a picnic lunch at the zoo, looked at a bunch of animals, then drug some tired kids home and put Willow down for a nap.  During naptime, my mom and I played with my chocolate tempering unit and made some little button candies to decorate the birthday cake with.  I've decided that I'm more of a make a cake that tastes super delicious, then make a cake out of a box, make a cute butterfly, and cover it with frosting that tastes alright (at least this year I am), so I made Willow and my mom a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake and my mom and I put some white chocolate buttons on it.  We thought it was cute and it did taste super delicious!   Once Willow was up from her nap, the kids hit a whole new level of crazy, so what did we do?  We took everyone out to dinner and let a restaurant experience the crazy too.  We ate, we came home, and then sang happy birthday to Willow and my mom, and gave the kids more sugar, a.k.a the cheesecake!  We did a little oovoo'ing with cousins, opened the rest of Willow's presents, the kids decided they would rather be dinos, so they put on their costumes, and were jumping, and somersaulting, and rolling all. over. the. place.  For planning on having a laid back, kinda lazy day, I'm exhausted!

Happy Birthday Willow and Mom!!!



And since most of our family is not around and couldn't get online to sing to Willow and Nana, here is the video of us singing (try not to judge :) ) and Willow blowing out her candles.

Just Keep Swimming

The kids finished up another session of swimming today.  Jayden decided at the beginning of this session that he was ready to do some swimming again.  Guess he got tired of playing Go Fish with me while sitting in the hot humid pool building waiting for Willow.  And the timing couldn't of been better because I'm way behind on my Christmas knitting and now I've got 30 minutes to cram in a few rows.  ;)

My mom flew in from Washington last night, so she got to come to swimming lessons today.  Good thing, because otherwise I wouldn't of had these pictures.  Nanarazzi was in the house, while I was knitting furiously and watching on the sidelines.

Jayden is doing great in Level 3, he just has to master side breathing and he'll move up to Level 4!







Willow, just 2 days before her 2nd birthday has completed Level 1 and is moving on up to Level 2!  Wanda, who has been her swim teacher the whole time (she did the parent-tot class too) told me she wasn't giving up Willow and was going to make sure she kept her for Level 2 as well.  (usually there is just 1 teacher per level in a time slot, but Wanda is the resident grandma and I think what Wanda wants, Wanda gets, and Willow just happens to be one of her favorite students!)

Kid Quote :: 12

Jayden : "Hey Mom, you're the best mom ever....and you're not stupid"

(somebody been calling me stupid???)

Turkey Heads

We had a little visitor over today (my friend Sabrina's son, Lunden), so we made turkey hats!





not sure how we did this, but...everybody matches!!!

What Willow Wears :: 5

...while playing the piano....

Window Seat Coloring

We have this great window seat that is in one of our bay windows in our kitchen/eating area.  I love it and have had plans to make cushions for it since we got here, you know once I get the walls painted and some curtains for the windows made - I know we've been here for over 2 years, you'd think I'd have worked on a few more things... but in the mean time, the kids have completely thrashed the poor window seat.  They use it as their play table and there are more dings and scratches in that thing then I will ever be able to repair with a "repair marker".   Those cushions are going to really come in handy to cover all that up...that is when they are actually on the window seat and not thrown on the floor, which is what my kids are going to do with them.  If I were them, I'd put all my future cushions in a big ole pile and then jump off the window seat onto the pile.  But that's just me....

Anyways....I got a bug in my brain a couple days ago that I wanted to cover the whole bench with paper and let the kids color all over it.  They've been drawing and coloring like crazy and Willow has managed to figure out where the writing pens are and grabbed one and instead of writing on paper, she kept the tip of the pen in and scraped huge scrape marks all over the top of the bench - not sure Royal has seen that yet because I haven't heard the signature "Uggggggh" when he finds something else the kids have managed to destroy.  :)  Although writing it here is probably going to get him to come and inspect the window seat.  Good thing I covered the whole thing in paper tonight and let the kids color away!!!