The Lean-To

Sometimes Sunday afternoon gets a little, ummm, well,   boring.  Everyone really needs to go outside for some fresh air.  This Sunday Kyleigh asked Rusty to show her how to build a lean-to.  So he and the kids had a little lean-to lesson.  The kids had fun.  Rusty had fun.  It was worth the fact that we now have what has been deemed the homeless shelter in the front yard.

Spring Chicks

We got 5 new baby chicks.  Some random dog wandered into our garage while the kids were playing out front.  We now have 4 baby chicks.  They are Mary Queen of Scots the second, Jailbird, Peanut, and Blondie.  Our little lost chick was Cutie Batman.  They have already made an appearance in Katelyn's class.  How convenient that it was Dr. Seuss week and two of the chicks are araucanas...and araucanas lay green eggs...and Dr. Seuss wrote green eggs and ham.  You get it, right?  The kids loved it.  Kyleigh turned in the show and tell points she earned so I am taking them to her class tomorrow.  And right now my kids are out on the front lawn enjoying the spring weather with the chicks and their cousins.  And they are not fighting!  I love little chicks.

Kyleigh's Cake Class

 Kyleigh finally got to take the cake class she has been wanting to take.  Holly was looking at a community ed class, but didn't want to committ to 8 weeks, so she found a Wilton 1 class at Joannes during February.  They went each Tuesday night of the month.  Holly couldn't make it one Tuesday so I got to go with Kyleigh.  We made the cakes shown above.  The cupcake is Kyleigh's and the fish is mine.  Holly introduced Kyleigh to the magical world of crazy bread, which I think they stopped for every Tuesday.  They had a great time together and both are graduates of Wilton 1.  Kyleigh has given me some great pointers that really do make things easier.  How fun to have such a great Aunt to take you to classes and how fun for me to have a daughter that can decorate cakes!

President's Day 2014

I am always trying to find a way to maneuver into the girls' classrooms for fun activities.  In February I did activities in both classrooms for Presidents Day.  In Kyleigh's classroom we set up four stations.  Station one was a photo booth and log cabin building activity.  I took a picture of each of the kids with the Abraham Lincoln set-up (and later made a poster for the classroom).  After they had their picture taken they built log cabins out of pretzels to see who could get the highest cabin.  In case you are wondering why log cabins, Abraham Lincoln was born and lived as a small child in a log cabin.  Station two was directed drawing of the presidents.  Station three was reading about George Washington and the cherry tree, writing what honesty was to them, and eating a piece of cake with cherry topping on it.  Station four was coming up with ways to remember the three branches of the government.  I think they loved it?

In Katelyn's class we made George Washington and Abraham Lincoln out of Nilla Wafers.  I had kits all ready for each student with faces drawn on the nilla wafers.  They added frosting to make a mini chocolate chip beard for Lincoln, with pieces of hersheys chocolate for the tall hat.  Washington was pieces of small marshmallows for the wig and shirt piece.  They turned out so cute and the kids had a great time.

This week I am going to do a Dr. Seuss activity with Katelyn's class.  I think it will involve green eggs, ham, and our chicks that grow up to lay actual green eggs.  Not sure, still working on the details!

Valentines Day

 Per usual we celebrated Valentines Day with a surplus of festive food.  The cookies above were for Katelyn's class party.  There are a whole bunch of parents in Katelyn's class that like to plan parties so I opt to do other types of projects with them and volunteer to bring what they need for parties.

 We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast to start on day off on a sugar high.  I made one that was a large heart and the rest were individual hearts.  You couldn't see the cuteness of the individual hearts once the pink frosting went on, but they were delicious all the same.

 For lunch I packed the girls a decorate your own cookie kit, a heart shaped pb&j sandwich, arrow pepperoni and cheese snacks, apples, and yogurt with strawberries.

 For dinner we had heart shaped pizzas and valentines jello.  The jello was a flop.  See the picture of how it was supposed to look below.  Our fancy drink was raspberry sherbet with 7-up over the top.

Happy Valentines Day to us!

Ridge During the Day

 While the girls are away, Ridge loves to play.  Legos, swords, tractors, trains, dirt, or anything else you can think of.  He always asks to get his picture taken, sometimes in creative ways.  I love that Ridge is still at home with me all day.

Ridge Turns 4!

 4 feels really old.  It felt old when Kyleigh reached 4.  It felt older when Katelyn hit it.  Now Ridge?  I can't believe it!  Like it or not, I don't have a choice and I do have a job, to make it special.  Rusty woke Ridge up in the morning so we could have breakfast before he and the girls needed to leave.  Rusty was singing happy birthday and dancing around.  Ridge told him, "ok, ok, settle down."  It was pretty funny.  We started the day with pancake men, as usual.  You will notice Mr. Pig is in the first picture.  Four might be old, but not too old for Mr. Pig.
Ridge had preschool at Holly's that morning.  Holly had her house all decorated for him and they even had "preschool presents" to celebrate.  Ridge wanted whale cupcakes to take for a treat.  We did our best at whale cupcakes.
Daddy came home to have lunch with Ridge on his birthday.  We all went to the school to watch Kyleigh in her class' play about Abraham Lincoln.  She did great.  After that Russ went back to work and I took Ridge to Pojos for the afternoon.  I have never taken him there alone.  He loved being able to decide how to use all the tokens and spend all the tickets himself.
We came home and worked on his birthday cake.  He wanted a John Deere tractor.  I was super nervous about this because Ridge gets very specific ideas in his mind about how things should look.  We had looked at pictures online and he had named features of several of them that he wanted on his tractor.  These included a trailer with strawberries, a tall "horn thing" in the front, and donut tires.  I kind of regretted letting him see the pictures because there are people out there that make really fancy cakes and I am not one of them.  I put his cake together using two loaf size pans with a cake mix in each one.  The bottom of the tractor is one loaf pan and the top and trailer are the other loaf pan split in two.  The sides of the trailer are kitkat bars and we did find some strawberries and donuts to complete the look.  When Ridge was a tiny baby I bought plastic hard hats and inflatable hammers at a garage sale.  I stuck them in the party box knowing they would come in handy some day.  I labeled the hats with everybody's name in the front.  On the back of Layton Construction hats everyone has the number of years they have worked for Layton.  I put everybody's age on the back of our party hats.  Kyleigh and Katelyn decorated with streamers.  They love doing that because they get to throw the streamers across the top of the room from rail to rail.  Ridge wanted spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner with lots of cake and ice cream for dessert.  He got just what he wanted with donuts and kitkat bars to top it off.
For his birthday we gave him a "worker bench" with tools so he can really hammer and screw things together.  He also got a giant Santa from Mike and Holly and the girls which he was pretty excited about.  He loved all of the gifts he was sent.
Happy fourth birthday to our Ridger-Man!  We love you!!!