Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day and it was GREAT!!! I am blessed to have 5 great kids and a wonderful husband!!
Jude woke me up at around 7:30 for some yummy PW cinnamon rolls (I made them Sat. for Kaitlyn's party). So, I fed the kids (Jarrod was out hiking) and then Daddy came home and was super surprised that we were all awake. He had planned a big breakfast, but we beat him to it. He did end up making the turkey bacon he picked up. He was trying to go the healthy route, but we both agree that while turkey bacon is edible, full fat pork bacon is so much yummier. The kids gave me some beautiful cards. Emma made me a beautiful butterfly sun catcher st school and Jude made me a flower vase at Loews (he also picked out some tulips to put in the vase).Then, we got my craft table ready to paint. My poor table has been waiting about 3 years for paint. After hanging out for a little while, we headed off to church. At church they handed out roses to all the women and we also got an invite to a salon for a night of pampering. After church, we drove out to Lolo to eat at the Lolo Steakhouse. It was soooo yummy. Jarrod and I split a pound of Alaskan King crab legs. I didn't realize how much I missed crab until I had that. After lunch we took Kaitlyn to the mall to spend the rest of her Bday money. She got a couple of cute shirts at American Eagle. Then, we went to the big Dipper and got ice cream. We ran by the garden and Kaitlyn and Coen passed out. When we got home Jarrod and I primed the table and got the first coat of paint on. I am doing the top in Chalkboard paint and the legs and trim in Purple Dragon. I love chalkboard paint! I am so excited that my craft table will be done soon. I love the fact that as I'm doing stuff I can make notes, write out supply lists and even draw out my ideas on the table- no paper needed!!! I will post some pics later along with the promised Bday pics.

Funny story- we gave Mia, Jude and Coen a bath before bed last night. Mia likes baths except for water in her face, so she is constantly spitting when water gets on her face, Jude hates baths (we have tried everything-sometimes he is calm, but most times not so much) so he screamed the entire time. So, he was a quick get him in get him out. Coen on the other hand loves the water. He'll take showers with us and hardly make a peep. Even last night in the bath tub he played and splashed. He even sat down in the tub. I know, you're thinking -sitting down isn't that big of a deal!, well in our family it is. Jude still won't sit in the tub- he'll squat, but that is as close as it gets. Well, Coen sat and when it was time to get out, he flat out refused. He even figured out how to put the plug back down. The only time he was unhappy with the bath situation was when we took him out. He kept hopping up and trying to get back in when I was getting him dressed. It was great! After having the last 2 hate baths, it was nice to see one enjoy it after so long.

Kaitlyn is 12!!!!

Yesterday we celebrated Kaitlyn's 12th birthday. My little baby is a big girl now. She is almost as tall as I am. She is in an XS at Old Navy and she has surpassed my shoe size and is now in an 8 1/2. (which means I just got some new shoes-well, new to me anyway). She has gone from my little chubby cheeked human buoy into a beautiful young lady. I miss my little belly button picking baby, but I am enjoying my young lady. We have our moments, but most of the times we have skipped the drama. We love her very much and are sooo proud of her. I can honestly say I am looking forward to seeing the woman she will become as we are getting glimpses now.

Kaitlyn, we love you and are so very proud of you. You are a sweet girl and you are turning into a beautiful young lady. Happy Birthday!

Here is how her Bday went - after school she opened her presents and then we let her pick somewhere for dinner. She decided on The Mustard Seed (my Cinco de Mayo baby picked chinese food for dinner). Then, we came home and had a yummy choc. chip cookie dough cake from Cold Stone. She got a lot of neat stuff for her birthday and I think she enjoyed turning into a tween. She got some Bday money, Old Navy GCs, a hiking pack with water bladder, the Lego Harry Potter Wii game she wanted, a purse and wallet from her siblings and a haircut from us. Tonight she gets her party. We let her have 2 friends over for a sleepover. They are going to watch movies and play Wii. We are going to do cupcake fondue for dessert. I think we are going to do PW's cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I will definitely post pics of all this Bday stuff as soon as I get them on the computer.

Funny things Jude says....

(Mommy steals a piece of Jude's cereal)
J- Mommy I don't want you to eat my butt.
M- Umm, yeah I don't want to eat your butt. That's kinda gross.
J- It's a human butt!

Easter

Easter was a busy day. I woke up early and made a yummy breakfast of mini monkey bread. So yummy! Then, the kids and I went for a walk while Jarrod called the EB to see if he could visit our house a little earlier than he usually does (usually he comes while we are at church). Then we visited a new church that meets around the corner. It was a good service. We still have a couple more churches to visit on my list, but we may be going back to this one. They have a welcome dinner tomorrow night we are going to go to so that we can learn more about the church. Then, it was off to lunch at Fuddruckers. We went home and Jarrod, Emma, Mia and Jude got ready to go to the garden. The 4 of them removed all the hay from our 2 plots, turned the soil, made the rows and planted some spinach. Kaitlyn and I hung out while Coen slept (a 2 hr. nap!). I started our ham while everybody was gone so we would be almost ready to eat when everybody got home. Our yummy Easter dinner was ham, mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. After dinner everybody got ready for bed and Jarrod and the girls played the new Lego game we got for Easter. It was a great day spending time with the family.

Easter craft #3

Here is the last craft we made for spring/Easter. I found it here. Mia and Jude both painted their toilet paper rolls and I painted one for Coen, added all the decorations and hot glued them. Here are the pics-

Surprise Eggs and the Handprint Wreath

Ok, so before I post craft #2 here are the final pictures of the mystery craft. I found these aawesome eggs here. I went to The Good Food Store (our more expensive version of Central Market) and got some yummy chocolates and jelly beans (no nuts here for our nut free school). Just for the record chocolate covered ginger is yucky- this did not end up in the eggs. So glad I tasted it first (well, the kids tasted it first). So, we ended up with dark chocolate raisins, chocolate covered cranberries (OMG these were yummy!), malted milk balls, chocolate covered coffee beans aka buzz bombs, cinnamon chocolate covered espresso beans (these were extra special yummy too), and last but not least jelly beans. I also made some for Jarrod and his got dark chocolate almonds and chocolate covered peanuts.

Now on to the kids craft from yesterday-
I found this craft and thought it would be a great craft for the holidays. I love handprint crafts! So, here is our handprint wreath. Mia and Jude did bunny handprints and Coen did chick handprints. It was much easier to paint his whole hand than paint a few fingers and palm over and over again. I found this project here and tweaked it a bit. My bunnies all face the center, I only used 3 colors for the bunnies, and I didn't use plastic eggs - I splatter painted some cardstock and cut out eggs instead. Here are the pictures-

Easter/Spring craft

I decided on Sunday (after we cleaned the garage out and I got my craft table back in order) that I would do some cute crafts with the 3 kiddos I have at home this week. I picked out 3 really cute crafts that I had stuff in hand for and we did the first one today. I found it on a blog that I check daily for cute/fun things to do. This craft was in her grouping of pics, so I drew my own based on her picture and had the kids get after it with the watercolors. They did a great job! Coen even did his painting by himself. I did his gluing. You can find the inspiration for this craft here. Here are some pics of the kids hard at work and the finished products.






I am also working on a fun teacher gift that I will reveal later (on Thursday). Here is a sneak peek.