Friday, June 8, 2012

Pinterest Party: Owl Cake


I'm linking up with Leighann @Living with Three Hobbits and a Giant for her pinterest party this week!  Click HERE for Pinspiration or to link up!


Last weekend we had a camping party for Maddie's 4th birthday.  It was a lot of prep work but also a TON of fun!  I enjoy doing homemade goodies for parties.  It's cheaper and it's more personal.  I hope my girls grow up appreciating the work and love that go into it.  Well...with a camping party I wasn't really sure how I was going to do a cake.  Then we added the owl theme to go with the camping theme (to make it a little more girly).  I did a cupcake cake last year so when I saw this owl cupcake cake, I KNEW I had to do it!  Here's the original link:  http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/night-owls-cupcakes-984215/

And here's a picture of the final product when I finished Maddie's cake:


I couldn't find plain chocolate wafer cookies like the directions call for, so I made chocolate sugar cookies and cut them out with a round cookie cutter.  The eyes are made using a cookie similar to thin mints because the cookies I made were too big...

This was such a fun project and turned out to be a huge hit!  However, next year I'll know better than to put coconut on a cake for 4 year olds...that part didn't go over well :)

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

All About Maddie on her 4th Birthday


What makes you happy?  When I watch Doc McStuffins with my sister.
What makes you sad?  When you punish me and put pepper on my tongue.
What is your favorite thing to do with Sadie?  Watch Doc McStuffins.
What's your favorite thing to do with Daddy?  Go to the park.
What's your favorite thing to do with Mommy?  Snuggle.
What's your favorite breakfast food?  All the stuff.  
What's your favorite lunch food?  Chicken nuggets with mayonnaise.
What's your favorite snack?  Junk food.
What's your favorite supper food?  Spaghetti and meatballs.
What's one food you REALLY don't like?  Zucchini.
What's your favorite thing about school?  When we play on the iPads.
What's your favorite book?  All the books.  
What's your favorite thing to watch on tv?  Doc McStuffins (like you didn't see that one coming...)
What's your favorite movie?  Lady and the Tramp
Who's your best friend?  Cadence and Sydney
What do you want to be when you grow up?  A paramedic
What are you best at doing?  Snuggling with mommy.
What is your best memory?  Going camping.
What's your favorite toy?  Dogs.  Those stuffed animals.
What's something Daddy tells you a lot?  Most of the time he just bes happy with me.
What's something Mommy tells you a lot?  You always tell me be nice to my sister.
What's your favorite song?  The Laurie Berkner songs.
If you could change your name, what would it be?  Alex.
Can you tell me three things about yourself?  Maddie likes to play by herself and just play by herself, watch tv by herself, do everything by herself.
Now, tell me something funny.  A crawcat was stuck in somebody's underwear. (She's been on a crawfish kick lately, so I guess she wanted to come up with something funnier and made it a crawcat).
Is there anything else you want to tell me?  Yes.  Tell you bedtime stories, tell you all about Sadie.  Sadie, you have yucky yucky lovey disease.  Your lovey is disgusting.  Go on, dude, you're yucky.  Silly willy flower.  That's a icky flower.  Chicken head.  





Thursday, May 31, 2012

We're Still Here

It's been quite a while since my last post.  The beginning of April to be exact...Time has been slipping away as we have a ton of fun as a family.  Our weekends have been full of mini-trips, visits with family and just general fun around the house.  Now that it's officially summer in Houston, we've been busy trying to get in some swimming and sprinkler fun too :)

In April we took a family trip to San Antonio.  We spent two days at Sea World with the girls and we all had such a great time!  Maddie's big enough for the kiddie rides now and Sadie enjoyed seeing Elmo and the whole Sesame Street gang.  Both girls got to feed and touch dolphins, which may have been a bigger deal to me than to them...it was really cool :)

In May we took a day trip to College Station to visit with Eric's sister and her family for the afternoon.  While we were there we took Sadie to her first play!  It also happened to be the first play that cousin Amy was in!!  We all had a really good time seeing Dr. Dolittle and Maddie even started saying good morning to Murphy by barking and shaking her left leg.  Super cute!

Last weekend we took a little adventure to take the girls camping for the first time.  They both really seemed to enjoy it but we all missed the air conditioning!  Even poor Murphy was panting pretty much the whole time we were there.  We had some highs and lows of the trip but we look forward to doing it again when the weather gets MUCH cooler!

In a few days Maddie's having her 4th birthday party!!  We're getting the final preparations done over the next couple of days and look forward to seeing Maddie enjoying time with her friends.

Over the next week I'll be sure to post pictures of all we've been up to over the past couple of months!!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Maddie-isms

I was resting on the loveseat one day around noon.  Maddie came over and told me, "Mommy, can you lift up off of this cushion so I can get something out?"  I asked her what was under there, thinking maybe she slid a book in or something.  I lifted up and she reached in and pulled out Sadie's sippy cup that had milk in it!!!  Thank God she got it out when she did and it didn't get left there for days...

"Do you know what's Spanish for pictures?  Illustrations."

Maddie got dressed, then put her nightgown on top of her clothes, and a pig neck pillow on TOP of her head.  I asked her why she was all dressed up like that and she said, "Because I have to look silly for the contest."  Apparently there was going to be a contest to look like a clown...

One morning in the car line (to drop Maddie off at school) I noticed that the twins in her class were right behind us.  I let Maddie know and she was so excited that she said, "That's peculious".  I asked her what that meant and she told me it means when there's someone good in line behind you.  :)  LOVE this imagination!!

Maddie told me she was a rat one morning.  I played along and told her she was the cutest little rat I'd ever seen.  This game continued on for a little while (she even had a laundry basket of towels that was "full of her babies").  Then she just suddenly told me, "Actually, Mommy, I'm a nocturnal animal.  I sleep at daytime and stay awake at the nighttime."  Wow!  A few minutes later she told me, "Do you know what my favorite breakfast food is?  Bugs."  So I asked her what kind of animal she was and she told me she's a bat.  I asked if bats are nocturnal and she said, "Well, yeah".  Duh, mom!  :)

"That was random."  Seriously, Maddie said this at a totally random time when we were all sitting outside eating dinner.  It was completely out of the blue and...well, random.  We laughed so hard!

"Mommy, I was running so hard smoke came behind me!"

"Aye, Aye, Captain.  Let's sail the high seas!"

"I have 100 million and 89 blood pressures just like this one (holds up her toy blood pressure cuff) just in case one of them runs out of air."

"We're playing milk the cow.  Murphy's the cow."

"Raspberry storm!  Raspberry storm!  Raspberry storm in my underwear!"  Hmmm...NO idea where that one came from :)

This one really cracked me up...I don't know why.  I guess because she doesn't really know what she's saying. Yesterday Maddie was walking around saying, "9, 8 central".  She just kept repeating it over and over like it was stuck in her head.  I don't know if she thinks it's a tv show or something.  I couldn't stop laughing.






Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Oh, These Girls of Mine

My girls are crazy!  They're fun, they're silly, they're sweet, they're emotional, they're OPINIONATED!  I'm trying to look at that last one as a good thing...

I'll start with Sadie.  Sadie has the craziest personality ever.  She seems to change her mood depending on the weather.  Some days she'll wake up from her nap asking for Daddy, looking out the window for him and everything and sad when he's not there.  But then when he gets home from work she runs away from him screaming and I have to hold her.  She won't go to him and holds on to me so tightly refusing to let him hold her.  All Daddy has to say is, "Sadie, want to go outside and see if we can find the lizard?".  Then she goes to him, goes outside and all is forgiven.  Silly girl!

Sadie is usually a lot of fun to be around.  She's figuring out the world and figuring out her own sense of humor. She knows when she's doing something silly.  She's recently started making silly faces and laughing at herself, even when she can't see her own face!  She just knows she's being silly and we should be laughing at her.

Along with Sadie's sense of humor comes her temper.  She has a tendency to get a little (or a lot) angry.  Of course it's all over typical toddler stuff...Mommy takes her out of the swing at the park and she has a meltdown.  She drops a toy or snack and she has a meltdown.  She wants to wear a particular pair of shoes and Mommy puts other ones on her (or attempts to put other ones on her) and she has a meltdown.  She wants a particular drink or snack and we bring her something different...she will HIT the unwanted item out of our hands.  Ahhhh...I didn't go through this kind of stuff with Maddie because she was talking in sentences by this age.  Sadie's talking in sentences too, just in her own little language that I can't understand :)

Some things Sadie says:  Teet Teet (bird), boo boo, pee pee (anytime someone goes into the bathroom), milk, again, more, Mmm hmm (yes), no, eat, ball, Murph, outside, play, book, cheeks, brush (brush teeth), bath (this means bath as well as swim), toes, mama, daddy, Maddie, bear, mine (lovey), bed.  She's said a few phrases too.  She's said "Did you see that?", "I got it", "I got you", "who is it?"  I know there are more words and phrases she says but my mind isn't letting me remember them right now :)

And then there's Maddie...my sweet little 4 going on 14-year old.  Maddie has become very particular about what she wears these days.  I've always liked giving her a choice in what she wants to wear (a choice between two things usually).  Well, now she insists on wearing a skirt or dress every day.  Princesses don't wear shorts or pants, didn't you know??  We've gotten used to letting her wear whatever she wants.  I mean, we bought her the clothes she has so we know it's all appropriate to be wearing out.  So what if she wants to wear a church dress to school...but now she's started getting more particular with her hair too!  This one's driving me crazy.  I wonder what age I can start letting her fix her own hair.  She's so indecisive about the way she wants to wear her hair.  This morning she's wearing a super cute outfit (skirt, of course) but she doesn't have any headbands that match it.  Headbands are her hair accessory of choice!  She threw down her purple headband, stomped out of the bathroom as she's pouting about not having ANY HEADBANDS THAT MATCH and slams the door on her way out.  Wow!!  I didn't even know what to say about that one.  I just let her go. When she didn't get any attention about it, she came back in and decided she wanted to pony tails.  Then she told me exactly where she wanted them on her head.  The pony tails had to be up high and out to the sides so she can see her pony tails.  The funny thing is that she doesn't seem to mind that her purple hair bands don't match her teal outfit.  And, yes, she picked those out herself too!

The other thing Maddie's really indecisive about is what to eat for breakfast.  Every morning we go through the full list of her options for breakfast.  She regularly tells me she doesn't know why she can't decide what she wants for breakfast.  "That's just the way God made me," she tells me.  I just smile and let her take her time deciding.  Usually once she gets started with one thing, she'll keep asking for more and more for breakfast.  So I know she's hungry, she just really doesn't know what she wants.

Maddie is really sweet and thoughtful most of the time.  Every Friday at school they get to check out a library book.  Last Friday she came home with Brown Bear, Brown Bear because she knows that's Sadie's favorite book.  She thinks about what her friends like and offers help if someone needs help.  She just seems so much older than a 3 3/4 year old in this aspect.  I mean, she's still selfish and doesn't want to share her toys most of the time, but to think of others the way she does makes her seem so much older and more mature to me.

I love my girls and their crazy personalities!!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Five Years

Isn't it amazing how fast time goes by?  Five years ago I was a soldier serving in Iraq.  Now I'm a stay at home mom of two sweet little girls.  Some days it feels like I just had drill weekend last weekend.  Other days it feels like my time in the Army was a lifetime ago.  It's so strange how our minds and our memories work like that.

Two years ago I posted about the death of a friend.  I won't rehash it, but if you'd like to take a look back at that post, you can go here.  I just wanted to take a few minutes to remember Sean today.  His life meant something to me. His death meant something to all of us.  I have a magnet with his name on it that says, "All gave some, some gave all."  That sums it up.  We will never forget him and what his sacrifice means.

Today I remember Sean and I miss him terribly.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Some Pictures

I've been slacking on pictures lately.  So here are some to make Grandparents and aunts/uncles happy :)

Maddie making a "corn angel" at the livestock show.


Daddy and his girls at the livestock show.  The girls were too interested in their snacks to look at the camera!


Maddie's pony ride.


Sadie's first pony ride!


Maddie got to be the train conductor. She was so proud of herself!

.  
Flat Stanley came to visit us from PA!  We've taken him to lots of places, including this BBQ restaurant.

Maddie leaned over to Sadie and said, "mommy, take a picture of us!"

My swimming beauties.

An after swimming popsicle treat.

Sadie in the bluebonnets.  I took one picture of Maddie in the bluebonnets...as she was standing up to get away from a bee.  Oh well.

Sadie at the park this morning.  She's getting so big!


Loving the swing!

Peek-a-boo!

We LOVE the park!

 This look says, "Aw, geez, mom.  You're going to post this picture, aren't you?"

Maddie's REALLY into wearing her boots with dresses and skirts lately :)

My sweet girls!