Read-a-thon

Most of the things that I do with the kids are ideas that I get from my mom, friends, or the internet.  This time I thought of something on my own.  I woke up one morning and thought, "I want to have a read-a-thon with my kids today."  I loved read-a-thons in elementary school.  So we popped popcorn, got out all of our valentines sweets, grabbed special drinks, pillows, and blankets and cozied up on Ethan's bedroom floor.  I got down every book we own and let the kids take turns picking a book for me to read to them.  It lasted for about an hour and a half! 

Towards the end the kids started to read some of their favorites to me.  That was my favorite part.  To hear their version of the stories that I have read them over and over and over.  Here are some of their favorites that they practically have memorized.

We had a fun time and it is an activity that I highly reccomend.  It is a perfect rainy day activity and I know we will be doing this again.

A Pirate's Life for Me.

This last weekend gave me a reason to rejoyce because it was the first weekend in two months where we made it all the way through without at least one person in the family being sick.  This weekend we were invited to a birthday party for one of Kelsey's dance friend's brother.  I have become friends with the mom and she always invites me to her parties.  Her name is Esme and I wonder if she feels bad for me because she knows we don't have any family here.  Either way, I am glad whenever we are invited anywhere to do anything.  I thought Esme did such a great job on her son's party.  Everything was so cute so I took lots of pictures.  Kelsey was the most excited because it was a pirate party and she had a fun time dressing up.  Here she is doing a silly pirate dance before we left for the party.

Here is Ethan being sad because  he was afraid to go to the party.  He said that he didn't want to go to a pirate party, he wanted to go to a "nice" party.

The cake was AWESOME and Esme had made it herself!

There was a huge cardboard pirate ship for the kids to play with.

And the pinata was homemade too.

Here is Kelsey with Miranda (her friend from dance).

I loved the candles on the cake because they were the cannons on the side of the ship and so it looked really cool when they were lit for the birthday song.

We were there for an hour and a half and the kids had a blast.  I think Ethan changed his mind about pirates and now he thinks they are pretty fun after all.

Cupid's Visit

Happy Valentines Day!!!

We had a great one.  It started early.  The kids wake up around 6:30 am these days and just because we don't have church until 11:00 doesn't mean we get to sleep in at all. 

When the kids woke up they had a package from Grandma Jill waiting for them.  Inside was candy, cards, and stuffed animals.  Ethan asked me what his new stuffed dog's name was.  I said, "you can name him anything you want."  He said, "His name is Beagle."

Then I made the traditional pink breakfast.

It was really nice outside today so after church we went for a long walk around the neighborhood and then just hung out around the house afterward.

For dinner the kids had this:

Corn Dogs and Tater Tots.

Then we played Valentines Bingo

And we sent the little ones to bed at 7:00 and had our own romantic dinner.

I made all new recipes that we have never tried before, that way it would be like trying out a new restaurant.  Here is what I made:

Caramelized Pancetta and Fennel Salad

Shrimp Scampi with Linguini

cooked carrots

and for dessert:  Truffle Tarts with raspberries.

It was all really good and I we had an enjoyable time.  All of my recipes were found on the foodnetwork.com.

I hope all of your Valentines Day activities were wonderful.

Keep them busy and fed

My wonderful mother always gives me fabulous ideas on how to keep my toddlers occupied.  Here is one of those ideas - stringing cereal.  I had them do this project right before they went to the neighbor's house to be babysat while I took a test for school.  The idea was that this way they would have something to munch on and so they wouldn't say they were hungry and ask my neighbor for food every ten minutes (like they do to me).          

The finished product:

Time to unpack the girly clothes

We are having a girl!  We are so excited, especially Kelsey.  I can't wait to get out all of Kelsey's old clothes from storage and go through them.  We will probably name her Juliet Virginia.  The only one disappointed is Ethan but he is saying, "Boy next time."