the monthly catch-up

So somehow even with all my good intentions I just don't make it on to blogger very often to post. I am recommitting myself to do better :) Here is what we have been up to around here... April Fools day was a little lazy since my husband is still on crutches and not able to do much. So I grilled out and the girls got to pick any utensil they wanted to eat with. Reagan chose the ice cream scoop. Kennedy chose the salad tongs. She even got pretty good at it by the end of the meal :)

The dress-up bin I made for the girls. Now they don't have to pull out every single dress trying to find the one they want to wear.

Pretending they are on crutches like daddy. Despite the look on her face, they really thought this was fun and came up with it on their own.

Late night craft group :) We somehow never manage to finish our craft in a 'reasonable' amount of time. So this project (maybe 30-40 minutes) took us about 5 hours. Yep, we are that good!

The girls dress themselves these days. Normally Reagan begs and pleads and coerces Kennedy into wearing a dress. Kennedy's compromise is normally wearing leggings under it, whether they match or not... But Kennedy says, "I wear dresses because Reagan wants me to. But I like sweatpants best!" A girl after my own heart!

Aside from the fact that it looks like I have never brushed their hair (and I probably didn't, but we'll blame it on the running laps) I love this picture. These are their happy smiles, not their 'cheese' smiles.

The beginning of spring/easter crafts. Little chicks hatching. Since then we have painted lots of pictures, made kites and ducks and made collages.

Doesn't she just look too big? I can't believe she will be 3 in a few weeks! I want her to stop growing up :(

Ah, yes. My nemesis. Rick's knee. This is a picture of it 3 days after surgery. Which was a month ago. He started to put full weight on it for the first time yesterday. Poor man has severe nerve damage in his foot and leg and has a blood clot... Can't wait for him to be all better!

The girls have been super good since Rick had surgery. They did really well with my make shift activities that I came up with when I had to take care of daddy. Luckily they have the best imaginations ever! Seriously. Some days they are so far into their imaginary worlds that I have no idea what they are talking about. Some of their favorite things to pretend include fishing, dinosaurs, and fairies. In this picture they are fishing in the break water or something.

Rick the day after surgery. Reagan and Kennedy found his old stuffed animal from when he was a kid and kept tucking him in with 'Kevin the Koala.'

Reagan gave her first talk in primary and I was soooooo impressed. Not only did she make sure she was making eye contact, but had great inflections in her voice and even ad-libbed. She is a natural born public speaker, and I don't know where that came from!

St. Patrick's day. Yep, they dressed themselves again. :) They even find hair ties and tell me how they want their hair!

Playgroup feast for St. Patty's day.

My closet re-do. I am a little embarrassed at how horrible the before is. The layout was so bad that you could barely even step into the closet. That's my excuse.

So I built some shelving and replaced the rods so we could fit our clothes on one side so we could actually step into the closet. That was a run-on. Oops.

Back in february, my sister and I took my dad to an MSU women's bball game. It has become tradition and is quite fun. We remininsce about our high school days and critique the coaches and players.

Playing at the park in the snow. We were sick of winter and decided we would enjoy the park even with the mounds of snow!

They loved it. We had the park to ourselves. I know, shocker. Who plays at the park with tons of snow??

Being weirdos.

Another late night craft session. We get a little giddy after 10.

Sheesh, these pictures are old. We hosted a murder mystery dinner. And it rocked. Just sayin'.

Helps that we had a bunch of crazies participating with us :)

And the silverlicious party at Borders. The girls LOVED it. Yep. If you have girls and they haven't read the pinkalicious books, do it. My girls think they are wonderful.

My next goal will be to post about our trip to Mackinaw City in the next week. We will see... Now that we spend our time outside, I may just see you again in May :) So if I forget, Rick turns 30 tomorrow! Happy over the hill to my wonderful Hubby!

the crafting bug

I have been in serious project mode lately. Starting with the basement in November, and yep... I still have it. In fact I spent 7.5 hours at a girls crafting night last night. Of course, the crafting was very slow since we cannot stop talking! Anyways, here is a snapshot of some of the things I have been up to lately...

The $3 dollar store serving dish thing...

Conversation blocks that I did at an enrichment as part of my coupon/crafting class.

A glimpse of the finished basement - for those of you who have not seen it yet. We will someday put up the trim... Someday... ;)

The adult half of the basement. I made that $6 shelf! Now I just need a few more frames and pictures to add to it.

The artwork that the girls made for the playroom. My brother said we needed some eclectic art because the open ceiling makes it look eclectic. Isn't child artwork eclectic??

My playroom rules that I made after our family values craft we did at my house for our craft night.

My ribbon wreath. I wanted it to match the girls bedroom. But it doesn't... So it is in the basement hallway.

The Family Values sign from our first craft night! I love it!

And the framed wreath I made for our bedroom to fill up the big blank wall we have. I love this too! Made from a paint dropcloth and a frame from Salvation Army!

And sadly, I have like 30 more projects on my list..... Rick is thrilled! :)

Valentine Fun

For Valentine's day, we had a special night with the girls. Pink dinner, pink cupcakes (just like pinkalicious), decorations, and a special dance just for them! Then we turned out all the lights and had a fun shadow puppet show and played with flashlights. It was a wonderful evening!

The girls dressed themselves and decided ballet slippers would be best for the dance. See their necklaces? Those were a craft we did a couple weeks ago, they love wearing them and telling everyone they made them!

Our pink dinner: pink pancakes, strawberries, pink lemonade, pink cupcakes, and pink heartmallows. Everything the girls wanted!

Me and my little beauties on our special valentine's day!

My wonderful hubby with his girlies. He surprised us by coming home early with spinach artichoke dip from Stillwater (my ABSOLUTE favorite!) Then once the girls went to bed Rick ordered takeout from Applebee's, since that was where we went on our first date on valentine's day 8 years ago!

Reagan showing off one of her valentine's for her playgroup valentine party.

One of Kennedy's valentines. (I signed her name).

Another one of Reagan's masterpieces. She was so creative. On one envelope she wrote Brady, then added a sticker that said "cutie" and wrote "'s a" in the middle to make it say Brady's a cutie.

Kennedy wrote Tripp all by herself! She is getting so good at writing and drawing!

Our playgroup! Aren't they the cutest?!!

It was such a fun party! Seriously, our playgroup is the best!! :)

back to school and yay a new cousin!

We have started school again, in our new school room! Yay! It is so nice to have a room that is all for school, without distracting toys and stuff. The girls have been doing great, and love putting stickers on their chart each day as we finish our various subjects.

This is Kennedy showing off her shapes masterpiece. She is so very smart with visual things. She can do brand-new puzzles all by herself! She loves the challenge, and patiently tries over and over until she gets things right. She also knows all of her capital letters and basically all of her lower case letters. PLUS she now knows what sound almost all of the letters say! Hooray! I love this little fireball and her spunky little 'tude!


This is Reagan working on a teddy bear graph during math time. She is such a good learner. I am always amazed at just how much information she retains. When daddy comes home and asks what she learned in various subjects, she easily recites almost everything I taught her. From what the heart and lungs do, to how Joseph's brothers threw him in a pit and sold him as a slave, to what a noun is! Plus she always, always wants to be reading. She loves the Magic tree house books lately. Oh, and she brings imaginary friends from her books with her everywhere we go. Her imagination is always entertaining and her love of learning makes me so proud!


One of our new subjects is writing. We do spelling and grammar, but I decided to include writing now. Here is her first letter to her Aunt and Uncle in Virginia. We plan on writing to various family members that live out of state, so feel free to write back! :)


Still loving playgroup, this week we went sledding. Isn't this the coolest sled?

And finally, we got to meet our newest niece! After a 22 hour labor, Becky and Brock welcomed Savannah into the world! We were sooooooo excited to meet her! And I didn't want to stop holding her! :)

Just an hour old or so!

This is how Rick and Dennis passed some of the time in the waiting room. Playing catch with a leather glove... Hilarious!

strangely interesting

My brother sent me a link to this article online, http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs .

I found it very interesting. Maybe because when I have spare time I LOVE to look at DIY blogs and most of them happen to be Mormon. I can't help it, I love to do crafty things when time permits. It is fun, I feel productive, and it is normally much cheaper than shopping and purchasing a new one of whatever it is... Yep, I'm a DIY junky. That's why I liked this article.