Did You Know?

Did you know that we had the outside of our house painted in August? That was almost 6 months ago and we never posted pictures! The main reason for that is we needed a new garage door. Ours was cracked in the middle and instead of painting over the old one that made horrible noises when we opened it, we decided to get it fixed, or replaced. Our painter said he thought he knew someone who could fix it, but that didn't work out. Then he said he knew someone who could replace it for a good deal. So we went with that. Supposedly, that particular garage door repairman was too busy, so he referred us to another. Well, I guess garage door repairmen are busy around here because about 1 1/2 months later, or more (I can't even remember now!), our garage door was replaced. We were supposed to get it painted the same color as the shutters (navy blue), which our painter said he would do at no extra cost. We called him about 2 1/2 months later when we decided we still wanted to go that route instead of leaving it white, but it never happened.

Here's our new house color, 3 months after being painted, right before I had Erik. I love the colors we chose and even like the white garage door, now that the leaves are gone and we can really see the blue and navy blue shutters. When the leaves come come back, though, we'll mostly see our big, white garage, so we might have to get on that painter again. Here's the back. They also painted the deck, no extra charge.

Here it was before. See how much the tree covers? I'm afraid we'll just have a big white garage showing and no beautiful navy blue. We'll see...

Here's the back before. The summer flowers look nice!

Ice, Ice Baby!

Every year Plymouth, MI. has an ice festival. We went a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, so we decided to go again. We had actually gotten about 3 inches of snow the night before, about 2 1/2 inches more than we've gotten all winter, to make the experience. (Now, two days later, it's all totally melted because of the rain we received last night! We're on the national "no snow" trend here too.) The kids enjoyed the ice sculptures they could be a part of.

Eskimo Austin

Dinosaur ride.

If you notice, Karissa did not have the best of times. She wanted some of the over-priced carnival-type food, which we would not buy since we had just eaten lunch. She was also coming down with a cold.
A bench.
Polar Bear chair.

She started having more fun at the end.
Check out the giddiness! He got lots of smiles over the pink shades too. I guess we'll get him his own, since he's the only kid who actually keeps sunglasses on for more than 10 minutes.
Erik slept the whole time all cozy warm, but here he is today, on his two-month birthday! He is finally awake more, now that he's gotten over two colds, but he's caught cold number 3. Poor boy! He still slept well last night and has been pretty perky today. Overall, he's more responsive: cooing, smiling, moving his limbs more, now that he's actually awake between daytime feedings.

His favorite thing is to be playfully blotted on the mouth with his burp cloth. That what I just did here and got this huge grin!

Pony Party

Karissa has wanted a pony party since Victoria's pirate party. Knowing that I would have a new baby around for the prep and the party itself, I wanted to make it simple. The kids helped color in these My Little Pony pictures that we attached to a streamer and hung on the stairs. I made this pony cake, which was very easy. It's just two 9-in cake pans and I used a pattern to cut it.

For games, Victoria drew a pony on a poster for "pin the tail on the pony" (not pictured) and the tails to go with it. We also played a horse shoe toss game using headbands to throw over a 7-up bottle. It actually worked very well and the kids did better than I did when I experimented with it! You can kind of see the 7-up bottle here.
We played musical chairs and freeze dance, but the most favorite of all was just dancing to songs that told them what moves to do -like stretch up high, twirl around, etc.

Another hit at the party was our "craft". I couldn't find an actual pony craft, so I just got some play-dough from the dollar store and they made their own ponies and then we put the play-dough in their goodie bags.
I love Austin's face here, he looks so happy to see the candles lit. And Victoria's face, well, that's a normal expression for her.


Austin is trying to help Karissa blow out the candles from across the table.

The party pals.

It was one of the most calm and easy parties I've ever done! Four out of the five invited guests were able to attend, but it was perfect with my three kids there as well. Of course Victoria was the craziest one there, though Austin held his own for craziness. We had one 7-year-old (Victoria), two 5-year-olds, two 4-year-olds, one 3-year-old, and a 2-year-old (Austin). An hour after the party everything was pretty much cleaned up and back to normal and the kids spent the next three hours playing with Karissa's presents. Not bad!

Blessing Day

Erik was blessed in church on Sunday. He was so calm and fell right to sleep as Jason and the other men started to slowly bounce him.

The main thing that stood out to me in his blessing was that he would be a peace-maker (maybe I'll finally get one of those in my family!) Jason also mentioned how he is named after a spirit too special to remain on earth, my deceased brother.

It was a lovely blessing and I felt the spirit. I still need to listen back to the recording and write it down.

One of the men in the circle said about Erik, "He is a perfect-looking baby." We agree!

Karissa is 5!

The look on Karissa's face here about sums up her excitement for her 5th birthday. Even having it 5 days after Christmas, which I would think would take some of the excitement out of it, she still counted down the days and was well aware of what comes up right after the biggest holiday of the year. Luckily for Karissa, Daddy will always have off work on her birthday and the kids will never have school, so we always get to spend the day together. This year, she wanted to play Glo Golf at the Zap Zone. She had a great time, even though she doesn't quite have the right hold on her golf club. Austin enjoyed it too, though he mostly moved the ball with his hand. They all liked the decor, which all glowed in the dark, though you can't tell in the picture.

Other than talking to family and opening presents and cards from them, all of which she enjoyed, the next big highlight of the day was watching Tangled as a family, which we got from Netflix just in time for her special day.

Karissa got this necklace from us that holds little "gems" in it. Each color represents a different virtue: patience, love, kindness, truth, and charity. She also got a zebra pillow pet from us. Zebras are her favorite animal. She also likes ponies and unicorns. She loves to pretend. In fact, it sometimes gets in the way with reality, but I'm glad she's got such a good imagination. Lately, her favorite thing to "play" is "The Lost Girl". She wanders in and pretends she was lost, then found in a river or some other dramatic location.

She still loves to sing and dance and play with little toys. A new found love has been a computer preschool website with games she enjoys playing. She has always enjoyed drawing, but lately she wants to make books and enjoys having me spell words for her pages, or writing them myself, then putting it together. I think she'll be ready for Kindergarten in the fall.

Happy Birthday Karissa! Stay tuned for her pony party in two weeks!

Oh, and Happy New Year!