It's baseball season! Since Hubby is such a big fan of baseball and played on teams while growing up, he really wanted Mr. R to play as well. We decided to sign him up for t-ball because he's never played before. After a rocky beginning, he told the man who signed him up that he did NOT want to play, he began showing a little enthusiasm at his first game. We were assigned to the Cubs, along with our neighbor's little boy, and Hubby agreed to be an assistant coach.
Arguing with the first base coach
He plays two games a week for about six weeks. So far it seems like pure chaos on the field, so I'm hoping by the end of the season 5 kids won't be running for the same ball. One can hope, right? :)
For St. Patrick's day this year I made Boo some green suspenders (with bows to make them girly). The girl loves green so St. Patrick's day is made for her. We also made some adorable bags of candy for her to take to her classmates. I got the idea and the cute note here thanks to Pinterest. Boo helped make the bags by separating all the M&Ms and then pouring them into the bags. Her classmates loved them and she got a big kick out of passing them out. Mr. R wanted to make some for his class but with twice as many kids it would have gotten pretty pricey. Instead he made a bag for his teacher and teacher's assistant.
Recently there was a Groupon for a local tea shop. I say "local" but it takes an hour to get there. Anyway, I purchased the Groupon, which was for a Royal Tea for Two, and Sarah and I split it. She was getting ready to move back home, so we decided last minute to drive up for Sunday tea. Because we went on a Sunday it was a little different of a set-up. Normally we would have been served a typical tea course, tea, scones, sandwiches, dessert, but on Sunday's they serve a buffet brunch. We were allowed to help ourselves to the buffet and they also brought us a shrimp cocktail, cucumber cups, and a special dessert plate.
The food was delicious and we both ate a lot. I was able to try 3 out of the 4 desserts before I gave up. Poor Sarah couldn't eat another bite after one. Of course she's nine months pregnant so it's not like she had a lot of room to begin with. We had two different teas with our meal, an herbal mint and a cherry almond. I liked both, but the cherry almond was definitely my favorite.
As we were leaving the tea shop we noticed a children's consignment sale going on next door. We stopped in to check it out since it was half-price day and picked up a few things for our girls. I'm pretty sure our husbands didn't believe us when we told them that we had no idea the sale was going on when we made the tea reservations. We had a great time and it was a nice way to (temporarily) say good-bye to a good friend.
Boo's bows were beginning to get out of hand. I had been keeping them in an old oatmeal container that I covered with fabric and it had worked fine when she only had a few. She now has a decent number of bows and I couldn't fit them all in the container. Plus when I needed to get to one, I had to dump them all out. I saw a bow organizer I liked on Pinterest and decided to try to make one similar to it. We had an old 11x14 picture frame that Hubby suggested I use and I bought a bunch of teacups hooks. Being the wimp that I am I had Hubby screw the hooks into the bottom of the frame. Then Mr. R and I headed to Home Depot to pick out some paint (he chose yellow). After 3 coats of paint, I stapled strips of coordinating ribbon to the back of the frame and stepped back to admire our handiwork.
Hubby finally figured out why I kept telling him the hooks were for Boo's headbands (and jewelry) when I hung some up on the organizer. I swear I saw a light go on above him! I love, love, love the bow organizer. At first I wasn't too sure about the frame because you could see the grain after 3 coats of paint. Now that it's finished though it looks cute. Of course now that all of her bows are up it's completely full. I had hoped to be able to use it for both of the girls, but now I think I'll make either a matching or a coordinating one for Hiccup.
After school yesterday we drove over to the zoo to meet one of our friends for a playdate. The kids love going to the zoo and I love getting our money out of the zoo membership!
Taking their picture as an otter never gets old
Showing their mean faces
It was a great day for the zoo. The weather was perfect and the zoo was uncrowded. The kids had an awesome time running around to check out the animals and having their picture taken with every statue in the park.
This past weekend was kind of cool and overcast. The perfect day for a little bike ride. We're trying to get Boo to ride Mr. R's old bike. She loves her oversized tricycle but she's almost four, so we feel like she needs to move on. I really want her to get the hang of the bicycle before the summer so we can all go for bike rides while Hubby is gone. Boo enjoyed spending some time with daddy outside, and once she gets over her need to brake every two seconds I think she'll do fine on her bike.
On a side note: I wish I could say the bad weather was the cause of Hiccup's bad hair day, but I'd be outright lying. Everyday is a bad hair day for her. Poor thing! I still think she's super adorable though!
I hate going to the post office. I mean I truly despise it. Everyone in my family should consider it a small miracle that they receive anything in the mail, especially at Christmas. Well, I had put off going to the post office for months to mail some things and I decided that I couldn't put it off any longer. We had a large box to send to my parents and instead of wrapping it up in ugly brown packing paper, I used white packing paper. Then I gave the kids some markers and stickers and told them to have at it. I think they did an awesome job creating their own wrapping paper. Mr. R drew pictures of our cats and labeled them so Grandma and Granddad would know who was who. Boo drew pictures of our whole family. We must resemble potatoes in her mind. I also think it's funny when she adds everyone's forehead to the drawing. Not sure why, but apparently your forehead is more important than ears.
Mr. R also drew a picture of himself with Grandma and Granddad. He specializes in three-legged people. Why? I quote, "I just have to." He also added a little love note on there. Too cute! Once the kids were finished decorating the box it was time to mail it. I waved good-bye to Hubby on his way out the door with the package. Hahahahaha! I truly hate going to the post office...
In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday I decided to try my hand at making green eggs and ham for the kids' breakfast. I'm pretty sure that Hubby thought I was crazy when I brought up the idea but the kids loved it!
Before
After food coloring
I went with scrambled because it's harder to screw those up
The finished product
Sorry the pictures are so bad. The lighting in the kitchen isn't the best at 6:45 in the morning. So you might have noticed that I didn't give the kids real ham. How was I supposed to dye ham? Plus I didn't have any. I used chicken lunch meat, which the kids really like, and soaked a few pieces at a time in food coloring and a tiny bit of water. It wasn't easy but it worked. And for the record, yes the "ham" is supposed to be green. Go look in the book. Both the eggs and ham are green. You're cheating if you only color the eggs.
Mr. R enjoying his green eggs
Mr. R loved the novelty of the breakfast. Boo was a little more hesitant to try everything. After she was assured by Mr. R that it was only food coloring and it tasted good, she relented and ate it all.
This past Wednesday I got together with Sarah and another friend so we could try our hand at making Korker hair bows. You only need a few supplies to make several and some time. I made square ribbon and Sarah made round. I say made because you actually bake the ribbon in order to get the curls. In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's holiday I chose greens (and because Boo LOVES green) and Sarah went with a more spring-time theme.
You'll need 100% polyester ribbon, dowel rods (round or square) of whatever size you'd like the curls to be, wooden clothespins, and spray starch. I used two different sizes of dowel rods, 1/4 in and 3/16 in. I liked the smaller one because it made tighter curls and was a good size for baby/toddler bows. Tightly wrap the ribbon around the dowel rod and secure the ends with the clothespins. I then sprayed the ribbon with starch. I used two different kinds of starch, Best Press and Faultless, and decided that although I prefer the Best Press when sewing/quilting, the Faultless is better for the hair bow ribbon. I baked the ribbon on an old cookie sheet at 250 degrees for 30 minutes and then decided that for the second and third batch I would increase the temperature to 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Both worked, just keep an eye on the ribbon so you don't burn them.
Ready to bake
After the ribbon cools completely you can unwrap it.
Unwrapping the ribbon
Ready to cut
Because all of our daughters are younger we decided to make smaller bows. I made two smaller ones for Boo to wear with pigtails. We cut the ribbon into 2.5 inch lengths and used Fray Check on the ends to keep them from unraveling. Then you thread a needle with some heavy weight thread and start stacking your ribbon on the needle. Once you have the number of ribbon pieces on the needle you'd like, we did seven or eight, you pull the needle through and sew the ribbons together, think sewing a button. The thread will be covered by the curls. Then using hot glue, we covered two alligator clips with matching ribbon and hot glued the bows on top. Done!
Since Hubby was gone on a luxury cruise on Mr. R's birthday, we decided to wait and have his birthday party when he got home. To avoid having to clean the house and to minimize the stress on the cats we decided to have his party at the bowling alley on base. We went bowling one Saturday before Hubby left to check the place out. It was really nice, as far as bowling alleys go. The kids had fun bowling and Mr. R busted out his dance moves while waiting his turn.
For his party Hubby didn't want to invite Mr. R's whole class so he chose a few of his close friends to invite. Only one little girl made the cut. He told me that she was his "favorite girl." It was too cute. I only say that because I know who the little girl is that he was talking about and she used to sit at his table at school. I think she may have been the only girl he knew out of his class.
Waiting their turns
Boo loved bowling
"I missed!"
Mr. R requested a Skylanders birthday cake. If you don't know what Skylanders is you can check it out here. It's basically a video game that uses action figures as part of the game. You can buy over 30 different Skylanders to play in the game and you place the action figure on a special portal. The portal "brings them to life" in the game. Mr. R got the game for Christmas and is hooked. So is Hubby for that matter. The problem is that the game is so new that they don't have any other merchandise available. I found a company, Single Source Party Supply, online that sold personalized Skylanders edible icing sheets.
Skylanders cake
I highly recommend this company if you need an edible icing sheet. I ordered the cake topper and they quickly responded back to find out what personalization I wanted. They emailed me a proof for approval the same day. It was shipped the next day and I received it fast, a day before I expected it, which was impressive since it was coming from British Columbia! I took the icing sheet to the commissary bakery and they put it on a 1/4 sheet cake for me and then piped a border around it. Mr. R loved the cake and constantly asked to look at it. I took the proof they emailed me and printed it out on fusible fabric and ironed it onto a t-shirt. I made the t-shirt the night before his birthday in about 10 minutes because he asked for a Skylanders shirt to wear for his birthday. If I had more time I would have bought some different printable fabric, maybe the kind for dark shirts, but he didn't care. He asked to wear the shirt again for his party. Even though the instructions says not to wash it, I did (hung it to dry) and it still looked good.
Mr. R LOVED his cake!
We had a great time bowling and Mr. R was happy we waited for his dad to be there. Boo keeps asking when her party will be. I guess I should start planning now...
When I think of the signs of spring I don't necessarily think of flowers beginning to bloom. Instead I think of spring when I see this:
I found our cat Bingle laying out on the screened porch just soaking up the sun. She rarely goes onto the screened porch, so when she does you know it's a nice day. She was so content that she only gave me the half-eye crack to make sure I was taking her picture (she loves having her picture taken) before going back to sleep.
Oh, to be a cat and just lay in the sun! Hopefully there will soon be many more days for her to enjoy on the porch!
