The Moo Cow Room

2011 Family Pictures

2012-01-23T19:54:00.009-06:00

I just wanted to share some of our family pictures we took for our Christmas cards this year. We rushed around getting every one unusually clean, ironed, and out the door to meet the photographer....who was a NO SHOW! With it being exceedingly rare that we were all clean, ironed, and out the door, we ran back home grabbed our own camera and made do. They were free and I love them! :)

The only picture of Bryan and I, taken by Mason.

And my favorite outtake:

Slumber Party Fun

2011-11-14T21:55:00.001-06:00

Hot n Cold a video by Bry n Meg on Flickr.

Elise and her friend had a sleepover, and around midnight they still had a TON of energy. This is what developed. :)

Mason's Birthday was a Long Time Ago

2011-11-14T21:22:00.004-06:00

BUT, I still want to share some pictures from it. I'm not sure how my little guy became a 5 year old - it's hard to believe he's so big.

Last year Mason had a water slide party in the back yard, and he and his friends loved it so much we decided to, uh... do it again! Except this time we tweaked it with a theme, and made it a camping birthday party. We titled it "Camp S'more Than Four". So along with the water slide we bought a gigantic tent for the boys to play in (even though we've never been camping), roasted marshmallows, had a fishing pool set up, you get the idea... And right as the party got started, I got stung by a bee and was too grumpy/flustered to document all of the decorations.

Here is his invite:

My BIG birthday boy blowing out his candles, and a glimpse of his camping birthday cake I made.

Elise's extra late birthday post

2011-09-05T19:39:00.010-05:00

In keeping up with my delayed blog updates, I have to share our month of June - a.k.a. the birhday month.

Elise requested her first slumber party this year, and I thought that it would be a piece of cake: movies, junk food, only a couple friends, no entertaining parents.... It was that easy for the first few hours, but around 3 am, while Bryan was dead asleep and the girls were still bouncing off the walls I started to make plans to outsource her 9 year old party!

Here was the very simple set up. Elise also asked for a KitKat cake, which I appreciated (much easier than previous years!). The goody bags had slumber party essentials like nail polish, jewelry, and candy as well as shaving cream for our outside fun.

Elise turned into a shaving cream ninja...

Little brothers are easy and fun targets!

The clean up crew - note Daniel's actions in the background!

The birthday gang!

Daniel vs. Child Locks

2011-08-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

Ballet and Ballerina Cupcakes

2011-08-18T20:49:00.004-05:00

For the record, I'm ridiculously behind on this blog.... Life is happening much faster than I'm capable of sharing it! So the next several posts are going to be in complete illogical order, but I want to share the big things that have happened that I've slacked on lately, starting with the end of the year ballet performance Mason and Elise did in May (did I mention I'm behind?!?).

Mason has taken ballet for the past 2 years, and as I know now, this was his final performance before retiring to, well...baseball...and other stuff. Luckily, we got enough of his ballet footage to completely embarrass him for the rest of his life, and looking back in his final video you can see how over it he really was. I watch this whenever I need a laugh. For the record, I didn't film this, you have Bryan to thank for the awesome quality!

Elise, on the other hand, is still loving dance and plans to continue, yay! Here are my two ballerinas together (for the last time) accepting their paper plate awards:

I also made ballet cupcakes for the reception. These were super easy to make using the heart Cricut shape and hot gluing on crepe paper and a ribbon to a lollipop stick. I don't, however, suggest making 50 of them or you are going to want to go insane!(I'm sorry I can't remember where I found the idea, refer back to how behind I am with blogging).

Our Beach Vacation Music Video

2011-07-26T10:06:00.000-05:00

Disney World Vacation!!! :)

2011-06-16T16:40:00.000-05:00

Mason's Training Wheel Free!

2011-05-30T14:33:00.005-05:00

He couldn't be any more proud, but his poor knees are starting to look pretty beat up! Elise enjoyed playing the role of expert biker and gave him a few pointers. I had to put the pics in black and white to hide the Bratz girls helmet he's wearing because he has outgrown his Spider Man one from last year....

Piano Girl

2011-05-30T14:18:00.004-05:00

Elise had her first piano recital last month (yes, I'm running on a month's delay around here)! She was so cute and so nervous that she ran as fast as she could back to her seat when she was done - not allowing me to take any cute curtsy pictures.

As a side note, I've been following this cool hair blog lately, and I got the idea for doing Elise's hair there. It's hard to tell from the picture, but I divided her hair half back into 4 different braided sections and joined them in a braided bun. She has some really cute stuff on the site.

Collin's 3!!!

2011-05-05T13:49:00.003-05:00

Collin turned 3 last month and we celebrated his two favorite things junk food and Buzz Lightyear!

We had his birthday party at a Menchies so all the kids got to create their own frozen yogurt and toppings and they decorated a little Menchies shirt. They also played Toy Story 3 in the backgroung for the kids. And because the weeks leading up to his party I've been making cakes I decided to keep it simple with cupcakes. I even bought the cheesy WalMart cupcake toppers! Easiest party ever!!

Collin next to the giant chalkboard the kids got to decorate.

His Toy Story Cupcakes

Mimi and Collin wearing his decorated Menchies shirt and his frozen yogurt creation!

Earth Day Goodies

2011-04-22T14:36:00.005-05:00

I made Elise's class an Earth Day surprise today and brought in individual dirt cakes for them topped with a birdy peep in it's nest. I should have taken a picture of Collin in the act when he dunked his hands inside one of them and then wiped his hand along the walls to clean his fingers.....grrr....!

Here is a link to the
chow mein noodle nest recipe (just like Rice Krispy Treats).

Here is a link to the dirt cake....so yummy!

The Voice Lessons

2011-03-30T21:43:00.000-05:00

are paying off.... Sorry for the camera angle - I was trying to sneak and catch her singing.

The Tranquil Fountain

2011-03-29T21:20:00.003-05:00

I was so excited when I found this cute fountain at Costco that I decided to surprise Bryan with it while he was gone on a business trip. My mom (visiting) and I dragged the heavy thing home and I quickly set it up while Daniel was napping... ... And then Daniel woke up..... He quickly chucked off all of the decorative rocks and went to town splashing. It might go down as the dumbest thing I've ever purchased, and Bryan's reaction was not what I had hoped for, ha!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

2011-03-16T20:48:00.003-05:00

A little leprechaun packed my kids green lunches for tomorrow! The sandwich is marshmallow cream I colored green - lot's of sugar!

Valentines

2011-02-18T13:22:00.003-06:00

I was assigned the game for Elise's Valentine's party. So I glued 23 of these bad boys together for a game of Valentine bingo. Good times.

Dog Food 2: The Sequel

2011-02-18T13:22:00.000-06:00

Daniel Love's Dog Food

2011-02-03T14:37:00.003-06:00

I heard Daniel crying from a distance the other day, but it took me a second to figure out where he was with his muffled cry. This is how I found him.... Of course, I grabbed the camera before I could rescue him from the dog food. I think I might switch Ziti to the expensive organic food now that it's Daniel's main source of nutrients.

Collin learning to drive

2011-01-15T21:25:00.001-06:00

The Giant Christmas Post

2011-01-15T20:07:00.007-06:00

Elise is in to hairbows again! I had to document the moment before it's over. In fact, the second I heard the news I rushed to make her this hairbow. The bell on top was a hit at school.

Christmas Eve - Elfie (our Elf on the Shelf) brought snow for the kids for the second year in a row. It's pretty much his only redeeming day in a month of missed opportunities. Have I ever mentioned how much we stink at remembering things? The Tooth Fairy once forgot to come for Elise 2 nights in a row. Elise was ready to have a nervous breakdown. On night 3, the Tooth Fairy remembered, but had forgotten to get cash earlier in the day. So instead she borrowed a $20 out of Elise's wallet and never paid her back...Seriously, we stink! There was many a morning where one of us would distract the kids and the other would race to throw Elfie in some new hiding place. Whew....don't have to worry about that again until next year!

Our annual Christmas jammies shot. The kids get to open one present every Christmas Eve, and every year its jammies (much to their dissapointment!). Oh, and last year I made a post about wanting to make these cute handmade stockings from Sew4Home....yeah, that didn't work out too well. So behind you can see our newly purchased stockings from Ballard Design (that I happen to love).

Papa's Birthday. He requested a carrot cake - tasted great, but was very unattractive!

Christmas Morning:

See what Santa left!

The big boys playing with baby Daniel's present.....

And Daniel, playing with the big boy present:

Mason and Collin eventually discovered their jeep, much to Daniel's dismay!

And did I mention we had Christmas snow?!? You can also kind of see our first attempt putting up Christmas lights.

Oreo Stuffed Cookies

2011-01-10T19:04:00.005-06:00

Yum..... That's all I need to say. This was our indoor activity during our snow day today. I need to come up with something else while school's are cancelled tomorrow too.... Check out the Picky-Palate where I got the recipe idea.

Christmas Card Out takes

2010-12-28T14:54:00.004-06:00

Wow, it's been a while! Is anyone still out there???

With all the hard work that goes into taking a decent family pic, I thought it would be appropriate to some of our best out takes. They are way more representative of our real family (especially when I had to photoshop out Bryan's closed eyes in our Christmas card).

And the best picture, with only Daniel paying attention!

Merry Christmas!!

Mimi's Birthday

2010-09-08T20:24:00.003-05:00

My parents and brother and his wife came down to celebrate Labor Day and Mimi's birthday this past weekend. We had our usual tradition of a kid throwing up during the festivities, so hopefully Mimi and Papa didn't take home a stomach bug as an extra present.

Elise and Aunt Meredith playing party games:

Daniel impersonating Collin's illness:

I surprised my mom with a Bichon cake....it could also pass for a sheep so use your imagination!

First Days of School

2010-09-08T20:13:00.004-05:00

Three out of the four are in school (or at least preschool). Everyone had great first days, and hopefully will stay that way!

And then there was one - Daniel enjoyed his one on one Mommy time too!

Eye Spy Bags

2010-09-03T21:43:00.001-05:00

I finally made them! My kids love these pillows, or at least they did for a week, which is longer than most of the toys at our house. Either way, I let each of them pick out their objects for the inside and their fabric, and then they all got to help sew their pillow. Here is a link to a :
tutorial; although, I think they are pretty self explanatory.

Skating Back in Time

2010-09-02T21:27:00.004-05:00

We went to an 80's roller skating party this month. Bryan showed me up in costume....by wearing MY jeans (making me feel very fat) and his 1986 Met's t-shirt he still had from when he was 6!....Creepy. As for his actually roller skating abilities, he thought it was cool to hang out against the wall most of the night, you know, just staying cool.

Freaky Lisee

2010-09-02T21:19:00.006-05:00

We've known Elise is weird for a while, but now we have proof. Elise has been trying to come up with as many weird distortions as she can to display her flexibility. I think its her new trick to show off on the play ground.

Future Marine

2010-08-18T21:43:00.004-05:00

We went to the a Sprayground in town here last week. All of the big kids were bored and whining for snacks after about 10 minutes - Daniel LOVED it! You wouldn't know it from his miserable face in all the pictures I took, but he had so much fun doing his army crawl and letting the water spray his face. He winced every time, but then kept coming back for more!

Elise's Fancy Flops

2010-08-12T21:52:00.004-05:00

Elise spotted a pair of flip flops in a magazine, and rather than paying the $20 for flip flops I decided I could try to rip them off :)

Before:

After:

Look at those chompers!

2010-07-26T23:19:00.003-05:00

He was very curious why Mommy was sitting on the floor below him :)

Here's to the Met's

2010-07-26T23:10:00.002-05:00

After losing the last 9 out of 11 games, we thought they could use a little encouragement.

The Making of Spiderman

2010-07-12T21:17:00.005-05:00

Spiderman and I did not get along.... It took a lot of time and foul language to get him to cooperate. I used a mannequin head from Sally's Beauty Supply for his head and covered it in fondant.

Initially I coved the head in buttercream to make the fondant stick like you would a cake...bad idea. The bottom on the fondant weighed too much pulling holes at the top and creating a sticky mess when the icing popped through. It ended up looking like Spiderman's brain's in the back when I tried to push the fondant back on the head. I had to scrap that batch, wash the head, make new fondant and start over without the buttercream underneath. Just an FYI for anyone planning on covering a mannequin head with fondant :)

The mishap, aka SpiderMan's brains

I didn't get the prettiest picture of the inside of the cake, but I managed to get the striped look I was going for, using a two butter cakes layed with chocolate ganache and a chocolate pound cake surrounded with custard.

I think its time to go on a cake hiatus and reattempt sewing after this one!

My Future 4th of July Cake

2010-06-28T21:22:00.001-05:00

Meaning this is the cake I will be copying for the 4th.....such a cute idea!
4th Cake

Mason's Spiderman Party!

2010-06-28T14:28:00.004-05:00

We celebrated Mason's 4th with a Spider Man party last Saturday. The water slide was a big hit with the kids and held up well to their abuse (so far). Mason was so busy with his slide even after the party that he forgot to open his presents....crazy, right?!?

His 10-minute invite I made:

The Waterslide - they were so excited

Even Spiderman attended:

The silly string aftermath (Bryan has banned all future silly string from the house):

Mason with his cake:

COLLINATOR

2010-06-23T23:12:00.009-05:00

Little Collin is a force to be reckoned with...hence his new name, The Collinator. He is very proud of his name too. We have started announcing his presence with, "It's a bird, it's a plane.... it's COLLINATOR!" Now he has his own take on it:

Elise's 7th Birthday

2010-06-22T20:38:00.003-05:00

Surprise, surprise, she wanted another art party! This time we did it at the painting studio that I posted about a few months ago. All the girls did such a cute job, and they all got to take home a new canvas painting. Elise was able to pick out anything that she wanted to paint, and her choice was dog with ballet slippers, go figure. The teacher was sweet enough to let Mason create too. She offerred to let him put something more boylike with his dog (I didn't mention to her that he takes ballet too, ha) so he did a basketball.

Elise's Cheetah/Leapard Cake

2010-06-22T20:30:00.003-05:00

I'm not a cheetah spot expert, but that is what Elise requested on her birthday cake. I think it looked a little leopardlike myself.

The tiers were much easier this time around. I added a shot of the cake covered in fondant before I painted on the spots. It took me about an hour (I'm slow) to hand paint on all of the spots. I also attempted a fondant bow this time using the Wilton instructions. It was decent, but adding a pearl dust to the bow helped hide some of the flaws :).

Before (you can also get a little glimpse of my new cafe curtains behing the sink)

Ready to Eat:

They're Sharing!!

2010-06-22T16:38:00.003-05:00

The thought of Collin and Mason sharing a room has been frightening me for months, but with Daniel crammed in a playpen in our bedroom, it was time to make the switch. So Collin has moved out of the nursery giving Daniel a room, and Mason and Collin are sharing bunkbeds in the new big boy room. It went surprisingly well - minus the occasional screaming we hear coming from their room. They usually are up playing for a while, but they always end up in bed asleep. Best of all, Collin doesn't know how to open the door knob to get out of his room so we still get a naptime for him on most days....

Guess Who?

2010-06-15T21:36:00.002-05:00

We came so close to Matt Damon in NYC this past weekend....so close, except for the mob of people and bodyguards around him. This is the closest picture we could take without the bodyguards getting in the way, we walked much closer to him though. :) He was off of 5th Avenue shooting a film.

Ballet Cake

2010-06-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

I tried a two tier Kit Kat cake to bring to Elise's dance recital. Thank goodness I had planned on covering it in Kit Kat's because I completely butchered the look of the icing underneath trying to assemble the cake. This time I used Whoppers instead of M&M's.

Poor Kid

2010-06-06T22:21:00.004-05:00

He liked going this high:

But was not a fan of this height. I wanted a Daniel flying picture for some reason....

My new favorite toy

2010-05-24T21:24:00.001-05:00

I've had my eye on this camera for a while now and decided to get it for myself for Mother's Day. It was weird taking a digital camera in the pool with us, but so far so good. The next test will be the beach.

My Ballerina(s)

2010-05-21T21:38:00.000-05:00

Elise had her dance performance last weekend.

I think I forgot to mention that Mason has also taken ballet this year....Here he is proving his skills. I'm not quite sure what strecth the girl on the end is doing.

Collin's 2!

2010-05-21T00:39:00.003-05:00

I can't believe Collin is TWO!! I was a horrible mom and missed his real birthday while in TX so we celebrated a week later. It worked out perfectly though because we got to spend the day with his Mimi and Papa, Uncle JP and Aunt Meredith, and my Aunt Pam and Caitlin.

Collin is a Little Einstein fanatic...Unfortunately, I think he picked one of the least popular Disney shows to like leaving me stalking Disney stores for anything Little Einstein's related, but I've had no luck. So a couple of weeks earlier I showed him this rocket cake I found on Flickr. It's amazing, and I probably shouldn't post the link because it makes my version so much less impressive. He had become completely obsessed with this cake though, and for weeks had been talking about 'his rocket cake' and asking to see the picture. I decided to try my own version and luckily passed the Collin test.

His Cake:

Happy Boy:

Collin and Daniel with Caitlin

Would you fly across the country for this?

2010-05-20T20:56:00.007-05:00

Mmmm...Costa Vida!

I did....just kidding (kind of) :). Elise and I jetted out on our first girl's trip to Texas to see our friends The Zollingers (both sets). It was a fun visit, and I think I gained about 5 pounds in one weekend. Here are some pics of the kids reuniting:

Riding Elise's favorite carousel
When we first arrived:

Elise and Maci after their sleepover:

And I got to meet sweet baby Sophie (she does have arms and legs, just not in this pic)
Thanks for the fun visit, Kaity!!

He Eats, He Likes!!

2010-05-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

Daniel is now a food eater. I made him wait a full 6 months to try it (hoping for no more food allergies), and now he couldn't be happier....or hungrier

Spring Break...things to remember

2010-05-03T21:48:00.004-05:00

We had a fun time at Grandma and Poppy's over Easter/spring break. We learned a lot too...

1. DO NOT leave on a Friday for spring break.....you will sit in an extra 2+ hours of traffic. On a positive note, traffic took on a whole new dimension with my iphone. I announced every coming traffic jam on google maps to Bryan - I don't think he enjoyed it, but I found it to be very exciting.

2. Oil and water don't mix, neither do Ziti and Mr. Kitty. Thankfully Mr. Kitty is declawed or Ziti would be missing her face. Did I mention he is 15 and Ziti is 3...she's a tough one!

3. Collin HATES sand! This is good to know when you drive an additional 2 hours to take your kids to the beach. We took one foot on to the beach and he declared,"No, no sand, don't like sand!!"

3. Daniel was hands down the cutest fatty on the beach

4. In Grandma's words, "Visitors and fish smell after 3 days!" :) Our kids tested that one, but we had a blast!! Hopefully The Villages will have us back again soon!

Thrashers Game

2010-04-14T21:00:00.002-05:00

Elise started her first hockey game off with a bang last month....she spilled her bright red Hi-C drink all over the guy in front of us (no lids are allowed). That was awkward, but it was succesful at getting rid of the guy who tried to upgrade his seats to the lower lever. She had a blast dancing at all the music and heckling the other team, and the kiss cam was perfect for her 6 year old potty humor.

Brotherly Love

2010-03-22T20:29:00.002-05:00

Daniel is a very happy 5 month old....except when Collin decides to plug his nose, bonk his head, grab his bottle...and so on and so on... They will like each other one day (I hope).

KitKat Cake

2010-03-04T22:17:00.003-06:00

I tried this out for Mason's preschool teacher appreciation week. I'm usually not much of a cake person, but I am dying to eat this. Hopefully I can get it to school without all the m&m's falling out in the car!

The Daddy Daughter Dance

2010-03-04T22:12:00.003-06:00

Bryan and Elise went to their 5th Valentine's Ball together last weekend, which means she has officially been on more dates with Bryan since her birth than me. This year Elise asked to go home early and spent the rest of the night with take two of the stomach flu...

Elise the Artist

2010-02-25T17:00:00.000-06:00

Elise has not stopped talking about this awesome art birthday party on Saturday, she was so proud of her first canvas painting. I was really surprised with how well it turned out. Bryan and I kept asking specifics if anyone there helped her with it, but she insisted it was all her....

Mmmmm....Chocolate (play dough!)

2010-02-24T21:33:00.001-06:00

We have some horrible cabin fever going on in our house right now! Spring cannot come soon enough!!!! So I have been hitting up blogs for ideas to keep our kiddos from tearing down the house (occasionally I'm successful). This chocolate play dough was a huge hit, and it smelled so awesome. Technically its edibile....I of course can't resist anything that smells of chocolate - big mistake - it tastes horrible!

I found the recipe at Chasing Cheerios. She has a ton of adorable kid activities....

Collin wouldn't stop smelling the dough

Valentine's Cupcakes

2010-02-23T22:06:00.003-06:00

I wanted to post the recipe link for the Valentine's cupcakes from Family Fun. They recommended using mini cupcakes, but I made them full size and just used more fruit by the foot. They are very chewy to eat!

Bryan's Birthday

2010-02-23T21:49:00.002-06:00

Bryan is 30! We celebrated with puke buckets and ear infections, lucky guy! We were able to gather everyone long enough to have a mini party for the birthday boy. My parents came to visit and brought our new nephew (puppy), Zorro to visit too. We played fun party games with him as you can see below....

So Christmas was 2 1/2 month ago....

2010-02-23T20:59:00.005-06:00

BUT, I really want to share Elise's Nutcracker pictures. Especially after I drove her all over town to rehearsals for a month to prepare for it.....not that I'm complaining :)

Elise auditioned this year with the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre (where she takes ballet) to be in their Nutcracker performance and she was selected to be an angel (okay, so I think everyone that auditioned got to be an angel) and a baby mouse. She performed in all 5 shows, and was exhausted afterwords!! It was so precious to watch her be a part of a real show though, and to watch her and her ballet friends become very close during all the rehearsals and performances.

Here she is with her friends backstage. Isn't she angelic ;)

This is more like it:

Ready to be a mouse:

Mason and I were there to cheer her on:

After the show some girls came to collect autographs from the performers, so I had to document her first autograph...ha!

Baby update

2010-01-31T21:04:00.003-06:00

I cannot believe Daniel is almost 4 months old!

I think the flash scared the little booger here :0

Better Than Diamonds

2010-01-31T20:38:00.003-06:00

We have become obsessed with organizing lately, and we took it to the extreme last week with California Closets. It's amazing! I pretty much want to live in my closet now. We also did Mason's closet to create more space when Collin moves in to share a room.

Our embarrassing before picture:

Elise's Journal

2010-01-18T14:45:00.005-06:00

It's a good thing I'm not Elise's teacher because I would not have given her a star for this journal entry. I guess she has to vent about her brothers somewhere!

Translation:

My brother Mason drives me nuts. Because he likes princesses. He is
the weirdest person ever. One time he said, "You are a baby."
Then I said, "No, you are the babiest weirdest person in the world." Then
I said, "I give up." It was his birthday.

Christmas Hearts

2010-01-11T20:31:00.000-06:00

I saw this candy cane recycling idea last year on several blogs, but didn't have any candy canes left to try it with. Luckily, I remembered to give it a try this year. The kids loved making these!
If I can find some more left over candy canes at the store we will be making lots of Valentine's hearts this year.

We're expecting!!

2010-01-11T11:00:00.000-06:00

A grandchild???

We found Mason like this in bed the other night. Can you tell he has been through too many of my pregnancies?

Good as new

2010-01-10T20:21:00.003-06:00

I am lacking in time and talent so we hired someone to reupholster our antique settee for our master bedroom. I love how nice it came out! The velvet might have been a mistake with four kids, but so far my threats towards the children to stay off of it are working.

Here is the only picture I could find for a before shot. (It's from 2007. I find it very depressing to see how little Elise is here, but that is another subject...):

And here it is now:

Ist Christmas 1st Smile!

2010-01-03T21:07:00.002-06:00

Little Miss Four Eyes

2009-12-07T19:25:00.003-06:00

We knew it was only a matter of time until our good vision genes (ha) would shine through in our kids. Elise now gets to wear these when she reads and does school work. I felt so bad she had to get them I let her pick out whatever pair she wanted at the eye doctor, assuming we would be in there for hours with her modeling every pair. Instead she walked right up to these and didn't want to look at anything else. A bit of advice, remember the price on the frames is just for the frames...not the lenses too. This was a one time deal for her!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-24T07:53:00.002-06:00

Elise had her class Thanksgiving feast last week and at the end the kids put on a show of what they were thankful for. This is what Elise read to the class:

"I'm Thankful for my mom because she cooks me dinner. I am very thankful that I was not born with 4 other kids and have to sleep on the floor. I am thankful that my country doesn't have gunky water. I'm thankful that I have a house. I'm thankful that I have a school"

Thankfully, hers was not the craziest one that was read!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Elise is a Hoarder!

2009-11-23T08:05:00.004-06:00

Last weekend we spent an entire day cleaning out Elise's room. She saves EVERYTHING! I've been meaning to get her to go through all the stuff that has been piling up in her desk, shoving in drawers and hiding under the bed for a long time. So with much persuasion and frustration I got her to get rid of multiple trashbags of junk....

and now I can finally post some pictures of how I painted her room and made curtains back in July. I was waiting for her room to be looking nice before I took any pictures to show.

Did I mention we had an assistant?

Halloween

2009-11-07T19:52:00.003-06:00

If Hannah Montana had a baby pumpkin, a pet dinosaur, and hired Batman for a bodyguard this would be their gathering....

Can we get any more original at our house? I have a feeling there were 1,000,000 Hannah Montana/Batman combos this Halloween! FYI, Collin doesn't naturally have a smooshed face, that's the result of wrestling on a tight dinosaur hat.

You know your a mom of 4 when...

2009-11-07T19:45:00.002-06:00

the best picture you have with your baby is one where you haven't showered in days, there is an unmade bed in the background, and butt cream is smeared on your forehead. Daniel's baby book might be a little lighter than the other kids. Well, that's assuming I finish everyones one day!

Kids!

2009-11-04T14:34:00.003-06:00

A couple of videos from the hospital...

Visiting with baby Daniel in the hospital...I was trying to talk, my voice sounds awful. He gave me a sweet smile though.

On my way home from the hospital, Collin hadn't seen me in 5 days, so all he kept saying was, "Mommy's here"... I got mixed up when I turned the camera on Mason (still on lots of painkillers!) so half of it is upside down :)

The Fourth and Final....Baby Daniel's arrival

2009-11-01T19:24:00.004-06:00

One day shy of 37 weeks pregnant, I finally had the surprise labor that I had been wanting with our past three children. Of course, be careful what you wish for! After Daniel went into distress and other problems, I had to have a c section. Baby Daniel Knox was born 10/14/2009 at 1:18 am weighing in at 5 lbs 15 oz and was 19 inches long. I don't actually remember this picture being taken, he and I were quite out of it at the time! Luckily, he was able to fight off an infection with antibiotics, and was released from the NICU after only 6 days. I'm still recovering from the not so fun c section after I got an infection too. So our life with four kids is progressing well now, and hopefully will be back to our maximum chaos in no time. I'll try to post all the other happenings around here soon.

Very Indecisive

2009-10-02T14:14:00.005-05:00

After much deliberation, we picked a house color! Good thing because it was getting embarrassing having anyone over to our house. Hopefully we'll have some after pics soon. We went with the bottom row to the right if you're interested.

Whew...She Finally Lost a Tooth!

2009-09-22T19:37:00.003-05:00

"MOMMY, I LOST MY FIRST TOOTH!!!" was the first thing I heard this morning as Elise busted into my room to wake me up. Thank goodness! She has been wiggling and wiggling and listening to all of her friends talk about all the money the tooth fairy has been bringing them for weeks. Too bad Elise's tooth fairy forgot to go to the bank! I'm thinking some half dollars Bryan and I have stashed away might be cooler anyway (I hope).

School was out today too due to Atlanta's flooding so we had just enough time to make a quick tooth fairy pillow! (BTW, Kaity, I think this was your fabric?? There is a lot more I can send you)

Need a closer view???

Big Kid's Night Out

2009-09-22T19:29:00.004-05:00

Now that we have a wonderful sitter, we decided to take Mason and Elise out on the town. We saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 3d, which was adorable. Mason is still a little on the young side to sit through a movie though. If it weren't for Mommy's many potty breaks, popcorn, soda, candy and the 3d glasses he would not have made it!

Then we went out for meatballs. Italian food and buttered popcorn was a really nice treat for the family (minus Collin)...we have been very dairy deprived since we've learned of Collin's milk allergy!

The Lost Dog

2009-09-13T12:20:00.006-05:00

We were eating breakfast this morning getting ready to leave for church when we realized Ziti was not doing her usual job of cleaning up Collin's mess on the floor (she is always under his chair when he eats). We then remembered that she had been outside and saw that the front gate to our yard was open. Whoops.

So Bryan ran outside to check her usual runaway spots, and she was nowhere to be found. We spent the next 3 hours searching the neighborhood, asking neighbors, driving the streets, making lost dog fliers, and calling animal shelters. For some reason Bryan decided to inspect the backside of our fence in case she had tried to get back in from one of our neighbors' yards. He began calling her name and heard a faint whimper....and this is what he found:

Our genius of a dog had evidently gotten out and tried getting back in the backyard via the front porch. Somehow she creeped around the ledge and then realized she was stuck. Poor Ziti was so scared Bryan had to peel her claws off of the ledge.

Christmas Stocking Tutorial

2009-09-12T19:38:00.008-05:00

Our family was complete after we had Mason (haha) so I ordered the cutest embroidered stockings from Ballard Designs. Much to our surprise our family was NOT finished and Ballard Designs discontinued my stockings leaving me now 2 short.

So this go around I'm making my own, and I finally found some cute clearance fabric and an adorable tutorial online! I was so excited I had to share the link for my one reader who can sew :) Elf Christmas Stockings

If you want a good view of the lions at the zoo...

2009-09-08T21:48:00.004-05:00

use you kids as bait against the glass. I loved watching our kids' reactions to the lion jumping up, roaring and scratching the glass: Elise screamed and froze, Collin laughed in ignorance, and Mason was no where to be found.

Our Littlest Guy

2009-09-08T21:40:00.004-05:00

We got a little better view of the baby today with the 4-d ultrasound. His face is currently smashed against the uterine wall so it isn't a full picture, but close enough. My Dr. estimates him to be around 4.5lbs right now (I'm hopeful he is overestimating that one).

Mason's 1st Day of 3yo Preschool

2009-08-31T19:39:00.000-05:00

First Day of First Grade!

2009-08-17T13:04:00.003-05:00

Elise is loving 1st Grade! Its amazing how much she has changed since she started Kindergarten! I had planned on driving her the first day of school (I was hoping to get a lot of pictures), and Elise would have none of that, so off on the bus she went!

Our Big (little) Vacation

2009-08-09T20:45:00.000-05:00

All of our high hopes for a family vacation this year turned into a 5 day get away to see my parents and with a short side trip to Chattanooga. Our kids actually had a blast and luckily had no idea that it wasn't a big vacation.
We stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo inside a real retired train car. Overall the Choo Choo is getting a little rundown, but how could you pass up staying in a train with kids? While we were in Chattanooga we also visited Rock City and The Discovery Museum, both of which were so much fun! Our last sightseeing was to Mayfield Dairies to see inside a real dairy and how ice cream was made...we sampled of course too.

All Aboard!

The entrance of Rock City. Check out Elise's hot shades: Bryan and the kids on the swinging bridge:
Elise checking the views:
They loved the cheesy Fairyland at the end:

At the Creative Discovery Museum:

Collin loved Curious George!The Mayfield Dairy tour

Bry watched the Mets (lose); I watched the sunset

2009-08-09T20:23:00.002-05:00

This is from their July series....hopefully the Met's will have better luck come September against the Braves. The sky was pretty, the game was not!

Papa's Boat

2009-08-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

During our little getaway to TN the kids got to go out on Mimi and Papa's boat. Elise hadn't been out on it since she was 2 and it was Mason and Collin's 1st time. Mason and Elise loved the big boat.
After we were home for a few days, Mason brought up Santa Claus and I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He told me he wanted a big Papa boat....it might be the first year we can't deliver on a wish!

Elise driving the boat with Papa:

Trying to keep Collin happy despite being restrained with his life jacket:

Raisin Boy

2009-07-31T15:21:00.004-05:00

That was a fun diaper to change! Little naughty boy gets to start using the play pen timeout now!

Bring it, Beckham

2009-07-28T15:28:00.005-05:00

Ok so maybe Beckham is better, but in my opinion Mason is way cuter! Mason loves soccer (so far). He completely wore himself out with his first class yesterday, so much so that he finally broke down and napped for me :).

Cheer Camp

2009-07-27T12:06:00.003-05:00

Elise loved her cheerleading camp! After watching her cheers back I think she would be a great junior varsity candidate :).

She did win for the best spirit day outfit though. Elise was so proud of her outfit on spirit day until she started walking into camp and realized she was a bit more overdone than the other girls. Then I reminded her it was a competition, and she was relieved that it would be an easy win! Isn't she cute?

Gluten Free Cake!

2009-07-27T11:38:00.007-05:00

My Aunt Pamie and my cousin Hayden came to visit us a couple weeks ago. My Aunt and I have long shared a love of sweets, and since she has been diagnosed with Celiac Disease I surprised her with a gluten free cake. I wouldn't tell anyone the secret ingredient (garbanzo beans) until after they tried a piece :). It sounds gross, but it really was good!

I had to laugh when I read step one of the directions though...if you are really making this for some one with gluten intolerance you might want to skip step one and don't grease and flour the pan.

Garbanzo Bean Chocolate Cake

4th Fun

2009-07-09T19:39:00.007-05:00

We had big plans to go somewhere fun for July 4th and ended up hanging out at home the whole day. Bryan made up for it spending way too much $ on fireworks (I do believe the kids provided a fair amount of peer pressure). It was his first time ever lighting any so I found it very entertaining watching him light and run...he only caught the grass on fire once so it was a pretty successful night! We also discovered that living on our huge hill has its perks - we could see all the city fireworks too.

I left Bryan in charge of water balloons for 3 minutes, and this is what I came back too...*sigh*....

The beginning of our water balloon fight. I definitely lost the battle, but I won't be posting that pic.

The best summer gadget ever! Everyone needs a butter boy!

A highly recommended dessert - we grilled foil wrapped bananas stuffed with chocolate chips and marshmallows. Yum...

Here is Bryan's light and run stance, very entertaining.

Our "big time" fireworks....

Mason's Birthday

2009-07-01T11:07:00.006-05:00

Mason Man is 3, and our birthday season is finally over!!!! I had some mom guilt for not making him a cool cake like I did the other two, and it turns out you have to order the designer cakes at the grocery store a week in advance...whoops. So I quickly free handed a Thomas on his cookie cake I had made him, and luckily it was recognizable enough to pass his test. We also discovered Mason is petrified of trick candles....who knew?

He was so scared of the trick candles...luckily they blew out pretty quick.

He wanted to wear his winter fireman jammies to match his new fireman scooter.

Two Pregos, 5 kids under the age of 6, and no Dads around!

2009-06-30T12:03:00.009-05:00

Kaity, Charlie and Gracie came to visit us from Texas last week. We didn't take a whole lot of pictures - we were probably too busy chasing kids. The little ones had a blast and Kaity and I even snuck in a couple naps (we don't know where the kids were at the time)

Here is the whole crew (minus Collin who was napping):

The playground at the zoo:

Gracie was our only casualty, she got a stomach bug on Friday. She walked around the house with her puke bucket saying, "Mom, I too up!"

The kids had a lot of fun tormenting baby frogs along with several bugs who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Charlie was being very gentle :)

Elise's American Girl Party

2009-06-29T20:32:00.000-05:00

2009-06-29T20:30:00.001-05:00

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T21:45:00.006-05:00

Bryan mostly celebrated his weekend working...blah.... He did get to sneak in a dinner at PF Changs Saturday night, which would have been awesome except for our kids suddenly decided to love chinese food and ate all of our lettuce wraps. The last time we went out for chinese they only ate lo mein noodles, this time they devoured everything.

Today Bryan got a Wii (now he can get me the Wii Fit for Christmas, hint, hint, honey...) so I made Mario toadstools for dessert to give him a hint at his gift (he thought they were something from Strawberry Shortcake). Aren't they cute?

My little swimmer is 6!

2009-06-18T20:22:00.006-05:00

Elise is a 6 year old today (even though we had her bday party a month ago). We brought cake to her swim meet tonight to celebrate, and tomorrow we're having family dinner at American Girl. This is like the never ending birthday for her. She has been begging for an American Girl doll ever since our visit to the store with her friend Maci last year, and it's been killing me not to show her the doll I picked her. (For the record I've wanted one of these dolls since I was a kid too - only I never got one) :).

Here is a shot of the cutest (and happiest as you see below) little swimmer on the team. Luckily Elise has no cares about what place she comes in as long as she gets a ribbon (everyone gets a ribbon). So we have a lot of 5th place ribbons for the scrap book. Ignorance is bliss, right? I'm so proud of her for improving her times every week though. I've been really impressed at how much she has improved!

IT'S A.....

2009-06-15T14:15:00.005-05:00

BOY!!!

We are so excited to officially have the 3 stooges in our house!

Elise was thrilled to stay the only girl too.... Well, maybe after she gets used to the idea she will!

Here is his little face (we had problems getting him to look at us, its not the best pic)

Here is a 4d of his face or profile really, and once again, I don't think its a very good view.
Hopefully we'll get some better ones.

Summer Buddies

2009-06-09T19:57:00.006-05:00

Let the love hate relationship begin....now that Elise and Mason are around each other 24/7 (and me for that matter) they go from playing so sweetly to ready to rip each other's hair out. Ahhh the joys of siblings.

Here is a picture of them looking sweet (and dirty from playing outside).

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-06-08T19:35:00.008-05:00

This is the first year I have requested a homemade cake from Bryan (who has never baked a cake in his life). Now that I am done with everyone in the houses official bday cakes (even the dogs..) I figured it was his turn.
To my surprise he did an excellent job! I helped with the recipe, only because my prego self was craving this coke cake ever since I read about it.... yum
And sorry for the the cake obsession lately - did I mention I was pregnant?

The Ballet and Tap Routines

2009-06-03T11:00:00.003-05:00

Here are her other 2 performances. I loved these costumes! This was definately the cutest costume yet.

Ballet (Stinking Youtube edited out the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow...I guess there was a copyright problem...)

Tap:

The Flower and the Recital

2009-06-03T10:49:00.004-05:00

Elise had her dance recital back in May. She performed her tap and ballet dance first, and then her musical theatre class performed a High School Musical dance....

This was her last routine and I think she was getting a little delirious (okay so maybe we all were) at this point. Somehow on the way onto the stage Elise must have scooped up some one's flower and decided it would great shoved in her skirt. The whole routine she was focused on protecting and displaying her flower. It seemed pretty funny at the time, although, watching it back it is hard to appreciate it doesn't seem as hilarious as I thought it was that night.

We survived Elise's 6th Birthday Party!

2009-05-26T19:55:00.006-05:00

Elise had a craft party and invited all the girls from her Kindergarten class over. Elise freaked me out the night before when she told me none of her friends really liked crafts the way that she did....that would have been good to know earlier.
We painted craft aprons and fabric headbands and then they tied different fabric scraps to make some funky flip flops.

I was very proud of my guitar cake I invested a lot of time in making....It pained me to cut in to it only to find out that 6 year olds are very blunt and they don't much care for fondant icing. Oh well, at least it looked cool. Next year we'll stick to buttercream frosting - or better yet a bakery.

Anyway, I think everyone had a good time, it worked out great having the girls go play on the swingset in between crafts. Thank GOODNESS my mom came to help, I don't think I could have managed all of the chaos without her!

The cake:

All ready for decorating:

Making our flip flops - why is no one but me smiling?

And one of our many outside breaks:

This will soon be a Hannah Montana guitar cake

2009-05-14T09:36:00.005-05:00

(I hope)
Elise's 6 year old party is tomorrow, and for some reason she insisted I make the cake.