Happy Valentine's Day 2008!

Nonny made the kiddos jammies for Valentine's Day and they love them! Cailey LOVES to match Kinsey AND they are her favorite color. Braden's excited too because normally the girls just get the sewed dresses but this time he got some jammies made by Nonny and that just made his day! I always make the kids pink milk, pink cookies, and pink pancakes on Valentine's Day along with and Italian dinner of their choice (with red sauce, of course!). Today is Cailey's first day of track out and what a fabulous one it's been! She went to preschool with us today as my 'helper' and then had fun at the Valentine's Day party. After preschool I took Zackary home with us and the kiddos played with him for a couple of hours...they ALL got along great too:)!!

cookie decorating and crafts

playdate with Zackary

pink milk, pancakes, and cookies

Kinsey enjoying the Italian food!!

Cailey Anne, Star of the Theatre

Cailey's kindergarten class put on a small musical about Goldilocks and the Three Bears last night It was SOOOOO cute!!! Needless to say she does not suffer from stage fright! In the beginning she was a little nervous and had her normal reaction which is to touch her hair...but as soon as she saw us her face lit up and her singing got loud:)!! I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!!!

Sweet Dreams

The other morning Cailey woke up and said, "Daddy, I'm mad that you woke me up because I was watching a good dream." She can't remember the dream now but we thought it was cute that she compared it to watching tv!

Backyard Fun

Highs and Lows of Cupcakes...

Brian made cupcakes for my birthday (in addition to my favorite cake) and I let the kids have one for snack on Friday. They loved it of course but one child was extremely disappointed when she found out she could only have one!! I thought it was so funny I just had to take pictures to remember the moment:). Oh...and just so you know, it was a SNACK and I also gave her a whole banana and grapes so she was not hungry....just MAD!!!

Wow, this is a good cupcake

I am going to smile for Mommy, this is so fun!

What? I can't have another one?


What do you mean I can't have another one!?!?

I WANT ANOTHER CUPCAKE!!!!

WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

My 31st Birthday

Last year (for my 30th birthday) I had a slumber party...an idea I stole from a friend. I had so much fun hanging out with friends from all walks of life that I wanted to do something again this year. I invited some friends to go out to dinner and had a fabulous time! I'm not big on having all the attention on me but some friends (you know who you are) made that impossible:). Thanks to all of you for making my birthday fantastic....I can't wait until next year! (Who knew that having girl's night would make me actually look forward to getting older?)

The final picture...with the flash
this time!

This week one of the parent's in my class brought me these gorgeous flowers for my birthday! I couldn't believe it...how sweet is that??

Brian had the kiddos make me a card and they brought it to me while singing "Happy Birthday" this morning. My heart melted when I saw it it....it's a keeper:)!!

Tonight Sheree is letting me bring the kids to parent's night out from 4:00-8:00 so Brian and I can go to a movie and grab some dinner:)! This is definitely an awesome birthday!

Getting Warmer...

We had an 80 degree day this week so the kids came home and wanted to ride their bikes after their Storybook Safari classes. Braden and Cailey did an AWESOME job riding their bikes while Kinsey had fun playing with her baby dolls in the stroller. After a while the neighbor kids came over and played basketball and played in the backyard with the kids.

Cailey is becoming more confident on her bike!

Braden got 'stuck' a couple times and Kinsey would
give him the push he needed...it was SOOO cute!!

Little Mama

In the past I've written about how Kinsey loves to help out with babies. Cailey also loves helping and I've noticed it a great deal lately because we've been around them more. Her favorite thing to do is feed them baby food-which is hilarious to watch...especially with babies that reach for the spoon! The other night she was feeding a baby and ended up with sweet potato all in her hair! I am so looking forward to seeing the girls with the new baby....I've had to warn Cailey that the baby won't be ready for baby food though:).

Cailey has also become quite the 'little mama' in some other very helpful situations! When we were at the park she offered to push Braden in the swing while I pushed Kinsey and visa versa. I'm amazed at how much she's grown and how far she's come with being able to get along with Braden and Kinsey too. My girl is growing up! Yesterday she told Brian and I that she wanted eight children and went on to tell us their names (none of which I remember at this point). It's so hard to believe my baby is five!!!

Another Day, Another Park!!!

When Cailey got home from school the other day we went to another park. We were there for two hours and the kids had a great time...if it didn't start to rain we would've stayed longer!

After we were at the park for a little while our friends, Kelly, Caden, and Caroline joined us! Cailey had so much fun pushing Caroline in the swing and even got to go down the slide with her:)! The boys had fun going down the slide together...and then Cailey taught them how to have slide races! A couple hours later we met them at the mall for dinner and more fun!

Is it February???

I LOVE cold weather in the winter but for some reason it's been 70 this weekend and will continue to be so for the next few days. The one advantage of the warm weather is that the kids are able to go to the park and play outside. They went yesterday and had a blast and I'll probably take them to another one this afternoon when Cailey gets out of school...so expect to see lots and lots of park pics while this warm weather lasts!

Decision 2008

The great debate on what to do about schooling for Cailey next year is over and I finally have peace!! I have struggled with this decision since Cailey was 3 but decided to give public school a try this year. It's funny how things work out because at first I felt like this was a totally wasted year for her. I did feel like I was supposed to send her when I recieved the letter saying that she got into her year round school last year, but lately I've been wondering why I sent her. (I always analyze the mess out of things and want to know the exact reasons for everything that happens.) Last night a friend asked me why I sent her and the answer came to me as clear as day...she WAS supposed to be there this year. If I had homeschooled Cailey this year then I wouldn't have been able to work and raise the money we needed for the baby. Everything did work out (even if we don't have the baby yet). SO...the point is that I am homeschooling Cailey next year and finally feel peace about her schooling decision that I've been struggling with for so long. I just feel like if I don't try then I'll always wonder if I should have. I am not committing to homeschooling for the next 18 years, I'm just taking one year at a time...and I'm VERY excited about it:)!!

Time Served

This week I got a note from Cailey's teacher saying that she was out of lunch money and borrowed some from the class fund. Not a big deal, you say? Well it's HUGE considering we had been sending her lunch everyday! We set up an account for her at the beginning of the year and put 20 dollars on it. We told her that she could buy lunch once a month. Because of when her track outs have fallen she's only bought in October and November....OR SO WE THOUGHT!! Apparently my little angel has been buying lunch EVERYDAY since school started back in January AND eating her lunch from home for snack. Her teacher would ask her occasionally why she brought her lunch box and she said it was for snack time. I am not going to blame the teacher at all...but WHO sends their child a sandwich, chips, and a fruit for a snack? Gotta admit she's pretty smart to figure out she could do that- but not able to figure out that the money would come to an end at some point. I was truly heart broken when I found out about it. I couldn't talk, I couldn't think, I just didn't know what to. I really didn't think I'd have to worry about my five year old lying and manipulating the adults around her. I hesitated posting this because I don't want you to get the wrong idea about her. I talked to her for a long time about it, told her the story of the Little Boy who Cried Wolf and prayed with her. We figured out that all in all she bought lunch 14 times that we didn't know about. So other than losing some priveleges (such as treats and school lunches) Brian wanted her to do some work. He wanted her to realize that it took time to make her wasted lunch everyday and that he worked hard to make the money that she spent daily both at school and on the lunch things we sent from home. SOOO he got creative and had her pick up gumballs in the backyard today. She did NOT want to do it, nor did she enjoy it. All in all she spent three hours out in the yard (being supervised, of course) picking up gumballs. Originally he told her she had to get all of them but in the end that was impossible- she'd still be there now. Hopefully she learned her lesson and we won't have to get this creative again!