16 months old

Laila is now 16 months old. She can now say a couple more words and she has also started saying the kids names. She loves to sing. Some of her favorite songs that she sings over and over are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Ring Around the Rosies. I love hearing her sweet little voice singing throughout the house.

kindergarten fairy tale day

Presenting Aiden as Puss N Boots!

kindergarten fun

Each day after school I love looking through the boy's folders and seeing what they've done at school. This week Aiden has been learning about fairy tales and today he made this Three Little Pigs hat. Tomorrow is fairy tale day and the kids get to dress up as a character from a fairy tale. Aiden raided his grandparents costume box and tomorrow he is going to dress up as Puss in Boots. Stay tuned for more pictures!

from today...

eating lots of grapefruit, so refreshing!

playing lots of board games, including Green Eggs and Ham, nothing to exciting but still special time spent with my kids.

happy presidents day

artwork by Aiden

happy valentine's day

Brian's brother let us borrow his little boy's cupid outfit. I was going to dress up Laila but as soon as I put the wings on her she started crying. Oh well, Ava makes a cute cupid also.

heart boxes

This week I have been making these heart boxes to put treats in for the kids. They are quick and easy to make, for the template and instructions go here.

valentine's treats

,Can you believe Valentines day is already next week! It's such a fun holiday, chocolate, candy, flowers, what could be better! 

100 days

Aiden came home from school wearing this hat. It's hard to believe it's been 100 days!

15 months old

Laila is now 15 months old! Some of her newest accomplishments include learning to crawl up on the couch and back down. She is now walking everywhere and is no longer crawling, yeah!! When she wants something she'll say, "me, me, me!" Laila has also learned to say more and baby. The funniest thing she is now doing is dancing and singing along to the Hannah Montana theme song. You have to listen closely, but she is singing it as best as a 15 month old can. Ava has a little toy microphone and I've even caught her singing the song into the microphone.

way to go dario!

I should have saved yesterday's post for today because Dario had his award ceremony today and also received the pirates pride award! He was so happy because he had been hoping to get this award for awhile. When Aiden got his trophy yesterday, Dario asked me if he would get the award too, and what do you know he did! He also got the 50 point award, which means he read and passed a test on 100 books, and he received a ribbon for all A's on his report card.

What the boys have been up to

Dario lost his two top teeth, with a little help from daddy. For the longest time the teeth were just hanging there and Dario was having a hard time eating, so Brian pulled them out. A little painful, but it was all forgotten once the tooth fairy came.

dd

I went to the Kindergarten award ceremony today at Aiden's school. Aiden won the pirate pride award, which is given to one child in each class. He was so proud of his little trophy. He told me to make sure that Ava and Laila don't play with it while he is gone at school.

cheesecake recipe

Just thought I'd share this delicious cheesecake recipe. With 5 eggs plus 2 egg yolks and 5 packs of cream cheese it's a diet breaker, but it is so worth it!

sunny day

After so much cold weather it was nice to have some milder weather! The girls and I went outside and enjoyed playing in the sun.

Finally at almost 15 months Laila is starting to walk more and more each day. She really enjoyed her new found freedom while we were outside. She would cautiously walk around and pick up little leaves to play with.

christmas 09

I am finally blogging about Christmas, it has been a mad house around here with all the kids home from school! Everyone has been sick with coughs and colds adding to the chaos, I think everyone is finally starting to get better. Overall we had a great Christmas. We are lucky enough to live close enough to both sets of our parents that we were able to see both families on Christmas day. After staying up until 2:00 a.m. on Christmas eve getting everything ready for the kids, I was dreading them waking up at the crack of dawn. Luckily, they didn't wake up until 7:00! I loved seeing how excited the kids got opening each present, and their excitement as they dumped their stockings all their over the floor.

merry christmas

7 years old

I can't believe my oldest child is now seven years old! I couldn't ask for a sweeter seven year old. Dario makes my job as a mother easy because I rarely have to discipline him and he is always willing to help. We had a family party for him at Brian's parents house. We made his favorite food, hamburgers and hot dogs. Dario was in heaven with all the nice presents he received from his aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

christmas tree

Today we finally bought and decorated a Christmas tree. We went out to a Christmas tree farm to pick one out. The kids and Brian inspected each tree until they found the perfect one. The one we picked out didn't seem that big when we saw it out in the open field. However, when we set it up inside our house it turned out to be a monster of a tree for our space. Good thing it will only be up for a week. Unfortunately Aiden was feeling sick so he didn't get to come. The kids decorated the tree tonight, and I will be redecorating it when they are asleep because they put all the ornaments in clumps mostly at the bottom of the tree. Hopefully they don't notice!

gingerbread house

Can you believe Christmas is next week! It really snuck up on me this year. We have been trying to do as many Christmas activities as we can. This week we made gingerbread houses. Each of the kids had their own little house to decorate. Unfortunately the boys ate theirs before I could take a good picture of it.

christmas cookies

One of the many things I love about Christmas time is baking lots of Christmas cookies. Yesterday I made these Key Lime Thumbprint cookies. I found the recipe on Martha Stewart. com which is a great source for delicious Christmas cookie recipes.