Sophia's Pickles

Sophia went to a birthday party for one of her friends last weekend and they made homemade refrigerator pickles there.  The girls each brought home a jar and the recipe in case we wanted to make them ourselves.  Sophia LOVES pickles; her and myself are really the only ones in our household to indulge.  So, I promised her that I would get the necessary items from the store and we could do it together.

Measuring out the spices by the teaspoon:

She added them all to a bowl and then we split them between the various jars that we planned to fill:

Adding fresh dill to each of the jars:

We boiled cloves of garlic on the stove top and then added vinegar and salt:

Stirring the pot and you can just sense her happiness over this project:

Cutting up the small cucumbers with close supervision:

Stuffing the jars full of sliced cucumbers:

The final jars, just waiting to be put in the fridge.  The pickles are ready to eat within one day of refrigeration ... and I think that it is safe to say that we will be making these all summer long!

Mid-Week Randoms

One night while I was at work, Steve took some impromptu pictures of the kids playing outside on the huge igloo that they had made in the front yard.  We ended up with eight snow days this year and most likely the kids will have to "make-up" two of those days at the end of the school year in June.

I suspect that Jimmy was pretty tired out by the time this picture was taken because it is hard work climbing up snow.

The igloo in broad daylight.  It was MASSIVE.

The perfect little hiding place.

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For Sophia's classmates in honor of her birthday, she requested brownies with gummy worms on them.  For a self-proclaimed girl that doesn't care for chocolate, she sure loves brownies.

And, of course, we celebrated with the traditional cinnamon rolls and candles before she went to school.  How is she seven years old already?!

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James consistently takes an afternoon nap every day from about 1 pm to 4 pm (give or take).  One day, he wasn't feeling very well so we spent the afternoon cuddling until he fell asleep.  Eventually, I transferred him to my bed and let him just rest there.  He looked so peaceful and serene with the sunlight pouring in.

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For Steve's birthday this year, I opted to make him a grill cake.  Chocolate cake, frosted and covered with oreos (the coals), a grate made out of piped chocolate chips, cheeseburger patties (chocolate rice krispy treats, with "fruit by the foot" for cheese), a shish kabob (gummy fish and red gumballs) and a hotdog (caramel and salt water taffy melted and shaped).  The kids loved it!

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Watson, one of our cats, has always slept on Samantha's bed.  He jumps up there as soon as she climbs under the covers and sleeps there most of the night, despite having his own bed downstairs in our room.  I often find him sleeping up there during the day, as well.  One night, I went in to check on the girls in their room before bed and this is what I found.

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This girl never wears a single outfit unless it is elaborately decked out in accessories.  Necklace, headband, watch, nail polish ... check, check, check and check.

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Working with Momma on his "school work."

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Steve got down Jack's old "balance bike" for Jimmy to try out and we are pretty sure that he will have it mastered by (if not before) the end of summer.  He totally understands the concept of steering ...

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Just a boy and his dad ... out in the woods in the middle of a typical Michigan winter.

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Jimmy got to experience sledding this winter and he is now a fan for life.  Who wouldn't want to ride around, taking in the sights, while someone else did the pulling?!

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My aunt sent these pajamas for the two February birthday kiddos and they were PERFECT for our birthday themes -- unicorns and dragons.

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Spending some time on the lake this winter:

Jimmy thought that it was all pretty interesting, I'm sure -- the slippery ice, the ice skates on the girls and a chair to push around.

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While the girls are away at school, we sometimes have popcorn parties in the middle of the morning.

And the girls get movie dates with Mom on the weekend:

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Sophia's Unicorn Party with Friends

We celebrated Sophia's 7th birthday with her friends at our house, carrying on with the unicorn theme.  As is our usual tradition, we scheduled a 2-hour party from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm on a Saturday, We ordered pizza and breadsticks to be delivered (so easy for me and a true crowd-favorite), had lemonade, strawberries, cupcakes and individual ice cream cups (again, so much easier than cutting cake and scooping ice cream).  I also asked our teenage neighbor across the street to help out.  When I told her that she would get paid and have all the pizza, cupcakes and ice cream that she wanted, she responded with, "You don't need to pay me to come to a party!"  I laughed while I reminded her that she would most definitely want to get paid ... after all, she will be helping to micro-manage 11 little girls."

I went with a gold and pink theme, using some of the pink decorations left over from the joint dragon and unicorn family party two weeks before.  Sophia loves pink, and the gold seemed rich and fitting for sparkly unicorns.

Sophia made it clear that she wanted white cupcakes (apparently she is not a fan of chocolate cake?), and they turned out so cute with the cupcake holder and toppers.

As soon as the guests began to arrive, I directed them over to a table that was set up in the dining room.  While there, my helper, Autumn, showed them their unicorn names.  This was probably one of my favorite parts of the party -- their unicorn name was based on the first letter of their first name and the month that they were born.

So, Sophia's unicorn name was Rainbow Silver Moon.

The girls loved it!  They wore name tags with their names on them, wrote those names on their favor bags and then put them on the unicorn horns that we used for the game later on.

The favor bags (Sophia and I made these together one weekend using cardstock from my craft closet, simple white bags and silk flowers left over from Samantha's rainforest party back in November):

After receiving their unicorn name, the girls headed into the family room, where I had a table set up for them to work on a craft.  This was also a favorite for me.

On the table, I had plastic ornaments, flowers, unicorns (made out of clay, dried and painted), unicorn ears, glitter and ribbon.

Just waiting to be claimed by the girls:

The girls got to choose which items they wanted to use and then made a trip over to the counter where Autumn and I helped them to add glitter inside the ornaments and then glue their coordinating parts on.  Afterwards, I added eyelashes to the front with a sharpie marker and their name and year to the back.

The majority of the girls chose pink or purple glitter, but there were some green ones and this beautiful gold one that Sam chose to make.  All of the girls were then able to take the ornaments home with them as a favor (and hopefully add them to their Christmas tree later this year!).

In addition to the ornament, there was a soft unicorn for each of them on the dining room table (I got such a great deal on these ... less than $5 apiece and free shipping!).

They also filled their bags with a bath bomb (they smelled incredible!), a unicorn pencil and note pad, a unicorn necklace and a chapstick.

The pizza and breadsticks arrived right on time (the pizza man got a very warm welcome from all of these hungry girls) and Autumn and I stayed busy filling their plates and cups of lemonade.

One of the guests had to leave early, so we made sure to open presents right after lunch.  Sophia received so many cute things from her friends and she was beaming from ear to ear the whole time.

We followed the opening of gifts with a game of "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn."  I drew the unicorn and cut it out weeks ago and was happy to finally hang it on the wall.  (It now hangs in the girls' bedroom because Sophia didn't want to part with it quite yet). 

The girls took turns trying to put their horn in the correct location.  

The horns ended up all over the place, but Samantha ended up being the closest.

We finished up the party with cupcakes and ice cream ...

... and sang happy birthday to this special little girl -- the best little sister and big sister that there is.

Jack's Jeans

Jack is so hard on his jeans.  He's all boy and he works harder than anyone that I know.

I spend the extra money on jeans for him because I want them to last more than a couple of weeks.  Just recently, he started getting holes in the knees of his jeans.  Some of them were getting short on him (he must have hit a growth spurt) and I ordered new ones to replace the ripped ones.  But, Steve had the idea to put patches on the knees  -- iron-on patches from yesteryear.

The next thing that I knew, the patches arrived in the mail and Jack was anxious to have me put them on his jeans.  I sent him to school with the promise that I would fix three pairs of jeans before I picked him up.

I lined them up and started heating the iron.  And then, I decided that rectangular patches were kind of boring.  I ended up cutting shapes and double reinforcing the knees.

A pentagon, a star and a hand-drawn chainsaw.  The chainsaw turned out better than I could have hoped -- made out of a lighter-colored patch, cut out and ironed onto a darker patch and then colored with a sharpie.

Jack twirled around with them and immediately called his dad at work to tell him as soon as he saw the jeans.  And my momma heart soared.

Until ... later that weekend, when I asked him how he liked his jeans with the patches (he had worn a different pair each day for two days).

He looked at me and said, "Welllllllllll ... I would like them better if you had made a weed-whipper ... or a snow-thrower ... or a four-wheeler ... for a patch.  I like my chainsaw but I would have liked something else like that on the other jeans."

And that's my boy.  No man's tool or piece of equipment is too much for him.  In fact, they are at the heart of his existence and always at the forefront of his mind.

Note to self: practice drawing said items above for the next pair of jeans that gets ripped.