O's birthday cake

O decided she wanted a princess cake for her birthday this year.  So I researched online to see how this could be done and decided to get a princess doll and use that for the top part and use two round cake pans and a bowl for the dress. Putting it together was fun.

(Yes, I am pregnant for those of you who didn't read that post. Can you tell?? :)

I wrapped the lower half of the princess with plastic wrap(after I popped her legs off because she was too tall for the cake and hid them from O so she won't know the princess didn't have legs! Don't worry, they went back on.)

Insert princess in top layer....



use frosting as "glue" to keep the layers together....

and frost.  I had to use some extra pieces(left over from cutting the hole for the princess) to fill in the spaces between the layers.

After frosting I sprinkled it with some silver sparkly sprinkles. :)

She liked it!

I didn't think it was right to put candles on the princess and light them so I made a few cupcakes with the leftover cake mix from the bowl cake. 

I'm glad James "volunteered" to cut the cake!



One more "party post" to go......

blueberry picking

Today we decided to do something fun so I found a berry patch nearby and they were open!  Normally they are not open for picking this early but we had a really warm winter and haven't had a freeze in a while so the blueberries were ready!

The kids really jumped right in and started picking!  James and I were surprised how into it they were.

O was my picking machine!!  She would find a spot under a bush and would stay there until all the "blue ones" were picked.  She really, really enjoyed it... and she was a good berry picker!

S did well too but you could tell he has a little more energy! :)  He would run from one bush to the next just picking one or two from each bush.  He wanted to sit under this bush just because I took the pictures of O sitting under her bush.  By the time the picture was taken he was off to another bush again!

Our finished bags!

I think they would have stayed and picked more but we got a late start.... it was noon when we finally convinced them to leave(an hour after picking blueberries!)

The random last picture.... they had a dinosaur statue there.  Not really sure why.  There were no signs around.  O did say she thought the dinosaur was blue because he ate alot of blueberries.... could be!

Yesterday was O's birthday.  It's the big 4!  She was very excited!!  WE had a party on Saturday, which I will post pictures of soon(hopefully).  For her birthday, we decided to let her pick where she wanted to go out to eat.  At first she said "Bob's!" which is Bob Evans, the place Grammy and Kee take her and S to almost every time they come to visit.  Then she decided she wanted to go to the "train place"  aka Fritz's.  It's a restaurant where trains bring you your food.  Here's a picture of O looking at the trains.

The each got train engineer hats.  They kept saying "we are train engines!"

After I took the previous picture, O said "take a funny picture."  This is what she did...



Here's the train bringing our food

and the food coming down to our table...

After we got home we gave O her present.  We got her a new bike.  James put the bike at the front of the garage and we opened the garage door.

She had a few issues starting to peddle, but Daddy was there to help

Our friends saw the new bike out their window and came over to ride as well!

There's even a little bag to put fun treasures in!

There's a cute video of her riding her bike I will try to upload again tomorrow.  I tried for 1.5 hours last night and 8 hours today so I gave up. :)

spring break- yeah, that was in March

**Warning, this is a really long post.  I should have broke it into two parts but I got carried away with uploading pictures that suddenly all the pictures were on one post. 
I've had the blog written for a while now but I've been trying to upload a video and it's just not uploading.  So I've given up.  Maybe someday I'll get it.  Anyway, here's the story and pictures...

It's funny to me to think that spring break is going to be an important week in my life again.  I guess there were too many springs between graduating from college and having a child in preschool that I kind of just forgot what a big deal it is.  Right now spring break is code for 'all activities your kids are in are cancelled for the week.'  No preschool, no MOPS, no knitting class, no Bible study. Nothing.  So with this little taste of summer... and thank goodness the weather has been wonderful... I've tried to plan several things to do during the week.

Oh, and about every day O asks why she's not going to school.  I remind her it's spring break.  And her response is "I don't want a break from school!  I want to go to school!"  Oh, just give her 5 to 10 years and she won't feel that way! :)

On Monday we went to the zoo.  It's been a while.  Our winter has been a warm one but it seems the warm days are on school days or days we are busy.  So they were excited to go.  Here's a picture of our train ride.  The picture is fuzzy because the camera was next to our cooler bag. 

After our train ride we rode the tram to 'Africa.'  We have been there several times, and walked by this stage every time but for some reason this time we had to stop.  O told me I had to sit on the bench and her and S were going to sing.  She is so funny!

 This is only the second time we have seen the hippos out of the water.  The kids loved seeing them out and 'chopping.'

The rhinos were very playful.  O and S thought it was really funny the little one was rolling in the mud!

(insert video here)

After the tour of 'Africa' we ate lunch.  It wasn't that late but apparently the kids were really hungry because both ate all the food I brought but a few carrots!

After lunch we had to go on the carrousel ride.  I forgot the camera in the bag so I didn't get a picture.  Which is sad because O actually rode an animal instead of sitting on the peacock bench.  Maybe this will be a trend!

And on the way out the kids had to sit on the elephant and take pictures. 

On Tuesday we met a few of the MOPS moms and their kids at a park to play and have lunch.  I forgot to take pictures during most of our play time but I got a few of the sandbox play.  O and S loved the slides and climbing.  O liked that there was another girl she knew from her MOPS class there to play with.  O also took off her shoes to play in the sand for a while... which really surprised me since she kind of has this thing about her feet and socks being on right.  She did well though!  S loved that there was a front loader and dump truck to play with in the sand!  This park had a lot more sand toys than our park.  It was fun to go somewhere new.

On Wednesday I thought we should have fun at home.  You will think this is funny but my kids really like to vacuum!

Normally they stick with me while I vacuum the front room rug and lose interest while I vacuum the rest of the house.

After vacuuming, we went outside to play.  There was come chalk writing...

bike riding...

bubble blowing...

ball chasing...

and stroller riding...

and finally some golfing.  Don't you love their form???

On Thursday we went bowling!!  We had gone before and the kids love it!  Every time we drive by the bowling ally, S has to say "hi bowling.  bye bowling."

Although they love to throw the ball down and watch it knock over pins, this is another favorite past time while we are there....

Yes, O is singing into the hand-rail.  I can't remember what O sang... I think a lot of different songs.  I do remember S's song because he sang it really loud and it was the same song over and over.  It was the prayer the O says at school: "God our Father, God our Father, once again, once again.  We bow our heads and thank you, bow our heads and thank you. Amen. Amen"

Another fun activity... the drinks!  We are probably strange parents but we really don't let our kids have juice very often and they have never had pop(or coffee but they smell Aunt Kee's, Granny's, and Gaga's coffee all the time!).   I had forgotten to bring their waters and you do get a "free" small drink for every bowler you pay for so I got them lemonade to drink...

Do you think they liked it???  I had to keep reminding O it was her turn to bowl until she had downed her lemonade. :)

This is how S would watch the ball go down the lane...

This is how O would watch her ball go down the lane... not sure why...

Final scores...

On Friday we went to a birthday party for our neighbor and O's friend.  They had a great time and it was a wonderful day!

Playing with bubbles...

Playing a musical chairs type of game.

Having a picnic.  I totally cut O out of the picture and didn't realize it until later!

It was a good spring break week!  I think I wore the kids out because they both took naps everyday.  The next week, however, O didn't nap at all and S only napped 3 days.  Oh well.