Cousin's and Easter Eggs

Late last thursday night Kory's sister Harmony and her family came for the weekend. Friday when Hunter got home from school we had the eggs ready for the 6 older kids to dye. This is Esther who is 6 months older then Hunter.

Maddie is about 6 months older then Ruth. Rachel is 2 days older then Emily. The kids had fun playing with cousins there ages.

Everyone looks so serious dying there eggs. I couldn't get anyone to look at me for a picture.

They all had fun together and now I'm left with 3 dozen boiled eggs.

Hunter's officially "6"

Hunter was so excited to turn "6". He woke up to his favorite breakfast. Pancakes!! Being he had a birthday cake at his Wii party and none of us care for cake we put his candles in his breakfast.

After an early breakfast and before dad went to work Hunter was able to open his birthday gifts.

He was such a good sport allowing his sisters to help him.

He's been wanting a Wii shirt for quite some time now. A few days before his birthday I found this Super Mario Galaxy t-shirt at Wal Mart on clearance for $3.00. I couldn't resist.

All year long Hunter has been contemplating what treat to take to school on his birthday. We finally decided on homemade carmel popcorn balls. He was so excited when he came home from school telling me what a hit they were. They had watched a movie that day and ate his popcorn balls at the same time. He thought that was the coolest thing. Happy Birthday my big man!

Hunter's 6th Birthday Party

Hunter will be turning "6" next thursday. However that night I happen to have Enrichment that I am in charge of and Kory's sister and her family is coming to our house for the weekend that night. Hunter has been invited to a few WII party's and that is what he asked to do for this party. Being this coming weekend is going to be crazy we had his party last night. Hunter did his own invitations It says, "Come join Mii and my Wii". Being we have a total of 4 wii remotes he invited 3 friends to his party.

He was in heaven being able to play the wii for 2 hours with his most treasured friends.

For dinner we served pizza, chips and soda.

Hunter wanted me to make him King Boo as his cake. However in the end he decided he wanted to help. He wanted to decorate the crown and he didn't want King Boo to have a mouth so this was the finished product. I don't like that my kids are getting opinionated. I'm trying to let some of my control issues go and let my kids help. Especially with things that I am doing for them. After all it's his birthday cake. Right??? So I put his 6 candles in as his mouth so King Boo doesn't look to silly.

It's cute to see all the kids crowd around when it's time to open presents. And the opinions they share while each gift is ogled over.

The cake and ice cream was a sucess!

Thankyou for those who came and made his party a sucess. This "Wii Party" was definetely the most easiest party we've done. Even though we had 6 kids total, with 4 being 6/7 yr. boys it was a pretty relaxed/quiet party.

A futute Beautician?

The other morning Maddie asked if she could paint her nails. I had just gotten out of the shower, we had an appt. that morning and I still needed to blow dry my hair. I told her she could get everything ready on the table and as soon as I was done I'd help her before we had to leave. I came out to this. Apparently Hunter felt he was old enough to be the supervisor. Not only did he help Maddie but he also painted Emily's fingernails and toenails while I was getting ready. He did a pretty good job. There were no spills, no polish on the floor or table. What mess there was, was kept on the paper towel. Emily *REFUSED* to let me take a pict. of the finished produst so this is all I've got. Unfortunately they were pretty much done when I came out.

St. Patrick's Day!

The kids woke up to green pancakes yesterday, in celebration of St. Patricks Day.

Maddie wasn't too thrilled with the color green but Hunter and Emily didn't seem to care. Last year I turned the milk green and that was a little too much for everyone so I didn't do that again.

Hunter's been seeing commercials for Sorry on tv lately. We were given the game several years ago and have never opened it. So I pulled it out and we played several times througout the day.

For dinner I had the kids help me make green shamrock bread to go with dinner.

Hunter made Mr. St. Patrick himself to go along with the shamrocks.

And for dinner we had leperchaun's treasure (green jello with pineapple and mandarin oranges), chicken, broccoli and rice casserole, shamrock bread and a green leperchaun's drink (green sherbert with sprite). After dinner the kids decorated green cupcakes with green frosting and sprinkles. By bed time they were asking if we could do this again tommorrow! I'm glad they had an enjoyable day.

Girl's new doo's..

I've been taking pictures of the girls hair over the past few days. For some reason I wasn't using the flash so the picts turned out really yellow and grainy and you couln't see very well. This morning I realized what I've been doing all week so all I can give is how we did there hair today. Maddie was so excited for this morning. We did our 2 normal pigtails and then I braided them. I then crossed the braids over her head and tucked the end into the elastics holding the pony tail. Ta Da... She even let me put bows in to hide the elastics. When I picked her up today after preschool the first thing she said was how all girls liked her hair. I'm glad she's having as much fun with this as I am.

Emily is most definetely not photogenic. She likesgetting her hair done and is asking me to do it. She just doesn't like it when I pull the camera out for proof!!

I took Emily with me to Costco this morning and we got so so so many compliments on her hair. I love going to www.shedoeshair.blogspot.com for more ideas. It's still hard to see the back of Emily's hair. I do the little ponytails just to help keep her hair stay in place all day and out of her face. Her hair isn't quite long enough to last all day in pigtails without a little help.

Chicken's...

As most of you are aware several weeks ago we ordered baby chicks from a Hatchery out of California. Three other families and us ordered a total of 85 chicks. They hatched last wed and were immediately shipped to us. We were able to pick them up last friday evening from the post office. My kids are quick to tell you what these little guys will look like when they grow up. The black chicks are called Barred Rock and will be black and white striped and will lay white eggs. The brown chicks are Rhode Island Red's. They will grow up to be red and lay big brown eggs, so we've been told. The yellow chicks are White Leghorns. They will be white and lay white eggs. The White Leghorns were Kory's grandma's favorite so we thought we try them. We wanted to try a few varieties to see which kind lays the most eggs and for the longest.

The chicks will start laying eggs when they are 4-6 months old. So hopefully by August we will start having some fresh eggs.

When we arrived home with all 85 chicks they were quite loud with all the chirping. We immediately gave them warm sugar water and a little chick food while Kory ran to Home Depot to grab a heating lamp for them. Waiting for his return it was quite obvious that the chicks were still cold. They were huddling together pushing each other right up against the warm bottle of water. So I pulled out the blow dryer and Hunter and Emily took turns blowing warm air on them while we waited for daddy.

Maddie was at a birthday party so she missed out on some of the fun. She is however the only one of my children who will hold a chick. She loves them. Hunter is quite scared of the little guys and screams like a girl when they start approaching him. We've got to get him to over come this fear so he'll help collect the eggs when the chicks aren't chicks anymore and can really peck him good. We've gotten Emily to hold one a few times but then she lets go claiming they are tickling her hand. Hince no picture.

Come this May we should also be receiving 15 baby Mascovia Ducks. Besides the eggs they will be laying they will also eat bugs out of a garden without damaging the crop. They also eat MOSQUITO'S. This past fall we had a major infestation of these nasty little flying bugs. Getting the mail would get me another 3-4 bites. We stopped letting the kids go in the garden and play outside becuase they would be covered in bites within just a few minutes. A really good friend was trying to buy a house across the street from us. There were a few problems that needed to be fixed before they could close on the home. When the problems were fixed the Inspector REFUSED to come out and check everything off because of the Mosquito's. Scaredy Cat!!!
So I'm hoping this year having 15 ducks running around the house will help with this upcoming problem we may have a little later on.

www.shedoeshair.blogspot.com.

Generally speaking my girls hair are always done. They usually have their hair pulled back into somesort of pigtail with bows. Maddie my 4 soon to be 5 year old is growing up. She's starting to fight me on wearing bows. She would much perfer one big pony tail or a head band. To keep the peace I haven't fought her on this too much. However her hair is driving me CRAZY! It's seems like it's always in her face, dipping into her food and just out of control. I've come across this blog a few times now called www.shedoeshair.blogspot.com. It's a mom of 3 girls who does some amazing thing with her girls hair. Tonight I had Maddie come look at the pictures she has taken of her girls hair. To my delight Maddie has chosen a few styles she would like to try. Today she chose this style. She was so excited about her new doo. I've been thinking about cutting her hair again lately. But I had so much fun playing with her hair and she had fun too, so I think we'll hold off on the cutting. It helps that this mom's blog has several pictures of Princesses hair do's like, Jasmine, Cinderella, Tinkerbell, etc. Maddie loved her hair so much she didn't let me take it out before bed tonight. We'll see what style she chooses for tommorrow. I got what I wanted tonight by having her hair done, out of her face, and looking nice. Maddie got what she wanted by not having a bow in her hair. I love it we both win!!

Emily watched me do her sisters hair and then she wanted a turn. I was suprised she sat long enough for me to do it. She even let me use the curling iron on her.

Little Miss is 2. It's hard enough to take a picture of her face. It was almost impossible to take a picture of the back of her head when she new I was trying to take a picture of her. For once she was trying to cooperate by letting me get her precious face in the pict.

I love the curls. Daddy thought she looked like a chicken with her hair up and all over. I thought it turned out pretty. I love the curls. Unlike her big sister she loves bows. She insists on having a bow everyday. So we had to throw in a bow on her doo. I'm glad she's only 2 and can't take the chicken comment to heart. If she did it may be a fight for me to do her hair ever again, knowing mom might make her look like a chicken.

For those of you with girls you've got to check this website out. For many of the styles she gives step by step instructions. She has styles for long, medium and short hair. Her baby girl isn't a year old yet and she's got a few styles for that baby fine, very short, not a lot of hair everywhere. Anyways you should try it and hopefully you'll have as much fun trying something new as my girls and I did today. Goodluck!

Around The World In 80 Minutes

Tonight Hunter had his very first school performance. It was called Around The World In 80 Minutes. He's been practicing at school almost every day for a week now. I thought I was being prepared with my crummy camera. I put new batteries in right before we left and turned the camera on to make sure it would work before walking out the door. During his 1st performance I tried taking his pict but he was always standing behind someone a little taller then him. And then of course my camera started beeping and claimed the batteries were dead. So unfortunately I don't have a single picture of him performing tonight. His class sang 7 songs, 1 in Spanish and 1 in French. He did a great job. It's been fun to watch his excitement of being able to perform in front of everyone over the past couple of days. Good job Hunter!!

Strawberry Shortcake Nightgowns

This strawberry shortcake fabric was given to me when Maddie was a baby. I've wanted to make something out of it but just wasn't sure what. Last summer we were going to try to have one of my neices who is the same age of Maddie come stay with us for a few days. I thought it would be fun to make them matching nightgowns. The summer got busy and it just never worked out to get the girls together. So yesterday I saw the fabric and pulled it out. I had forgotten I had even cut the fabric and had it pinned together ready to sew. Being the fabric was cut almost a year ago I had to add a longer ruffle to Maddies so it will fit her for more then just a few weeks. I shortened the other cut fabric hoping it would fit Emily.

I think they turned out pretty well. The girls are very happy with their new springy nightgowns. Maddie has 2 other nightgowns and Emily is always trying to wear them. After about 30min of tripping over it she usually ends up changing into p.j's of her own. She is so excited to have her very own nightgown.

Brayden's 3D Ultrasound

This morning I had my 3D ultrasound. It's still a boy. Yeah!! I love this pict of his mouth open.The bubbles around his mouth going between his head and arm is the umbilical cord.

Seeing him in 3D makes him seem more real. Not that all the kicking, pushing and squirming isn't enough proof that something real is inside.

I'm getting more excited the closer we get. I am in my 29 week or just starting my 7th month. Brayden is too squashed to be able to tell how long he is but he weighs about 3 lbs.