Thursday, October 20, 2011

We are making progress!

The most important part of this post is of course this awesome girl and that she started taking real steps today! WAHOO! She is up to three! They are still shaky steps and she plops right down afterward, but they are steps! We are so excited. And so is she. After she would walk she would crawl around the room, prancing almost, "with a swing in her waddle." It was great.


Now for the other bit of progress. Being as it is no school for the next two days we decided to conquer the reflection projects that are due in November. The theme is "Diversity is..." and Peter decided he wanted to make a tree house. Huh? I sat puzzled as to how we could show diversity with a tree house. Then it came to us. With all these beautiful fall leaves around we would glue the "diverse" colored leaves to his rockin' tree house and call is awesome! The boys helped cut the twigs, I wired them together. We all glued it to the base then we went on a fall leaf hunt for wonderful, diverse colors. Then we came home and Peter chose which leafs to use and I glued them on in a beautiful fashion (if I do say so myself). We of course had to have a rope ladder, which was properly glued on and, Done! We all think it turned out great and whether or not it fits with the theme this year, we had fun making it. Now tomorrow we will finish off Caleb's project (he has to decide between two) and he will be ready. Caleb also has some sweet ideas for this year, I hope them come out just as cool as we envision.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Party


We had a combined party for Addison and Haley since their birthdays are so close together. We got together at Wheeler Farm and while the kids had fun eating cupcakes and playing the rest of us had fun just talking with each other.
Addison received this cute bike that she seemed very excited about! She is so cute with her enthusiasm for everything.
Haley slowly caught on that people were giving her things and she was genuinely excited about it all. Even the clothes she was given were fun because of how soft they were or the pictures she saw on them.
Then came time for the cake. Dacia made these awesome sunflower cupcakes with ladybugs, there were very cool. This is the cake the boys and I made for Haley. Not bakery worthy by any means but it did the job. William helped make the butterflies, Peter helped with her name, and Caleb helped with the frosting and other assembly projects. A nice group effort for such a cute girl.
Now for the eating. She was not too into the texture of the cake. She kept trying to share it with me but did not like the feel of it on her hands. Eventually she started squishing it in her hands but she did not want to taste it. Only after we gave her a fork did she try a sample of the cake.
Once she was cleaned up we headed out to see the farm animals, which is the main reason we had the party at Wheeler Farm. Haley loves animals, birds that fly over head, books of animals; so it was appropriate that her first birthday was there. She loved looking at all the animals and having so many fans around to wish her a happy day. It was really a lot of fun to be with our family and enjoy the day. Plus the weather was perfect for the party. Horray!
Upon arriving home and unpacking the loot from the truck Caleb professionally styled Haley's hair with a number of the clips that were given to her. She looked Beautiful! Happy Birthday, Haley! We love her smile, the way she talks and has her own way of saying things, her bright blue eyes, and when she lets us snuggle with her in our arms. We also love that is a little rock star, music is something Haley loves. She is a wonderful addition to our family.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Sunday, October 9, 2011

We are in birthday mode!


This beautiful little girl is turing one this week and we are getting ready to celebrate. We are busy making cakes and cupcakes and planning fun things to do, eating sweet treats (mainly her brothers and mom), planning what color balloons to buy, and just getting excited to have this little girl grow. Yeah for Miss Haley, our little rock star!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

An ode to my garden


Oh, how I love to have a garden. I do not have the greenest of thumbs, there are moments that we struggle, but I love having a garden. I will be
oh so sad when this season comes to an end and I do not have this beautiful food to go out and pick whenever I want. Why does it have to get cold so fast?!? Nothing tastes better to me than one of these sweet, delicious tomatoes. And those tomatoes are a small percentage of what we still have growing and what I have already eaten. These tomato plants grow like crazy! I love it. The plant in the background is one of my boys' (and now Haley's) favorites, raspberries. You cannot eat home-grown raspberries and even consider store bought ones okay. There is no comparison! So, for now my boys will enjoy picking their dinner from the raspberry bush and I will relish in my tomatoes, zucchini and soon my winter squash.