Pretty in Pink (and Black)

Elizabeth had her dance/gymnastics show this week. She was lucky enough to have a lot of visitors to see her - Grandparents on both sides, her daddy, her Aunt Janet and cousins. Lucky girl to have so much family live so close! She loved all the attention. :)

Elizabeth on the high bar. For some reason she is a little nervous of this, so I was proud that she did it so well.

This is what the boys were doing during the show. The kids who were watching the show were allowed to go anywhere the girls weren't. So Ben, Cooper, Josh, and Zach had a great time running around, acting crazy.

Elizabeth on the balance beam.

E making a "table top" I guess it's the first step in a backbend.

This is their creative movement - dancing with scarfs.

Don't they all look so cute together!? This is the first time we had coordinating outfits so it was even cuter in my opinion :)!
Elizabeth and her good friend Elliott. All the girls did such a good job - and looked so sweet!

Fat Tuesday

My parents had a Fat Tuesday party at their house to celebrate the beginning of Lent. My mom had beads and hats for each of the kids.

And a balloon for each - of course. Ben's checking out his balloon...so high!

Ben and my mom.

Cooper in his party clothes. All the kids needed a bath so we decided to throw them all in together before we went home. E in the bath

Ben in the bath

They were so crammed in tight, it will be not very long before we can't do this anymore. We have to take advantage while it lasts. Happy Beginning of Lent!

Playing at the Zoo

Ben and Jane enjoying the elephants

While Elizabeth was at zoo school yesterday Ben, Cooper and I met my friend Joanne and her two girls, Jane and Jill, at the zoo. It was a perfect day for the zoo. It was about 70 outside so all the animals seemed very comfortable and would walk around and come so close! So many times when we come here it's hot, so the animals just lay there. It was great!

Ben thought that elephant was very big! (he's sitting on my lap right now and that's what he told me!)

They have huge fish in the water that Jane was enjoying watching.

Cooper, what a cutie!

Ben - I think he might be getting his molars because I could not get a picture here without his hand in his mouth!

Cooper wanted to be in the stroller for a lot of the zoo today. I think he was nervous of the animals when they would walk towards us.

Ben checking out the flamingos.

They were so cute walking around the zoo, holding hands. Jane was the little "mommy" directing the boys in the correct way to hold hands.

Joanne and cutie pie Jill. She's not even 2 months old yet, isn't she getting big?!

We picked up E at the end of school and went to eat some lunch and have an ice cream cone. All the kids were exhausted when we were finished - both the boys fell asleep on the way home. It was a very fun day!

What a Morning

Oh yeah, this was a fabulous morning. Keep going with the pictures, they are all crying. They all just got up (I think Cooper was just whining because the other 2 were so loud) and everyone wanted to be held, E didn't want to go to school, and everyone was tired!
So eventually we all got out the door

and we were eventually all happy again. That drive to zoo school quieted them all down and we actually had a really fun time at the zoo. I'll have to post those later though, no time now! Have a good afternoon, everyone!

Brave Kids at the Dentist

The kids did a great job at the dentist yesterday. It was Ben's first time at the dentist and Elizabeth's 3rd time. Luckily our dentist is my sister-in-law, Victoria, so the kids enjoy seeing her.
Ben did great! I thought he wouldn't sit in the chair or open his mouth, but he did both very willingly! (of course he sat on my lap the whole time so that helped)

Elizabeth cried right when we got there, but she quickly stopped and was very brave the rest of the time.
We all have very clean teeth now, yay!

Ben's Farm Birthday Revisited

I know Ben's birthday was back in January, but I am submitting his birthday to Tip Junkie - a very fun website full of tips - and I needed a more condensed version of what we did. So feel free to skip this post if you already saw his birthday :).

Here's our invite. It says:

Click, Clack, Baa, Moo

Benjamin is turning 2!

Our barn cake and cupcakes. The siding of the barn is Foot by the Foot fruit rollups and the roof is Crispix cereal.

The set table. We had a few farm activities set up around the garage for the kids to rotate through. This was find the animals in the hay. The kids searched through shredded paper (hay) to find little plastic animals that they got to take home. I had the directions to each activity typed up and posted.

Beanbag toss. I just glued pictures of farm animals on the cups for the kids to throw the beanbag and knock them over. They got a farm animal tattoo when they finished the game.


I got a refrigerator box from Lowes and painted it to look like a barn. A big hit with the kids!

Fishing Hole - the fish all had paper clips attached - the kids went fishing with poles and magnets. They got a farm sticker for every fish that was caught.

The last activity was milking the cow. We put a rubber glove filled with water with holes poked in the fingers for the kids to "milk". They loved it!

Our goodie bags. It was a fun time - especially for a farm party that had to be indoors (the party was in January).

Closet Organization

So, it's a little embarrassing for me, but this is Elizabeth's closet. The other day Janet and Josh came to play, and my mom came to visit the kids. I mentioned that I was tired of Elizabeth's room (it was very crowded, the layout made for little floor space) so we decided then and there to arrange the furniture. We drug it all around and found a good layout (I didn't take a picture, I'll do that soon) but it didn't leave room for her dress-up rack and trunk. My mom suggested her closet but as you can see, we keep her dresser in there along with a lot of other junk (no basements here in TX so closets become our storage) So, my mom suggested shelves and rods on the sides, and said my dad could do it. Well, I thought about it and really wanted it done soon and thought it didn't seem too difficult, so I thought I would try to do it myself. Here's the result! On the left are rods that are going the width of the closet (in the dead space where nothing was) and in the other dead space I put shelves for her undies, socks, jammies, and shorts and t's that were in her dresser. So out goes the dresser and the middle is left for the clothing rack and trunk.

It took me a lot longer than it would have taken my dad I'm sure, but I got it done! Impressed, dad? :) Next I'll have to get cute shelf paper and some cute storage for above on the shelf, so when it's all done I'll put another picture on here. For now I'm just glad to get the dress-up stuff out of the hallway!

Girls Nights

Friday we had a scrapbooking night at Janet's house with my sister, sister-in-laws, and friends. Even though I had a late start, it was a lot of fun, and we actually got stuff done!! (Some of us more than others :)

A couple of weeks ago the moms in our mom group got together for dinner out - without our kids - which is a first for our group. We're going to try to do it more often, it was a great time!

Hanging Out at Home

We hung out at home today with Cooper, and our friends Jill and Jane (and their mom Joanne). The kids all had a great time playing - and Jill was so good just hanging out taking it all in.
The girls couldn't leave Jill alone. What is it about a baby that makes you just want to squeeze and kiss them? We had to keep telling the kids, back away from the baby! It was a good morning - and now everyone is napping at the same time - Yippee!!