Food Is Art

Olivia got a new cookbook for Christmas called Pink Princess Cookbook. It has such cute ideas. We have been having fun trying them all out! And, I think I've bought more sprinkles and vanilla almond bark than I did all last year!!

These are the dragonflies.

Sportin' the new haircut. Isn't she cute? I'm a little biased...

Princess wands

Flowerpot Ice Cream

Enchanted Unicorn Horns

Mmmm...I'm gettin' a little hungry!

She's a Real Turkey!

First Day of School

When your kids are dressing up like this, you know it's time for school. :)

The first day of school was yesterday. They were both soooo excited to start. Noah is in first grade, and Olivia is in kindergarten.
Olivia and her special friend Bethany.

We celebrated with a special lunch at "the peanut place" - Logan's.

I'm Back!

I am still alive! I haven't been blogging for awhile since my camera was water-damaged. We just now got a new camera, and I feel like I am complete once again. :) The warranty did not cover water damage (hmmm...how did they know??) But Panasonic did graciously offer to repair the camera for about $600. Um, no thanks. Their second offer was to give us a nice discount on a new camera, so we took that offer. And now I'm back in business, re-enacting all the events of summer so I can capture them on camera. Not really.

The day our new camera came, Olivia had an inspiration. She has been wanting new sunglasses all summer, but we haven't found ones to her liking. So she decided to make her own!

The Garage Sale Solution

We had a two-day garage sale on Friday and Saturday. We have had garage sales before, but this was our first time having a two-day sale. We had tons of people on the first day and sold lots of stuff. Yay! The second day was a bit slower, but Olivia was deep in thought, coming up with ideas of how to get the Friday people to return on Saturday.

Olivia: "Mom, I have a great idea!"
Mom: "What's that?"
Olivia: "We can go inside and change our hair so we look different and people will come back to our garage sale. They won't know they've already been here!"
Mom: "Do you think they might recognize that this is the same house they were at yesterday?"

The wheels of thought are hard at work.....

Olivia:"I know! We can go and get lots of new flowers, pull out the old flowers in the garden, and plant the new flowers! Our house will look so different!"

How can I argue with that?

I should have taken her advice. I'm sure I saw people driving past thinking "Look at those flowers...this is the same house I was at yesterday!" :)

Noah Graduated!

We have a kindergarten graduate! Noah graduated on Thursday night. It was such a special evening for many reasons. Olivia was also in the program because the Pre-Kers had a part in the program. Both sets of grandparents were so sweet to travel long distances for the occasion.

The program was a mock day of kindergarten. One of the little girls in Noah's class was the teacher. They did a demonstration of the pledges, reading, math, etc.

Olivia's PK class made up the class. This picture cracks me up because of how they are crossing their hands on their hearts for the pledge. The little girl second from left has both hands crossed just to make sure she's at least doing one right. :) Olivia is in the black dress.
Noah is so serious walking down the aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance".
This was taken right after Noah received his diploma and his teacher moved his tassle.
So happy!
Noah and CarmenNoah, Evan, Jadon
Noah and Rachel (the girl he's going to marry, so he says!)
Noah and the grands

We were so excited for him!

Celebrating with ice cream and cookies

Sushi Sweetie

I have been getting into sushi lately after some friends of ours had us over for a sushi party a month or so ago. I think it is so yummy! And Paul likes it too. So I had this same friend over yesterday to show me how to roll my own sushi. We had lots of fun and the sushi tasted delicious!

Olivia rolled her own little sushi roll

She was very pleased with the results!
Olivia and Micah (the friend's son) who loves sushi
Trying out the chopsticks - Olivia preferred the strawberries over the sushi. :)
The finished product - we rolled in rice, egg, carrot, cucumber, and cream cheese. Also included tuna in some and a mystery fish in some, which I won't disclose for the sake of the weak-stomached among us.
It was yummy!

A Place to Relax

Chloe chillin' in the kitchen cabinet, waiting for action.

I found this picture from three years ago when Olivia was just about the same age as Chloe is now. She also would sit in the cabinets! I guess Olivia wasn't quite so choosy about which cabinet to choose, judging from the trash can right next to her!

Goin' to the Chapel

We can thank Aunt Sarah for the latest inspiration to Olivia's dressing up.

The blue legs are stylin'!

Fish and Giraffes Beware!

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Costumes and Candy

Last night we went to church for Family Fun Night. The AWANA directors offer this carnival every year on the Wednesday that is closest to Halloween, so this year it fell on Halloween. The kids get to play carnival-like games and win candy and prizes. They also have a contest for costumes, which have to be Bible-based.

Chloe was a frog - one of the Egyptian plagues.

A pretty good frog pose!
Olivia is into everything princess, so she was disappointed when she found out she was going to be a queen...Queen Esther. Then she started liking it and told everyone she was "Queen Esto".

Noah's costume was made about 30 minutes before we had to leave for the carnival. He is Paul in prison (see the ball and chain?), and he won third place for his outfit! (in his age bracket)

Noah was pretty good at this game.

Olivia just LOVED her butterfly hand.

Olivia and her friend Michael

Is she peeking?

By the end of the night my camera was sticky from all the little fingers touching it, so this picture is a little fuzzy. But I thought these costumes were pretty good - salt and light is on the left, Moses is in the middle and another Queen Esther on the right.

Tea Is Served

Olivia was thrilled to receive this teacup, saucer and spoon from a teenager at church yesterday. She insists on eating breakfast, lunch and dinner on the "little plate" and sipping her water from the teacup.

I was thrilled to pick up our refinished dining room table and new chairs this past weekend. The table had been my grandmother's, and was in good condition, but needed to be refinished. So we had that done and bought new chairs with matching finish. We only had four chairs before, but now with six chairs Chloe can sit up to the table with the big kids! She loves it.

The View from a Cow Wagon

I joined Noah and Olivia today for a field trip to the pumpkin patch. We were able to see lots of animals (even feed some), walk through a corn maze, ride on a cow wagon, and pick a pumpkin from the patch.

This is what they call the "cow wagon", which is hooked up to a tractor. They give you a little ride around the patch. During our little ride, the heavens opened up and dumped buckets of rain on us.

Noah and Olivia getting ready to pet a few animals.
A bunny!
Livi had to get her feather in this picture, which is one she found after chasing a rooster around. Not the most sanitary of souvenirs, I know.