Five, You're so Jive

 Lily is 5!!

 Happy Birthday to my favorite girl in the whole world!!

I couldn't imagine my life without this girl and can't believe how fast she has grown. Her request for birthday breakfast was homemade cinnamon rolls. She is so excited to have her horse birthday party (I'll make sure to post pictures). We'll also be having corn dogs and chips for her birthday dinner. Time consuming breakfast, but oh so easy dinner.

Lily is the sweetest girl. We love her so much.

2 more days!

Til this little gal has her 5th birthday!

I know.. crazy, right?

All About the Green

 So, Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I know that it was on Saturday, but.. well, maybe we had too much fun for me to take time to post these awesome pictures of my kids. All in honor of the green land of Ireland.

 We had green pancakes for breakfast, which turned out great contrary to what Matthew thought. We spent the morning outside washing cars and having the kids play in the sun.

And we topped the whole day off with home made Reuben Sandwiches. We couldn't decide if the sand which was Irish, but corned beef and sauerkraut aka cabbage? Can't get closer to the real stuff. Not to mention it was delish. And just for the record, we did watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People, but it was a week early. We couldn't hold in our excitement for St. Patrick's Day this year, I guess!

Another Book

It has been a while since I have read a new book. Lately, I've been rereading books that I have and take my time because... well, I already know the ending. I ordered Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale last week. Remember? Me and Shannon are BFF's. I love almost all of her books. She's such an entertaining author.

Anyway, I forgot a lot of what comes from buying a brand new book. I opened the package and smelled the book. Yes, smelled it. If you haven't done this, you probably should. There is nothing like smelling the pages and ink of a brand new book! Or opening it for the first time and hearing the crack of the stretched binding.

Okay, I'm a nerd. But I do love those things.

The number one thing that I love about getting a new, never been read before, never seen the movie before book is...... I stayed up until 2 a.m. because I couldn't put it down. I read it in less than two days. It has been years since I have experienced that.

All in all, if you like Austenland, you will like this book. If you like Shannon Hale's humor, you will like this book. If you like love stories, you will like this book.

It is different from Austenland in the fact that there's a murder mystery twist. But, who doesn't like to try to sniff out a culprit? 

If you get the book, I'm sure you won't regret it.



A Valentine Weekend to Remember

 Starting Saturday, our Valentine's Day weekend/week was an eventful one. I took pictures of the kiddies (above) with my cool new camera that I got for myself, from Matthew of course. He was kind enough to let me to pick out what I wanted! I've had so much fun using it. Matthew's getting a little tired of me taking random pictures of everything in our room. And him too. Anyway, Matthew also got this:

 The AR-15 of his dreams. Okay, not really of his dreams, but pretty darn close. He's been wanting this gun for a while and he found a great deal, bit the bullet, and did it. He's had fun shooting it.

I took pictures of Lily in the dress that I made her (I mentioned this in the previous post). She wore the dress on Sunday. She's not looking in any of these pictures because she wasn't feeling good. As it turned out, she had strep throat. I took her to the dr on Monday, got her meds, went to pick up William from school, looked at his throat, took him the the dr for strep, got his meds... Needless to say, it was a long day.

 They both were starting to feel better on Tuesday. Lily wanted me to take her picture.

 Since William was missing out on his Valentine's Day stuff at school, we tried to have a little breakfast party. We made pink, heart shaped pancakes for breakfast. William and Lily added sprinkles. We've had a couple of days of movies and drinking Sprite and Root Beer.

 Have I mentioned that we planted an apple seed? Grandpa helped William and Lily plant an apple seed from an apple we ate. We weren't expecting anything to happen, but on Sunday we saw a sprout.

The kids have been so excited to see their plant grow. They check it everyday.

Other than having two strep throat kids at home, Valentine's Day was great. Matthew and I did the 14 days of Valentine's for the kids. I did that for Matthew as well. And Matthew completely spoiled me with my favorite treats, a new blanket (the best in the world, I tell you), a movie, and a cd of songs that reminds him of me. I think he's a keeper.



Like Mother Like Daughter

 I finally got a pair of TOMS, guys. I've been wanting some for a while and just bit the bullet and got some black glitter ones. Lily shared the experience by getting her first pair of TOMS as well. She went with the silver glitter. She is totally cool. Anyway, these are some pretty comfy shoes AND when you buy a pair, they donate a pair of shoes to a child in need. TOMS are pretty awesome.  

Here is my beautiful daughter showcasing one of my latest projects. I've been on a bit of a sewing kick lately. The dress above was a pinterest find. I found some Moda (my fave) fabrics on Amazon (who would have thought) that I fell in love with and figured this was the perfect project for it. It was SO much fun to make and Lily absolutely LOVES it. I also made a dress from a pattern for Lily and I used fabric that my mom bought to make me a dress when I was younger. The next time she wears it I'll take pictures.



Snow Day

 Last week, it snowed! A little! The kids have been dying for it to snow since Christmas so they could play in it. William was really hoping to "play a joke" on Lily and put a snowball in her shirt. He's such a boy. We didn't get much here, but it was enough for them to play and for William to be out of school last Friday.

William was disappointed because Lily was wearing snow bibs... no snow in her shirt. They had fun throwing snowballs at each other's faces and they made snow angels. The snow melted the next day, so I'm glad we took the opportunity to play while it lasted!