piano recital

The oldest three kids started taking piano lessons a few months ago.  We have a wonderful piano teacher, she is a friend of ours and is willing to come to our house to teach the lessons.  What a blessing she is is to our family.  She planned a recital at a local assisted living home.

We got there early which allowed us to visit with some of the residents and to get some practice in on the piano there.

The kids did a great job playing the pieces they had been learning including some traditional Christmas carols.

Miss J is itching to start her own lessons and stayed close to the action.

Miss C was having fun visiting with her friend.

Mr. S liked the look of the fish tank.

 

It looks like Mr. K is wondering "which one is my mommy?  They all look the same from down here"

"Ah, here she is!"

Towers

Mr. R found a book on sky scrapers on a recent trip to the library and then built this....

Which prompted the other kids to give it a go too.

They were so proud of their projects and asked "mom, are you going to blog about these?"

Pancakes

On a recent trip to the library Miss C spotted this book of fun shaped pancakes.

Miss E thought it was a great looking book and asked if she could PLEASE make breakfast for us.  That sounded just great to me.  She spent the afternoon figuring out which pancakes to make for each person, figuring out what colors she would need to mix up and mixed all of the dry ingredients.  The next morning this was our breakfast...

A bowl of cereal for Mr. K

 

Duckies for Miss C.

 

Miss J requested a butterfly.

Our bouncy boy requested a frog.

 

A bomb seemed appropriate for Mr. M

Miss E knows that Mr. R always goes for a game of checkers.

 

Miss E is a fan of watermellon (it also happened to require chocolate chips!).

I had a stack of pancakes; complete with syrup and butter.  Miss E even provided a knife and fork!

 

There was plenty more batter to make an apple with a worm in it, eggs and bacon, spaghetti with meatballs, and balloons.

 

 

Thanks Miss E for the fun breakfast!

First hair cut!

It seems this is quite the year for first hair cuts!  First Miss J got hers (and gave to locks of love), then Mr. K had all of his sweet curls cut off, this week it was Miss C's turn.  We were not quite ready to cut her hair, but she asked so sweetly....

"I want my hair cut, but only if you do it mom.  I want my hair just like Mommy, Miss E and Miss J"

I cut off about two inches and sent her to look in the mirror.  The verdict was "its not as short as Miss J's, it needs to be shorter"  so I took another inch or so off.  I had fun layering it too since her hair is so fine and feathers out a bit, it is much more forgiving.

Jammie drill!

We like to do jammie drills from time to time, but tend to do more around Christmas.  The other night as the kids were just about to head for bed Daddy said "5 minutes, Jammie Drill!" at which point all of the kids quickly scrambled to not only get their own shoes on, but the little one's shoes as well and scramble into the van in 5 minutes.

Daddy ordered all sorts of goodies like chicken strips, fries, fish 'n chips, soup and pancakes.

 

No Jammie Drill would be complete without dessert.  We got a whole candy cane pie to share!

These are not just fun activities to do with the kids, but a way to tie the heart strings of our children and build bonds and memories that we hope will last their lifetimes.

shooting rubber bands

Mr. K has been watching his brothers closely.  He loves playing with them, wrestling with them (they lay on the floor while he tackles) and wants to do everything they are doing.  He recently walked out with a rubber band. Positioned a rubber band.  Released and said "bang!"

Yep.  He has started trying to shoot rubber bands.  He rarely gets one off, but when he does it just falls right down.  Its so cute to see him trying, but we're also remembering that in no time at all he will really figure this out and it may not be so much fun, so we're working on teaching him not to shoot at people.

 

I can't believe how quickly this sweet little guy is growing up!  We're all having so much fun with him.

December cupcakes

This is our last batch of cupcakes this year!  I've had so much fun doing these, and I've enjoyed sharing the fun with Miss E who has gotten more and more involved as the year has progressed.  This month I wanted to do the ones from my calendar. Miss E wanted to do another set.  We did two sets.

Miss E did a GREAT job on these ornaments.  She had fun putting these together with a little help from Mr. M.   These cupcake carriers really helped pull off the look since they looked like they were in an ornament storage boxes!

I made these gluten free dairy free cupcakes.  These tasted so good, I don't think a single child realized they were "messed with" except the ones that were happy I managed to work around their allergies.

*I forgot to post November's cupcakes.  We didn't get pictures before heading off to church and managed to snap one really quickly during the potluck.  Miss E made the ones that looked like a cooked up turkey with stuffing in it.  I made s'more cupcakes (gluten and dairy free as well).

Miss E also made these cute pumpkin and corn cupcakes for Thanksgiving.  She was thrilled when our hosts suggested that cupcakes would be a fun addition to the dessert table.  They were a big hit with all of the kids.