Random Tidbits

This week has been crazy but we have managed to take some time to celebrate some important people in our life.

Monday we celebrated Ashley's birthday. I get a lump in my throat when I think about how thankful we are to have her and what a true blessing she is to us. All the victories that David has won over the last few years I count her in on them. She is generous with her time and love to him and all of our children. We celebrated with pizza and cookie cake:)

The kids were so excited to have her party between swim team and Upward basketball practice. Ashley and her entire family have welcomed my kids into their family. These people love my David and I am so thankful. He is a lucky boy!

This little girl has certainly gotten even more attached to us all lately. She loves her brothers and literally trails after them when they come home from school. Here she is sitting on Kyle's lap while he does his homework!

She listened to him read an Andrew Clement's book for his homework! She also asks for her Daddy a million times a day and we often have to call him during the day.

David was home sick today and she could not resist to snuggle in the bed with him despite my bazillion warnings to stay away from him due to germs. This girl loves her brothers and for the most part they are really super sweet to her.

Mike's office is hosting a cookie exchange later in the month. I am excited about the idea of this, but the reality that I have to bake three dozen cookies that look and taste great to give to other people freaks me out! I am a good cook, but not a consistent baker. Today, Hope and I tried a peanut buter cookie recipe as a "dress rehearsel" for the actual exchange. They tasted good but are not that pretty.

These two do not mind because they love watching things cook in our oven. Hope is really into cooking with me these days and despite the fact that it slows down the process considerably, I love cooking with my girl.

Mike is heading out of town for a few days and thankfully my Mom is coming to lend a hand. I am so thankful because it wears me thin to be a single parent for more than a day or two.

We are ready for Thanksgiving break around here. We are ready for the pace to slow just for a day or so around here.

My Favorite Baking Partner

My favorite baking partner and I have really gotten into crafting with food! Because of preschool there are lots of opportunities to bake/cook fun themed food for our preschool friends. This week in my Monday/WEdnesday/Friday class we are studying letter F and doing lots of fun farm stuff.

Tomorrow we are having a Hoe Down Farm Party so my favorite girl and I worked in the kitchen to make some pig cookies. I am NOT a baker at all-but I do enjoy baking cutsie stuff for preschoolers who are not the toughest critics!

I know when my girl is tall and grown up I will miss these days when her favorite seat in the house is right in the mix literally helping me cook. She is demanding, and certainly is two, but we have such fun together. HEre she is flattening the dough balls to make the pigs bodies.

This is the picture in the recipe book of what they are suppose to look like. Cute right?! Perfect for a farm party:)

Here is the icing and M&M's ready to create the eyeballs.

And here is the final product. They were really easy to make and the hardest part was getting the right amount of red food coloring to make them pink. The first batch was definitely red, so thankfully I had another tube of dough that I could throw in the mixer to lighten up the color to pink. The pigs were suppose to have ears but I ran out of dough! Thankfully my preschoolers will not care! Ha!

Tomorrow we are sporting our denim and flannel shirts for the farm party. We plan to square dance, play duck duck goose and we are going to attempt to make our own butter. We will see how that works out:)

I love that my job allows me to be creative and plan fun stuff to do. I could stick to flash cards and worksheets, but I really love to tie in a fun cumulative event in my curriculum. This farmer/teacher is heading to bed we have an early morning on the farm tomorrow!

Robinson Leaf Pile

The last two days have been absolutely gorgeous, so I dressed the kids up in their brown and we headed outside for some fall leaf pictures. Ashley thankfully took over the camera-they are way more cooperative for her! Ha! She has a good eye for good pictures.

This one might be one of my favorites because it captures her sweet, but demanding personality! We had drama over her "fress" but she did cooperate with the turkey hair clip!

My boys love to play ball outside especially when there is a leaf pile nearby!

I love this picture that Ashley captured of my oldest. He is such an old soul but oh so dramatic and can be silly these days. He is at that age where he does not know whether to be my big boy helper or a little boy. It is hard growing up but I know that God has big plans for this awesome boy!

Somehow AShley captured David running towards her with a big load of leaves to throw at her! She is so great that she did not mind picking leaves off of herself to capture a cute picture! This one is awesome of my middle child:)

Love this boy and his sweet personality!

This picture definitely captures the love between these two BFF's. They love each other so much and really are each other's best friend. I pray that they will always be this close.

My sweet three in a group shot on top of the playground in our backyard.

Ashley captured this cute cute shot of Hope. She was not super thrilled with jumping into the leaves, but she did have fun throwing some around. Good work AShley!

This picture melts my heart.

She may love her princesses and love a good pedicure, but this girl is not afraid to get rough and tumble with her brothers over a football! I love it!

These leaf pictures have become a tradition in the fall and I am so thankful for Ashley helping me get some cute fall shots in the backyard. I love these kind of "outdoorsy" pictures where my kids are just being kids. I know they hate seeing the camera coming, but they are growing so fast that I try often to get pictures.