Ada's Birthday Recap

Sorry it's been so long, but I just haven't had the motivation to write about stuff lately.  But I wanted to give some credit to all the awesomeness that was Ada's birthday.  She got to celebrate on her actual birthday, at her party, then again when we visited Nana and Grampa in Florida (another post).  Mostly I can't believe she's 4, but I'm also a little happy we got through 3 in one piece.

Started off her actual birthday with a special birthday breakfast of banana bread strawberry shortcake, singing and candle.  Nice start to the day!

She had a Sun Celebration at her school where I was able to go and she walked around a candle/ earth for each year she has been on the Earth and we celebrated her there.  Then home for lunch and nap.  She went out to collect eggs and found a HUGE egg that turned out to be a double yolker- we decided it was a gift from the chickens.

 

She decided she wanted a breakfast burrito for lunch and so she had.  Plus 3 drink requests-water, milk, smoothie:)

We had a nice playdate/dinner with some friends and then home with Emma and me for some cake before bed.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest and loved the look of it.  This was one half of a cake recipe in one round cake pan and I just wanted something simple to make it look nice.  Just used parchment and cut out a "4" that was the right size, stuck it to the frosting and started sprinkling the nonpareils on, peel off the paper and that's it.

Next we had the party.  She was allowed to invite four friends and luckily they were all able to attend.  The theme was rainbow/ painting and the main event was painting a canvas.  We made the decorations.  Paper chain rainbows and a masking tape relief painted banner.  Other than that just blew up some balloons and that was it! Lots of inspiration from Pinterest but nothing specific- you can check out the board I created for the party here. 

Pre-party nap wake up reading with Poppa.

I made up some simple goodie bags with watercolors, markers, playdoh, and cake batter popcorn.

And I had to include a picture of her thank you note envelopes because I'm just so stinkin' proud of this girl.

The morning after the party we were off to Florida to visit Nana and Grampa and Nana had another birthday celebration which was extra nice since we missed celebrating her birthday too!  We sang to both of them (sort of) and ate cake and ice cream- a big hit!!

Don't remember life without you

I cannot believe that four years have passed since you were born.  You are singlehandedly the most life-changing thing that has ever happened to me and I love you more that I can stand.  I love your enthusiasm, passion, diligent work, and loving heart.  You are amazing.  I am so proud of you.  I love you my Ada boo!

Things I love about Minnesota

My love for MN has been hard won.  I was reluctant when we first moved here from Massachusetts and for so long all I could see was what was different than all that was familiar to me.  Now I'm to a point where I can see the differences and appreciate them.  Here's a short list of some of the things that won me over.

1.  Traffic.  Or lack there of.  I can get anywhere I need to go in about 10 minutes.  If I go somewhere that takes 20 minutes or more it feels like forever.  Anyone reading this from eastern MA is rolling their eyes because 25 minutes to get just about anywhere is typical.  I'm already totally spoiled.

2.  Corn.  While my 20 year old self sometimes yells inside my brain about Monsanto and all the evils of agribusiness, I really love that the girls not only see the change in the season through the leaves and weather but from the agriculture that surrounds us.  Each morning on the way to school they notice the state of the fields- plowing, planting, growth, harvest.  It's powerful.  Subtle, but powerful.

3.  Horse and buggy.  It is not atypical to see Amish and Mennonite folk around town and just yesterday while on the freeway I saw a quintessential horse and buggy on an overpass.  Simply beautiful.

4.  JM.  While living in Mass I met my very first Minnesotan.  She remains one of my favorite people ever.  If this state can produce her, it's a good place ;)

5.  Minnesota Nice.  I was reluctant about this because I am naturally skeptical about overly friendly people.  While this can sometimes be downright annoying for this Yankee on a whole it is wonderful to have so many nice people around.

6.  Auction-style livestock listings on the radio.  While listening to the radio I was treated to a commercial for various livestock.  Breed, weight, price, etc. all up for sale.  Seriously awesome.

7.  The Mississippi River.  It's beautiful.  I've only seen a few parts of it but it is truly an impressive piece of nature.

8.  Ice fishing.  There is something serene about looking out onto a lake and seeing still and silent shanties set up on the ice.  Some with ATVs parked some with smoke coming out.  A few lonely souls even on the ice without the wind protection sitting on crates.  While there is no way I could see myself ice fishing...ever, I think it's pretty cool that some people are hard core enough to do it.

That's all I have for now.  I will be posting more with pics soon since I know most of the people who read are looking for photos of the girls :)

News in the New Year

It's been a hectic holiday season and despite the fact that I still haven't completely recovered from the Christmas shenanigans things are starting to get back to normal around here.

This will be short and to the point.  We have some news to share... the girls are going to have a little sibling this summer!  This morning I was able to see the little muffin on my first ultrasound and even see the baby sucking his or her thumb.  I don't remember ever seeing that with the girls- very cute!  Everything seems to be going along well aside from mama still being pretty nauseous and tired but this will pass I'm sure.

Just wanted to share our excitement!!  And just in case you were wondering we plan to be surprised by the gender like we were with Emma- a truly amazing surprise!

Excited for Christmas

The girls are officially done with school for a week and we've been trying to make the most of it.  Ada has had a cold (she had to miss school Friday because of it) but that hasn't slowed us down too much.

We've enjoyed the snow.

We made some festive necklaces out of apple jacks.  And ate the leftovers with milk!

We attempted to make some gingerbread houses using no template or instructions.  They should be yummy regardless though.

Books took a nap.

The girls played candyland all by themselves.

Tomorrow we will attempt to make Buche de Noel.  It will be my first time making genoise- wish me luck!

Some Seasonal Work

Our holiday book collection with some seasonal stuffed animals.  

And here's Emma telling her babies a story.  She loves Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney.  We love the Llama Llama series and this was my gift to the girls last year.  

I had intended to go bigger for the holiday season this year but I think Emma's birthday preparations zapped some of my creative juju.  We did get a shelf switchover and the girls have been enjoying the work.

Red and Green color sorting.

Moving bells with a scoop.  We practice counting when we do this.  And we use the bells to shake when we sing Jingle Bells!

Size sorting.  These are pictures of kids doing winter activities and the cards are different sizes for sorting.  I printed these last year but can't remember where I found it.  There are tons of free printables for this type of thing in the blog world.

There is also a sequencing tray with some santa and snowman and christmas tree erasers that Ada likes quite a bit, just no photos.

For art projects we've been mostly just making cards to send out.  I think next year I'll go back to picking a photo and having it printed on a postcard like I usually do because this whole making cards thing is cute and the girls like it but I would rather have them all done and ready to go at the beginning of the month rather than sending them out as they get made.  We'll see.

Thanking our teachers

In the wake of last week's tragedy I'm still feeling very shaken.   Every now and again something happens that makes me start questioning all sorts of things about this life we live.  It is interesting to be having some (dare I say) existential thoughts while at the same time having business as usual around the house.  The girls are too young for me to talk in anything other than very general terms and since we don't have television it's very easy for them not to find out about such tragedies.  I'm all for facing reality as a child, but they can have their innocence a bit longer.

I do hope something changes in this country so we don't have to feel so uneasy about so many things but I can't help thinking about adults and children all over the world who are surrounded by real threat every single day.  I think about what kind of difference that has on forming their worldview.  I am the last one who has answers, but I have been very in my head these last few days.

I decided I would channel my feelings into some baking with the girls.  Namely CHOCOLATE.  If you know me you know that I don't really consider it dessert unless chocolate is involved.  If you know me well, you know the darker the better.  One of my favorite birthday presents was when my BFF got like 10 different kinds of chocolate and over an evening we blind tasted, evaluated, reviewed, and scored them all.  I think there was even wine involved.  Awesome!  So this year I decided to make all chocolate stuff for the girl's teachers.

Chocolate Crunch Granola- found recipe through Pinterest from Delicious Days  I did rough conversions from metric then was jus approximate since it's granola and you don't need to be precise.  We made 4 batches (each girl made 2) and packaged them in glass jars we had saved whose lids I spray painted silver.

Fudgy Mint Cookies- we used to make these at FHS and I loved them.  I found a recipe through Pinterest on Taste of Home that works well.  I used 1 teaspoon of dough an put little balls into a tray of powdered sugar that the girls rolled around.  This size is the perfect size for junior mints on top!  We made a double batch and ended up with somewhere around 100 cookies.

Chocolate Pretzel Rings- these are just ring pretzels on a baking sheet with a Kiss put in the middle of each one.  We used the dark chocolate kisses.  The girls had fun unwrapping and putting them on the tray.  You put them in the oven at 175 for a few minutes then jiggle an M&M in the middle of each one while they're still hot and melty (I did that part).  They're simple and super yummy.  We used red and green M&Ms to make them festive.

Sorry but I was too caught up in the action to take photos while we cooked but here they are all packaged up and ready to go.

I got to go in for a parent gathering at Ada's school and it was awesome.  The children all sang us songs and then did their favorite works to show us.  Ada decided to do some plant watering and leaf polishing then she traced some metal plates and colored them in.

As afraid as I may feel inside I want the girls to always think of school as a fun exciting place that they want to go to.  I think seeing Ada living life today in her classroom went a long way in making me feel better about the world.