North Dakota

Last weekend Jocelyn and I headed up to North Dakota with Mom and Dad to visit Katie, Brian and Ella.  She's 8 months old now, and gets cuter every time I see her (if that's possible).  She's getting so big, is eating real people food, sitting up so good, and is really close to rolling over from her back to tummy.  She's just a smiley baby and loves to talk!  We had fun just hanging out and playing.

  Yummy - daddy's glasses sure are good!

 Opening her Easter present - she was really good at it - just reached in the bag and took stuff out, and kept looking in it to see what else was in there!

 She was not impressed with the sunglasses, but aren't they adorable?!

 Her and Jocelyn played so nicely together.  Ella just loved her, wanted to touch her face and her hair, and would screech whenever she'd walk away from her.  Of course, Jocey loves being "such a good big cousin" and had a really fun weekend.  Saturday night I stayed home with the girls while everyone else went to an Elton John concert.  We survived - I'm not quite sure how people have more than one kid.

 It was her first time in the big tub - she loved it, and obviously didn't want to get out.  She loves the water!  I love Jocey's face in this picture.

We went to a water park on Sunday, but those pictures are on Mom and Dad's camera.  Jocelyn had a blast and threw a complete fit when we had to leave.  Ella loved it too, after she got used to it.  They tried to put her feet in and she pulled them right up!  The water was a bit chilly.  But once she sat and was able to splash, she thought it was great. 

It's a bit of a drive up there, but I'm so thankful Jocelyn is such a great car rider.  She just does awesome in the car - it makes the ride so much more enjoyable!

Henry's 1st Birthday

On Sunday, March 18th we headed over to the Cities to celebrate our nephew Henry's 1st birthday.  I can't believe he's one already - that was a really fast year.  It was the weekend of gorgeous 80 degree weather and a perfect day for a party!  We had fun visiting, eating and watching the kids play.  He's such a sweet boy and we were so glad we could help celebrate his big day!

 Ama and the grandkids

 Nicole made such cute decorations - it was a robot theme party. 

 Daddy and Henry out for a cruise

 Nettie's turn!

 He loved his cake - it was bath time after he was done!

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is not normally a holiday we celebrate.  But, Jocelyn loves holidays, so I decided to celebrate a little this year.  At daycare, Louie the Leprecaun comes and messes up their classroom and plays other tricks on them.  Since they did it on a Friday, she wasn't there.  So, Louie made an appearance at our house! 

Look at what he did to our living room!

Instead of putting all her friends back in their basket, they watched cartoons with her instead.

 Look what else he did to our milk!  She wouldn't drink it in the morning, but by lunch time decided it was pretty funny.  I'm sure she was expecting it to taste different.

 And he turned the eggs green too!  That Louie, he sure is a funny guy.

Art Class

Jocelyn doesn't do too many scheduled things - swimming lessons last summer was the first thing we'd done.  While I do enjoy things like that, it's also nice to be able to just stay home if we want to.  However, I felt like we were turning into homebodies and staying in our pj's way too often.  So, when a friend told me about an art class she was signing her son up for, I thought we'd give it a shot.  It's Thursday nights, which doesn't really get us out of our pj's, but she loves it and looks forward to it every week.  We missed the first class because she was sick, but the other 3 we've been to she's had a great time. 

Week one - painting.  She really likes to paint, so I thought she'd love this week, but has actually liked the other two better.  Maybe because painting is something we do often at home.

 Week two - gluing.  I knew she'd LOVE this week - gluing is one of her favorite crafts, and one we don't do very often because it gets messy and sticky.

Her placemat - they put the things on contact paper and then put a piece of paper behind it to make a placemat!

 She could have made about 100 egg carton treasures.  They got to paint on colored glue and then add all sorts of fun things.

 Week three - 3D art.  Her "fish" sculpture.  The beading of the pipe cleaner was her favorite part.

 And then she discovered the face painting station.  Can you tell she also LOVED this one?  Most of the kids drew a few lines on their faces - not this girl!  She sat there for at least 15 minutes just drawing on her face (they were in crayon form).

 She wanted to wipe it off and start over, but it was getting to the end of class.  So I told her she could paint my face!  She thought that was great fun.  Don't we look beautiful?!

 Bath night was sure interesting!  Most of it came off fine, but getting the black out of her eyebrows was a bit tough.  I hope this isn't a preview of her teenage years....

She starts dance class the end of March, and she is so excited she can hardly stand it. I think it's going to be more movement and not so much actual dance, but we'll see. I think they wear t-shirts and shorts, which I know she won't be okay with. We may be the only ones there in fancy clothes.  I think this fall I'll probably find an actual ballet type dance class.  Where she can wear a tutu and get all fancied up. 

Vacation

Last week I took the week off - I had some vacation to use up, and had some stuff I wanted to get done around the house.  I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but it was a great week off.  Jocelyn went to Grandma & Grandpa's for a long weekend, so I went scrapbooking, read a few books, Calvin and I went out one night, and just had some great alone time!  Angie and Elliot were in EC for a few days, so we got to see them which was so fun.  We spent the day playing and laughing. 

 Baking some teething cookies for Elliot - they turned out to be a little too soft and easy to take a big chunk out of.

 Doing an impromptu dance recital with Bumpa

I've also been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately.  It's quite addicting, but I never have time to make anything I pin!  So vacation was a great time to do that.  I found a cute rag quilt tutorial and decided  I wanted to make one for Jocelyn's bed.  So I drug out my fabric bin (which hasn't been used since Kailee was probably 6 or 7) looking for scraps.  I didn't have enough, but did find some fabric that I'm going to use for pj's and a dress for Jocey.  I also found this soft minky fabric and made a quick floor pillow for Jocelyn.  I think it's a tie who loves it more - her or Ellie. 

Here are the colors I'm using for the quilt - there was a lot to cut out, so it's taking me a bit longer than the blogger who had the idea - she did hers in one night!  That's just crazy talk. 

 The first stack of completed squares!  Only 120 left to go!  I'm hoping to work on it more this weekend, and I'll be sure to post more pictures when it's done!

I've found a lot of great recipies on Pinterest as well.  I love to try new recipies, and have made a commitment to try all of them once, and if they're good, keep them, if not, throw them away.  I have way too many and need to be realistic about which ones will become favorites.  I did make one dish (no pictures) that was so awesome - it will definitely be a favorite.  Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken.  It was so easy (which I LOVE) and was delicious.  We served it on rice one day, and on corn tortillas the next.  Both were great.  One awesome tip I read - use your stand mixer to shred the chicken!  I've only used my stand mixer a handful of times because our kitchen is so tiny, but I got it out for this one - and it worked beautifully.  Such a time/hassle saver!

Blueberry breakfast cake - wonderful - but a bit too lemony for this house.  It was moist and delicious, and since Calvin really doesn't like lemon, I ate the whole thing.  Hey - I was on vacation!



 S'mores stuffed chocolate chip cookies - huge.  The cookie on the bottom right in the picture is a regular size cookie.  They were really good, but much better right out of the oven.  And I'd use a bit less flour next time - they were a bit dry.  And I'd do smaller graham cracker portions so the cookies didn't turn out quite so large.   

So I guess I also gained some weight on vacation. :)  And if you're not on Pinterest, I'd highly recommend it, but beware - it will take up many hours of your time!