LLC; Bird day!

It's been a while since we were able to participate in a Little Learners Club since my kiddos had school on Wednesdays. But I switched their days so we're able to go again ;)

Anyway, the theme this week was birds! We got all of our little birdies together,

and then headed to the (covered!) kitchen where they painted their own birdhouses:

Then we made bird feeders with toilet paper rolls, peanut butter and birdseed:

While the kiddos played for a while,

we prepared the food. My kiddos and I made these owl eye snacks, using the chocolate cookie of an Oreo, banana slices, raisins and an almond for the nose:

There were other bird themed snacks (that I sadly forgot to take pics of, boo!) but I did get these yummy birds nest cupcakes Mandy made:

And all of the kids got to take home a bird memory game. Having a son who loves nothing more than puzzles and games, we've probably played this matching game literally 10 times in the past 3 days. I know every species of bird thanks to this game ;) 

Our next LLC will be a fieldtrip... we're excited!

Imagination

I love 4 year olds. The sassyness is minimal and the imagination is wild. This is what my girl was doing in the backyard a few days ago. I was inside feeding Meg and she yells to me, 'mom, come here please! Look what I'm doing!"

Can you tell? The soccer net behind her is her tent, the sick in her hand is a hanger, and leaf on the end of the stick was a marshmallow and the leaves below her, fire.

Camping!

Love her.

Park day

We decided that before our date (the post yesterday), we wanted to go to the park with our kiddos. We would be gone all afternoon so we wanted to make the most out of the family time we had. Anyway, it was fun, although it was pretty cold out. We bundled everyone up and headed out. Here are some pics (and captions) to enjoy ;)

Lauren shouted, 'daddy, come with me!"

And then she and Jake persuaded him to roll down the hill ;)

Stud muffin.

Little love on the swings.

Whee!

This one melts my heart :)

Climbing...

more climbing..

Silly Lauren jokingly said she wanted to get in the Ergo. She didn't think I'd agree :)

Then Jake wanted a turn so I put him in and we swung on the swings. Such fun!

Busybodies

investigating...

Daddy and his girls.

Love us some park days!

Date day

Our good friends the Greenlee's came over New Years Eve to play some games and eat some grub with us. Jaime opened up one of the games boxes and found two envelopes addressed to her and I. We opened them up to find this note:

basically telling us that Mark and Justin had planned a surprise 'date day' for us. Justin had already arranged for my mom to watch the kids, so we were set to go. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was :)

So on Sunday, we were off. I had no idea where we were going... just told to wear comfy clothes and also told not to eat lunch. We ended up driving to Los Angeles to Olivera street, where we had lunch at a place called Cielito Lindo. It had been open since 1934 and had raving reviews. The atmosphere was ahem, different, but it was bustling with interesting people to watch :) But the food? AMAZING. The best taquitos I had ever had. And Justin even got seconds, so that tells you how good they were :)

The next stop was a trip to the Griffith's Observatory. I had never been there before so we checked out the museum and the sights. The view was fantastic! After gazing at God's creations for quite a while (you couldn't help yourself!), we watched a show which the guys had planned. The seats reclined and we watched it above our heads on a giant dome. It was pretty cool.

It was dusk by this time, so we checked out the view in the dark (even more beautiful!) and then had dinner on a balcony overlooking Los Angeles. It was gorgeous and the company wasn't too bad either ;)

We finished the night off with dessert at a place called Diddy Riese, where you choose which flavor of fresh baked cookies and flavor of ice cream you want, and they make you a custom ice cream sandwich. The line was out the door because this place was soooo good, and the best part was that each ice cream sandwich cost a whopping $1.50!!! (Side note; as we were standing in line, both Justin and I turned to each other simultaneously and said, 'this would be a cool place to street witness!" It was crazy; God has definitely been laying it on our hearts to share His word, and with this store being right next to a college, it was bursting with people.) A perfect place to witness. That was cool.

We ended up getting home at 10pm. My mom said Meg did wonderful (it was my first time leaving her for more than a couple hours so I was concerned) and of course, Lauren and Jacob did great too. I feel so blessed to have someone watch my kiddos who loves them as much as their parents do :)

All in all it was a super fun, relaxing night with just my Hubster and great friends. Plus, it was super cheap. We spent less than $25 on the whole day, which is important to me being a good steward of His money.

Thanks babe and Greenlee's for making this day happen :)

Meg is 11 months!

Ack. One month until I have a 1 year old. Time flew by :(

For companions sake, here she was last month.

Okay, some things (good and bad) to be noted this month:

• Megan's still crawling and cruising around the furniture. I thought she'd be walking by now, but she chickens out and drops to the floor instead of taking a step ;)
• The girl can EAT! I've never seen a baby put away soooo much food. And she loves everything really. The only things she's not fond of are being spoon fed (at all) and scrambled eggs (but she will eat them a little bit).
• She now waves 'bye bye' and claps too. Still working on giving kisses.
• Whenever she sees the bathroom door open, she beelines for for it. All I have to do is say, "Megan..." and she stops, turns and smiles at me. She knows she's not supposed to go in there because all she does is play in the toilet water (ugh!) and destroy the toilet paper.
• I am constantly trying to teach her to say 'mama'. And the second I finish saying  'say mama", she gets this huge smile on her face and says, "DADA!". Stinker.
• She doesn't just smile, she squinches (yes, that's a word ) up her face and really smiles ;) I love her silly little smiley face:

• When she's finished eating her meal, she literally chucks her food across the room. There is no questioning if she's through.
• Still 6 teeth total and more are on their way...
• We are still in full-fledged separation anxiety mode. The moment myself or Justin leave the room, or even allow someone else to hold her (with us standing nearby), she wails loudly! She's not spoiled or anything ;)
• She still adores her siblings and Quentin (our Boxer who was staying with my mom but now lives here). She crawls up to him and buries her face onto his fur. Sweet.
• Favorite games are 'how big is Megan?' and 'peekaboo'. She could play those for hours.
• Girl is still busy as ever. It took me about 20 minutes to get her to look at me and not attack the blocks:

• Sleeping is much, much better. She now takes a good morning nap, although afternoon naps are hit or miss. And most nights she sleeps until morning. Hallejuah!
• Lastly, she's still nursing with no end in sight. Like I said, this girl is an eater (evidenced by the Puffs she's inhaling below)!

I could go on really because there's so many things about her that melt our hearts. She truly has made our family complete. Love her.

Date with Jake

A couple weeks ago Miss Tereneh asked to take Lauren on a girls night so my sweet little guy and I had a date. We did a whole lot of nothing really, but he thought it was special and that's all that matters ;)

First we made cookies:

He was my taste tester and did a mighty fine job of it. Unforuntaly being three, his attention spans lasts about 20 minutes, so while the cookies baked, he was on to the next 'treat'.... games!

This boy is a game loving fool! He could play games for hours, so e played Shoots and laders, Candy Land, I Can Do That!, and Memory. Yes, I was pretty gamed-out.

Okay, back to the cookies... they were yummy!

When Meg went down for a nap, we crafted. he's not really into crafting too much, so I made it simple and we taped some toilet paper rolls together as a 'ramp' for his cars. He dug it...

After Meg awoke, I suggested we grab a bite to eat. Selfishly really, because I was going kind of stir crazy by that point. So we went to one of Jake's favorites; Farmer Boys (weird, I know):

After our date-day, we drove back home. And before I even finished pulling in, he was out like a light ;)

Two things I love about that day: 1) Tereneh loves my kids so much that she wants to do special things with them individually (they went to Chuck E Cheese, the movies, the dollar store, and lunch... lucky girl!) and 2) love spending quality one on one time with my boy.

New years Eve

We invited our friends Mark and Jaime over for New Years Eve because 1) we love them, 2) they don't have kiddos yet so they can stay out as long as they want, haha and 3) they love games and food like we I do ;)

I had planned to take waaaay more pictures but we got consumed with food and games and I forgot all about it. But, here's what I captured:

We played a bunch of games,

ate a bunch of yummy food,

They are caramelizing the sugar on our creme brulee's... yum!

and sat and talked until the wee hours of the morning until I crashed at 12:30am.

Super fun night. I love good friends.