Butterfly Wonderland

On the first of the year we were still at Annie's house. There are too many good football games on to waste the day driving home! Not to mention, we love hanging out with Annie! In the morning we decided to go to the Butterfly Wonderland in Scottsdale. It was pricey, but we had a great time.

First was a 3-D movie. Molly watched the entire thing without her glasses on, she did not like the glasses.

Then to the hatching room. They had real butterflies in chrysalis and some were hatching (probably not the right word). Each day they let the new butterflies out into the butterfly world, so any butterfly we saw in the case was new that day. It was an incredible thing to see.

Then out into the butterfly wonderland area. There were butterflies everywhere. We spent an hour or so walking around and looking at them all.

The butterflies were landing on all of us, except Ashlee. She wanted one to land on her SOOO bad. 

One landed right by her shoes and we made a huge deal about it because it was touching her......sort of.

Towards the end a nice lady who works there gave Ashlee at sugared brush for Ashlee to hold, and a butterfly landed on it. She was SO HAPPY!

And Annie took a picture at the exact moment a butterfly was flying in front of her, which looked like it was on her head. HaHa.

And then one landed on the jacket she was holding!! She was one happy girl.

Valentines Food

We had a good, but uneventful Valentine's Day.

We had a lot of sickness in our house that week, so we just laid low.

I made bread the day before and saved some dough in the fridge for our pizza the next day.

I went to pick the girls up from school and it had exploded by the time I came home! 

 We had heart shaped pizza for dinner.

And a "love"-ly dessert for afterward.

Be Mine

Happy Valentime's Day! (as the girls would say)

We had a nice day of just girls, although we did wish that Dad could have been with us. 

He has a theater competition every year the week of Valentine's Day so we are use to him missing it :(

The girls had pink, chocolate chip, heart shaped pancakes for breakfast.

Our beauties dressed for the day.

 And they thought it would be soooooo funny to have their eyes closed on purpose. 
They are in a very giggly stage right now, which is very fun but can also become annoying.
I now know how my family felt when Annie and I would start laughing and laughing for what we thought was hilarious but no one else thought was funny- sorry family! (we do have an occasional laughing fit still- it is funny to us)

 And they painted a heart craft thanks to G&G Will!  They love painting.

ringing in 2012

Over New Year's Chris' parents came and visited for a few days.  We did lots of hanging out at home doing things like playing guitar hero.  We set it to beginner and the girls LOVE it.

 On New Year's Eve we went ice-skating.  Actually, they went ice-skating and I watched and took pictures.  It was the girls first time ever, so they had fun.  Caitlin started to get the hang of it, but Ashlee still needs more practice.

It is tricky to keep your weight balanced so their feet slid forward alot, so this is what they looked like a lot of the time.

 They ice rink is pretty big, so they would get super tired and take a break in the hockey boxes.  Ashlee took her first break after she was 1/2 way around.  They had a really fun time, so we will have to go back sometime when I can actually skate with them.

New Year's Eve is also my birthday.  The girls made me some lovely trivets, and I also got a Kindle, some hats, a gift card, a book and some more shelves in the garage which will be coming sometime in the not to distant future.  I love cheesecake, so this year we had a cheesecake sampler instead of cake, YUM!  Then the girls went to bed and we played Farming Game- which is one of my favorites but maybe not so much enjoyed by the other participants, and rang in the New Year with only me awake :) 

Now we are getting back to out normal schedules after the long break.  Caitlin went back to school last week, and Chris went back to work today.

Happy 2012!

Mother's Day

My 3 favorite people made this a great mother's day!

They made breakfast and decorated the downstairs with balloons and streamers.
They worked hard on a surprise present yesterday that was a complete surprise for me this morning except for Ashlee asking me, "You like Nm-a-Nm's mom? You like Nm-a-Nm's?"
It was a great present from my creative husband and girls.

Caitlin also decorated a hot pad at pre-school and wrote a book for me.
One page said "My Mom's favorite thing to do is work on the computer."
Not true, but obviously I am on the computer to much for my 4 year old, I'll work on that.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you.

pampered

My mom became a Pampered Chef consultant last fall, so I hosted a party while she was here.

Apparently, other people like pampered chef as much as me and my family, because I ended up having a lot of orders. In fact, it was my mom's biggest party to date.

Everyone's orders:

It took quite a while to sort it all out.

And this is what I ended with. $515.00 worth of stuff for just $73.05!!

One of my favorite things I got is this, and we used them last night. The girls LOVED using them to help cut up the veggies for dinner. Brilliant.

We had a great Valentine's Day. The girls went on a treasure hunt to find their valentine's that ended with them in the bathtub.

We also opened some fun gifts from "my" Annie and Grandpa and Grandma Berta. Thanks!

Valentine's Crafts

Valentine's Day has always been one of my least favorite holidays, so I never really decorate for it.

Well, last year I made our first Valentine's decoration,
so this year I decided we could expand a little more:

I stole this idea from my friend's house (thanks Sarah!)


Then my friend, Jessica, arranged a craft night to make these beauties


And since we were in the Valentine making mood, the girls and I made these to mail to some special people. Caitlin was great at weaving the paper, and Ashlee was great at picking a paper for me to weave next.