My baby turns EIGHT!

We have been "coaching" M. to not grow a year older for, ah about 4 years now. "Forever Four", "Forever Five", "Stay Six", "Stay Seven" we chant each year but it is not working. She keeps getting bigger and older. She is my absolute last baby and I need for each year to be a double year from 4 on. I really enjoy the 4-9 year old. So to have two of each of these would be FABULOUS! Now if I could just wiggle my nose and make that happen. Oh well, the day has come and gone and M. turned EIGHT! She was delighted of course! We had a family lunch at Sticks and Stones for some yummy pizza and lots of presents! Then a trip to the party store to get huge, orange balloons inflated along with some regular balloons for the party. A party with girls AND BOYS! Eleven of each at an inflatable party place. We also got the black light/glow stick option to amp up the fun. It was frenetic, loud, not nearly long enough, and a whole lot of fun for the 2nd graders! The party was followed by a super secret sleepover for 5 of the girls. This is where the party started to loose a little bit of its luster. It was too much. M. was tired, the girls were loud, rowdy and a few were high maintenance. It was the L O N G E S T sleepover of my life. Eleven hours and they only slept for less than six. The bottom line- no more sleepovers with that many girls! (And probably not after a great party!)

day 4 of no school

On Monday, after we stayed up late on Sunday night finishing the science experiment, a snow storm was predicted. Well school was cancelled. I was notified at 5 am by my middle daughter, 5:30 am by the school system, then my alarm went off at 6:45 am and then the dogs. So I did not get any "extra"sleep. The snow finally started around 4 pm. And we got about 1" tops. It was a mix of snow and ice. Day two, we slept late since school was called at 8 pm. M. got to "sled" down our icy driveway with her dad but really it was not good snow. No snowman or snowball fights. Day three, school was called off at 5 pm the night before. Roads were icy in the morning but a lot melted off with the temperatures in the mid 30's. Ok, so now at 8 pm, school has been called off AGAIN! Enough already. I am leaving for Vegas tomorrow just to escape. No, really, I am going but it was already scheduled. But now I really feel I need and deserve it!

Science Experiment 2011

After putting off the experiment for a full week, although we should have done this over the holiday break, we have finished! Last night about 9 pm! Then, as luck would have it, no school today because of the threat of snow. No flakes yet- at 2:21pm! M. was super excited to conduct her first science experiment. We ran through a list of possibilities before arriving at the "winner". One of the rejected ideas- watching a scary movie every night before bed to see if it caused nightmares. Yeah, right, I vetoed that one right away because guess who would be the one losing sleep when in fact, scary movies DID cause nightmares. Then L. and H. set out to terrorize my baby to see if she would get scared. It worked! She screamed, cried and did not trust them for about a week. So we settled on an experiment to see if "lefties" were more ambidextrous than "righties". Each participant got 3 throws of a bocci ball to get it closest to the target with both dominant and non-dominant hands. Turns out lefties are not more ambidextrous but they are more accurate. Cool, huh? Next year I promise we will start much earlier!

The homemade gifts for 2010!

Every year I make my girls something for Christmas. I have made pajamas, dolls, matching doll p.j.'s, purses, photo albums, hats and scarves, sock animals and much more. This year I decided to skip it. But I kept having thoughts of what a bad mother I was NOT making something, so on December 20th (and we exchange gifts on Dec. 24th) I went to my local yarn store for inspiration. I found the perfect solution! Fingerless gloves with a beautiful cable pattern and picot edging! Got great yarn in a washable wool blend in marine blue and a steel blue then began knitting. Almost 24 hours a day!!! I made 2 pairs which I finished on Dec. 23rd and one sock (with the second one not quite finished) so all 3 girls had a gift handmade by Mom under the tree! I felt much better and the older girls LOVED the gloves and even requested that I make them socks too! M. was sweet and mentioned that she really would like another sock to go with the one I gave her! Back to the knitting needles!

Happy New Year!

We are all happy and fat thanks to that Pioneer Woman cookbook! I have used a half gallon of whole milk, 8 sticks of real butter, 2 pounds of powdered sugar, a bag of flour and 2 pounds of sugar in the past 24 hours! There is no end in sight! H. made chicken fried steak last night with mash potatoes and all of it under gravy. He wants it noted that we have some parts of our quarter of a cow that needed to be eaten so we had to get creative with the recipes. It was yummy but I don't think I can eat it again 7 more times! Note there are no greens anywhere in sight. But thanks for cooking honey! This morning I made PW cinnamon rolls from scratch. They took about 2 hours but were worth the wait. My oldest told me it was the best thing I have EVER made and H. said they were better than Cinnabon. All I know is that I made half to recipe and it was 25 rolls - so everyone has to eat FIVE! I took some to our neighbors but H. would not let many out of the house. They really were divine!!! Now tonight we are having PW mac and cheese. L. has said that we need to eat more because with all the leftovers (scones, cinnamon rolls, chicken fried steak, mash potatoes, mac and cheese)there is no more room for new food.