the not so quiet "quiet time"

The not so quiet "quiet time" in our house was rather humorous today. I came upstairs to let the kids know that quiet time was over. When I opened Alyssa's bedroom door, I had to stifle my laughter, race down the stairs, grab the camera and then sneak into her room to catch this...

She had climbed onto the bathroom counter to admire, dance, talk and kiss herself in the mirror! Now that seemed hilarious in itself but what topped the cake was that her performance had to include an outfit to match!

Meanwhile in Jaiden's room, he was busy on his own. While technically I didn't notice this right away and technically according to Daddy this happened after quiet time, I found his shenanigans just as humorous. In fact, he gave new meaning to "warrior" pose in yoga!

This is his yoga mat propped against his dresser with his own version of warrior pose!

Too cute!

breakfast dishes

After a race to get to school, I came home to clean the breakfast dishes from the table. As I cleared items away, I noticed this...

Jaiden and Alyssa were playing with new Halloween stamps during breakfast. They had asked me for paper but I didn't really pay attention and just absentmindedly handed them paper. What a delightful surprise to see Jaiden's creation! I love how each stamp - pumpkin, dracula, frankenstein even the candy corn face were given their own body... a mini Halloween parade per se.

sweetness

Dennis brought the kids downstairs to watch the Olympics... you know, show them how if they practice hard and focus, they too could share in the Olympic dream. And you know, well they aren't too young to start training plus we could always move somewhere like Aspen, Jackson Hole, Park City, Telluride or Vail so they could train...

Well, it left a huge impression on this cutie pie (I think she fell asleep in the first 5 minutes of watching)... but she is dreaming of future Olympics - I am sure of it!

love is in the air...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sending lots of love from all of us

PS. It is my first digital layout. I saw this at Designer Digitals designed by Katie Pertiet and loved it. Wouldn't it make a cute card? Maybe next year, I will be quicker to get some out. Hope you have a lovey day!

bear hugs

Today was Jaiden's day! Alyssa and I both got to visit his classroom and partake in the Valentine festivities. Much to Alyssa's delight she was able to indulge into more sugar too!

Because I liked the shot I did of Alyssa's bag on the table, I tried one of Jaiden's too.

He made the necklace around his neck which is hard to see but this photo is the clearest of the bunch. Each kid sat down with their bag of Valentine treats and cards and were to read their Valentine cards. He did sit and look at each one carefully reading who it was from. He was tickled pink with all the valentine cards, goodies and treats.

When we walked home, I discovered this little treasure in his backpack. He told me I was supposed to wait but I just couldn't help but post it on the blog. The sweetness of these handmade cards is killing me... they truly melt my heart.

Doesn't it melt yours?

love bug...

Today, I got to help out in Alyssa's class for her valentine's party. I tried to not take too many photos and also without a flash as to not distract all the cuties in her class. My job was to help the kids put their valentine cards into their decorated valentine bags.

Here is a look at the finished stuffing of their bags. Each kid was so cute and excited to put their goodies in their classmates bags.

My favorite photo of the few I got. As you can see most people are blurry but somehow Alyssa sat still ... simply amazing! Anyway, this was a game where they took the heart from under her chair and then sang "Alyssa, Alyssa, someone took your heart! Who do you think it could be?" And then she had to guess. It was so sweet and simple. I may have to use this game for her birthday party.

And finally, my all time favorite. She made it at school today, then dashed over to show me her valentine for us. I love the way she drew the bug's eyes and mouth! The wings are actually pink but the scanner didn't pick that up.

Tomorrow is Jaiden's class valentine party...

impressed... 100%

Maybe it doesn't take much but today Jaiden amazed me. His class started weekly homework assignments of take home reading books. They have to choose a book, read it and choose an assignment from this list we were given, then write about it or new words they learned etc. Here is homework he will turn in tomorrow...

Is it me? Or isn't this just so cute? The assignment was to determine if the book is fiction or non-fiction and then say why you decided it was what it was.

Now a little background... I think he chose a really hard book so I included a sampling of the book, The Night Owls by Kevin Pattrick. Nearly every page had 2 paragraphs and multiple words he didn't know but he gave it a go and we muddled through it. Unbelievable. I am so impressed that he is learning to read!

those skiing photos...

Yes, here are those skiing photos I kept talking about. I took quite a few... umm, a lot... no, let's clarify that... I took about 138, yep that is 138 photos in one day, well actually more like a 4 hour period of time (goodness, did I just admit that?). Thankfully, they didn't all turn out but it was quite a job to find my favorites. And, so I present them in collage format.

I just love these of Jaiden. I had so many as it was a lot of fun watching and using the mommyrazi lens. A few photos looked as if he was looking at me! The one of him on the ground with the other kids is when they were learning how to get up on their skiis. He mastered this. The bottom right photo is the prelude to the previous post of him catching some air! And top left is when he was on the magic carpet. I just love how he is smiling at me!

And here are the girls, appropriately decked out in pink! My favorites are the top left, Uncle Bret and Mikayla; the top right photo is me looking down on Daddy and Alyssa - love this angle; the middle middle one is another fun angle - Mommy's view; middle right is Mikayla's first go on the hill from the chairlift... I love all of these.

It was a blast having the cousins visit. I will share more photos - next up is the park play. I caught a few good ones of Blake, the girls (of course) and then several sweet ones of Jaiden even though he was constantly in motion and desperately trying to avoid the camera. Is this typical of 5 year old boys?

sweet little cupcake

Oh, glitter... how you make a simple card wonderful and a little girl silly with delight. She had glitter everywhere on her, me, the table, the floor and yes, some found it's way onto the card. Good thing as that was where we were originally trying to get the glitter to stick!

Alyssa and I finished the cupcake invites this morning in the nick of time as we dashed off to pick Jaiden up from school. Here is a few more photos from this morning's craftiness. Next on the birthday to do list... cupcake aprons! You can see a sneak peek of the material in the first photo on the right in the bottom left.  

cupcakes everywhere

Cupcakes... , cupcakes... , cupcakes are everywhere!

Alyssa and I having some fun making her birthday invites this morning while listening to girly music and eating yummy cinnamon toast while the snow slowly drifts and swirls about outside.

weekend happenings

Saturday was met with sadness as Mikayla and Baby Blake left early, early in the morning to catch their flight. Alyssa woke about 5 minutes after they left asking "where's Mikayla?" (Promise more photos to come of especially these two girls, they adored each other immensely.)

Thankfully, Saturday was also filled with two birthday parties so I was easily able to redirect their attention to making birthday cards. I had to share the inside of Jaiden's card. I am so impressed with how he is trying to write by himself. In case you can't interpret it, the card says "happy birthday Aaron". I guess Mommy can be easily impressed and excited over each of these simple milestones.

As for today, right before we left for church, Alyssa and Daddy shoveled the driveway. I adore how Alyssa wants in on the big action and she does a pretty good job too! I am curious on just how long will this last?

Clearly this photo should answer the above question, age 5?! As Jaiden was hiding in the car from the mommyrazzi; and his shovel tucked safely in the corner of the garage. Although credit should be given that upon returning from church, he did help out with Alyssa and Daddy again.

3-D madness

I know it is totally unrelated to what I said I was planning to post but I had to share this random weirdness that occurs in our house every so often or maybe a little more regularly than I would like to admit. Daddy was doing some 3-D visualization of data work (yeah, right!) and Jaiden popped downstairs for something. Jaiden was so intrigued with Daddy's work (snicker), he had to try on some 3-D glasses and check it out. Jaiden's response "this is coooool daddy!"

100th day (actually now it is 102)

On Tuesday, Jaiden came out of school with this crown in celebration of the 100th day of school! My favorite photo is the first one because it captures how cute he was about wearing it while the second one actually shows you more of the crown. He was so proud of himself for having attended his 100th day and making a crown to show it off. I adore his enthusiasm and love how he wore this for the entire afternoon. It made no difference to him where he was or the fact that when we picked up his rental skiis, the man who was helping him asked him:

"are you 100 years old today?"

cuteness and more late night art in the dark

Here is last night's continuation of that mosaic project... also done in the dark by the light of his nightlight. Can you guess what it is?

We took the kids skiing again yesterday and Jaiden did an ALL day lesson this time! I have lots of great photos with my mommyrazzi lens. This particular photo shows him trying to catch some air... and yes, he was going down the hill by himself and doing mini jumps.

We spotted two movie stars on the slopes looking sweet in pink. What a hoot these two are! Yep, basically inseparable and if for some reason they do separate, insert mom or dad with Alyssa or Mikayla asking "where is (insert name of missing in action)?" at least asked 3 or 4 times even if it is only a 5 minute separation!

I promise to create some collages of our ski adventures and post them after they leave. I have some awesome photos and am dying to share but our cutest littlest one is sleeping by my fancy computer (I have some good photos of him too!)

appropriately late night art...

Yes, appropriately late night art given I just noticed my last post was also about this hot topic in our house! Well tonight was no different except that this late night art project is a prize he chose from his poke prize box tonight and it's really cool. It is a mosaic that has foam mini squares with a board that has numbers referencing the colors to use hence all the little white backings scattered around his artwork... I was impressed how far along he got and of course, had to share. I wonder how long he stayed up... anyone want to take a guess?

PS. There will be lots of posts soon I promise. I have to use Dennis' laptop this week as we are very fortunate to have cousins visiting. I have some cute photos to share of the little ones. Everything is going really well (at least from my somewhat rosy disposition point of view... why not? the world would be quite pretty in pink!).