ABC Fun!

The girls are working on ABC books and we decided to make each letter with our bodies and then take photos!  I ordered prints of these photos so that we can include them in their ABC books!

Polka Dot Cake

I found a really fun looking polka dot cake on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try to celebrate my dad's birthday and my birthday, which are 2 weeks apart.  The cake required 2 white cake mixes...one to make colored cake pops and the other to make the actual cake.

Here's Lydia with her pan of colored cake pops and white cake mix!  It's all ready to go into the oven!

Here's Makayla with her pan of cake pops!

Here's my Mom with Makayla!

Yum...the finished cake!  Makayla picked the blue color because Grandpa likes blue!

The cake was a little lop-sided on one side, so here's it's better side!  The cake was pretty fragile and one layer broke while I was tipping it out of the pan!  We did a pretty good job patching it back together!

My dad got to blow out some candles!

I got to blow out some candles!

And here's the inside of the cake....

Winter Fun

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything!  The photos have been stacking up, so I finally tackled them all today!  I just posted 4 or 5 posts before this one, so be sure to keep reading after this post to get caught up on Lydia's birthday, the Dells, and lots of Easter fun!  It's been a busy few months at our house!  As much as I grumble about the long Winter and being ready for Spring, we still seem to have been busy busy busy!  Even with staying busy, the girls are as antsy as I am to get outside!  I can tell they are getting cabin fever because they are picking at each other more and more, they are wrestling more, they are acting up, and they are asking for the snow to melt!  We've started having some decent weather the past few weeks, so we get outside whenever we can!  The wind has still been pretty chilly, but the sun definitely helps!  We've gone biking, walking, running, swinging, and even tried a little sidewalk chalk!  Lydia biked almost all the way around the large block behind our house...which is a good half mile.  She still hasn't mastered braking, but I stick close to her and help her stop when needed!  Makayla is like a bat out of hell on her bike...she zooms ahead and then stops and waits for us at each corner!  Makayla also went out running one night with Chad...probably since I've been trying to get out and do some running in the mornings!

In other news, Lydia is finally potty trained!  Woohoo!  I was so worried that she was going to be tough to train, but luckily, it was pretty painless!  She kept telling me she would potty train when she was 3, so I held her to that!  They day after she turned 3, I helped her pack up all of her diapers and put them away...we said we were saving them for Auntie Monica's baby!  She did okay with the peeing, but it was the pooping that was hard for her.  On day 2 she finally couldn't hold the poop in anymore!  After several minutes of dancing around and getting on/off the potty and asking for a diaper, she finally went in the potty!  As soon as she was done going she said, "Oh, that didn't hurt, I can do this again tomorrow!"  And that finished up our potty training!  She's done amazingly well and has had very few accidents!  I do feel like I spend hours in the bathroom helping her and waiting for her to finish up, but I try to remember the alternative, which would be changing more diapers!  And I cringe when we use public restrooms, but I guess that comes with the territory!!  We tried undies at night, but have gone back to Easy Ups because she doesn't seem quite ready for staying dry through the night.  She will sleep through the night in her Easy Up, but if she's in undies, she wakes up wet at least once a night...which just interrupts her sleep and mine!  Because she potty trained, she earned her "big girl" bed that is just like Makayla's!  She's been sleeping well in her new bed, although she does tend to get out of bed a lot in the first few minutes of going to bed!  Lydia has also enjoyed being 3 and finding out what new things she can do now that she is such a big girl!  For example, she can now reach the light switch to turn the lights on!  Any time she can do something new she says, "It must be because I'm 3 now!"  :)  Lydia even told Makayla's preschool teacher that she's potty trained, so now she can come to school next year!!

Makayla is a sassy 4.5 year old.  She needs to be first, best, fastest, tallest, smartest, and have the biggest, longest, most, and any other word that ends in "est"!  This causes many disagreements between the kids and drives me nuts most days!  I don't know where she learned this from and I've been trying to teach her that she doesn't always have to be "first" (or any other "est") but I might as well be talking to the wall!  She will burst into tears if she doesn't get the first of something    Of course, Lydia is now learning that it's important to be first, so this causes even more sibling rivalry!   Jeez!  Hopefully this is a quick phase in life!!

Makayla can also be very mean to Lydia and rough with Lydia...we've been doing a lot of time outs lately!  She will purposely be mean to Lydia, just to make Lydia upset!  This is another behavior that drives me nuts!!  I'm hoping this is somewhat enhanced by cabin fever and that as we can get outside and burn energy, there won't be time to pick fights!

Makayla was recently nagging to have her bed rail off her bed.  We finally gave in and she hasn't fallen out even once!  Good thing since we passed it on to Lydia shortly after taking it off of Makayla's bed!

Makayla gets jealous because Lydia always gets to run errands and hang out with me while Makayla is at school!  So Makayla and I had some mother-daughter time a few weekends ago!  We went shopping to buy her some new clothes and we went out to lunch together!  We had a fun time together and I decided we should do that more often!  The bonus was that Lydia got some Dad time..which was also much needed!  So it was a win-win all around and everyone had a good day that day!

The girls both love to run around naked lately!  It's mostly at bath time since they both have their clothes off before getting into the tub!  They love to run around and show whoever is here that they are naked (my parents, Chad, my girlfriends, etc)  This is another phase that I am hoping passes quickly!!

As for me, I'm doing well!  I mentioned above that I've been doing some running.  I've gone at 5:30am a few times, but I am paranoid of getting sprayed by a skunk!!  I smelled one yesterday and hope that I didn't stir it up as I ran by!  And my neighbor saw one recently, so I know they are around our house!!  Yikes!!  I'm training for a half marathon next fall...this was not my idea...my friend Debbie twisted my arm!  So far, so good, although I have never really been much of a runner!  I'm still experimenting with various healthy food and new recipes and found a PBS cooking show I really like called, "Christina".  I'm still addicted to the TV show Scandal and I've been trying to sneak in some Spring cleaning whenever I can!  I recently and nostalgically went through my closet and found prom/home coming dresses from the 90s!  Jeez..I'm getting old!  I'm also finding old magazines from 2+ years ago that I still haven't read...good thing I let all those subscriptions run out...I clearly need to get caught up on the ones I have!  LOL!!

Chad is also doing well...not too much new to report on his end!  He continues to be busy with work and the rental properties and is getting ready for boating and skiing season!  We always have an eye out for a cabin up north, but go back and forth about how practical it would be to own one of our own right now.  The garage and yard are both on my spring honey-do list...we've got a family reunion to host this summer, so time to get cracking on the house projects!  Chad did get a new smart phone...he used to have a plain flip phone.  So he's taking a step forward in technology!  LOL!  Oh, and March Madness basketball has kept Chad entertained lately...and even as I type!  :)

Well, on to the assortment of photos that I have from the past few months!

Here's Makayla wearing her chef's hat and apron that she made at school!

Both girls LOVE babies and baby toys.  They are constantly sneaking into the back room in the basement to see what baby toys they can get out and play with.  They are always nagging to play with the bigger things...like exersaucer and carseat!  It seems like Chad and I are always picking up baby toys even though we don't have any babies right now!!  But I figure, at least it keeps the girls entertained for a few minutes!  They will take turns pretending to be a baby or they will use the toys for their baby dolls!

Here's our hair salon!  The curling iron isn't really plugged in...

Fun with our friends, Ella, Jayden, and Blake!  We've enjoyed lots of playdates at each other's houses and at Kidztown in Green Bay!

I think I already posted this, but I like this photo of Makayla at her dance class!

Here was one of our art projects!  We colored coffee filters with washable markers and then sprayed them with water in the bathtub.  The colors bled and made them look pretty cool!  Then we glued them to paper and added a pipe-cleaner stem for a handle...they made the cutest umbrellas!

We did bathtub paints one afternoon!  This was another success from pinterest!

Here's Makayla helping Chad plant some seeds...we started a bunch of seeds indoors and then we will see what actually grows and survives transplanting in 6 or 8 weeks!

Note that Makayla is wearing capris with her boots...this was one of our first warm days and Makayla couldn't resist putting capris on!  (Actually, she nagged me until I finally gave in!)  I reminded her that this is why I keep the summer clothes packed up high on a shelf until summer is really here!

I keep an art board in the basement where I put some of the kids art projects from home and also an assortment of Makayla's school projects!  I never know what to do with them as I change them out, so I decided to take a photo of the board each time before I change it up!  So at least we can remember the projects!

The Easter Bunny brought the girls kites in their Easter baskets.  This was another source of nagging until I finally gave in and took the girls out to fly them!  The Easter Bunny also made a mental note not to give kites if Easter falls in March!  Brrr!!  In this photo, it looks nice, but it was windy and only in the 20's!  Definitely Brrr!!  Lydia lasted about 5 minutes and Makayla about 15 minutes!  But they had an absolute ball flying them...lots of laughs and excitement, so I guess it was worth braving the cold!  ;)

Lydia got some fun bath gel for her birthday.  It turns the tub into a bunch of little jelly balls!  Makayla had fun in it, but Lydia wouldn't get it!  I even stuck my toes in and it felt so bizarre, but cool!   We have one more packet to use and Makayla can't wait!

I know this post is titled, "Winter Fun," but I had to put these photos in even though they aren't fun!  One evening Makayla scraped her toe on the corner of the baseboard and it was bleeding pretty good.  So Chad and I were tending to her and trying to calm her down and get a band aid on her toe.  While we were busy, Lydia opened a band aid and stuck it on her "nose" because her nose hurt.  Well, here was the result!  I was able to get the band aid off with only 2 or 3 lost eye lashes...but there were lots of tears!  I think she scared herself pretty good when she couldn't get her eyes open!  Of course, this was the one time that Lydia was actually able to get the band aid open and the stickers peeled off and actually apply it without mangling it!  Normally she's got the band aid mangled before she can stick it any where on her body!!

The girls like to play with their babies and stuffed animals.  They play school and gymnastics and all sorts of other things!  Here they are with the animals all lined up in our bathroom!  They even brought the rugs in from their bedrooms!

Here was one of my evening activities   Once again, thanks Pinterest!  I made 12 frozen crockpot dinners!  I gave 7 away to well deserving friends/family and I kept the rest for myself!  The first one we ate was quite tasty...hopefully the rest are just as yummy!