Ro-bear's three

 This is what happens when you let a fanatic of polka dots and the color yellow pick out the decorations for her cake... it 'ate good' though.  My middle girl turned three, not sure where the time went.  She's so small that she's still in 24 month clothes that fall off of her little butt, so thinking of her as three is just strange to me.  Here's some pictures of her party at Mamaw's house.

Last Wednesday she went to the Dr. for her three year check up, she's made it all the way to 9% in weight and 30% in height, that's a big difference from last year.  Before they fixed her iron last year she was below 0% on both, she grew a bunch after the iron supplements worked. Her Dr. says she still pretty far behind on speech though, so he's having the nurse looking into speech classes for her. We've not heard more on that yet, but with the holiday I didn't except to hear yet.

 The girls snuggle bunnied on the couch one morning while it was still chilly.  The weather was pretty nice last week though, so lots of outside time and very little snuggle bunnying.

Boo was being silly wearing L-bug's bike helmet. 

The babies started the preparatory curriculum at Letter of the week.  I don't make a big deal about it, since Boo's still really little, but its hard to tell her not to do something Ro-bear's doing.  Pretty much we read some stories on the theme of the week and I write things on their poster (read piece of paper taped to the wall).  L-bug loves the baby school, she sits in the rocker doing some quiet work and listens to their story.  Boo has figured out that 'school work" comes right before nap time though so she's kinda tries to make it longer so she can stay up, but I don't fall for that lol.  It takes 5-10 minutes so nice and brief and Ro-bear loves it.

I've been trying to work on a nice routine for the house hold.  We've had them before, but things like nap time changing and new classes and just big holidays likes Christmas throw us off and you have to stop and think- what do we NEED to do.  So far we've added back in game night and movie night and everyone loves that.  We're due for a field trip soon, just not sure what. Planetarium maybe.

We've also been working with L-bug who went from loving math to hating it and we've found up to flips her numbers like crazy- so while she can DO the math involved she can't keep it all straight if we ask her to write it down and she's gotten discouraged poor kid.

On the cooking front we've tried meals from Don't Panic- Dinner's in the Freezer.  So far we're three for three all delicious.  We've also made baguettes and chocolate bread (or was that last post) and all kinds of yummy's out of the meals from around the world book who's name escapes me.

On the crafting front I've started a lapquilt for next Christmas. So far so good, but a long way to go.
Let's see- nature wise, the two cactuses died, the butterfly's still in his cacoon and the other plants are chugging along, we also added parsley to our collection. Its doing well and is yummy. 

Hope you all have a lovely week and I'll see you back here next week.

Happy New Year (just a little late)

One of my goals for the new year is to cook more instead of just heating up food.  I really do enjoy cooking, but with the girls sometimes its just easier to heat food and eat.  So far this year we had this meal shown above- Lemon and Garlic Chicken with Focaccia bread last Friday, then we had Cheesy Chicken bundles Sunday which made enough to freeze another meal worth, and then Baguettes Monday and Chocolate bread with Spaghetti yesterday.  So far it seems like mostly just breads, but hey its baking.   The Lemon Chicken was yummy, but L-bug hated it.  The Cheesy Chicken was a hit with everyone and the chocolate bread was yummy, but not as sweet as L-bug excepted.

January seems to be birthday month.  Ro-bear's birthday is Monday, her party's tomorrow.  Then we had friend Ks little J's 1st birthday last weekend and neighbor S's little J's 1st birthday next weekend and her boy C's birthday the next weekend.  Shew, birthday month, there's also the girl's cousin E's birthday in there somewhere. 

 I love this picture.  I think the cake meets Ro-bear's approval.  Which reminds me I need to bake a cake today...

 These outfits the girls wore to church last week.  They were given to them for Christmas by daddy's best friend's mama, their new Grandma Mary.  She picked out some awesome outfits, the girls looked really nice.

 Sorry about the mess, just look at the girls :).  We're still cleaning up and reorganizing from Christmas.

Ro-bear's selfie.  It just cracks me up.

 Ro-bear found a map and proceeded telling her dolly where people lived on the map.

 Santa brought Ro-bear lots of chalk, so we all got out the big chalk board and colored together.  The problem with chalk is one person crawls over the board and takes out everyone's pictures in one swell foop.

 Ro-bear explaining to me she wants me to look at the pictures she took... which included above self portrait. 

The girls started in on book binding out of their own volition.  L-bug wanted to make Ro-bear a book for her birthday and wanted it to stay together.  We watched a lot of youtube videos on book binding then decided on a method and I had to help because it involved poking holes in the paper with sharp objects, then we sewed it up and now we just have to hope L-bug gets it done by Ro-bear's birthday.  Good luck on that Bug. 

Oh L-bug also started a homeschool cheerleading group this week.  We'll see how it goes, so far she loves it.  The other two girls in the class are older though and more experienced and it made her feel a little behind.  We explained that she just has to work hard and she'll get better.  She took to the cheer part easily, its the tumbling she's "behind" on...

 

This week was a little crazy, the weather was too cold to step outside for the first half of the week and the girls weren't feeling into the routine thing, we felt a little off all week.  On the bright side we're not halfway through second grade.  L-bug is very happy about that.  Here's to a lovely weekend and a much calmer week ahead (please please let it be calmer)

A Christmas Overview

So on Christmas Eve we drove around looking at the lights around town, every time Ro-bear saw a house with lights she would yell POLKA DOTS, we knew she'd fallen asleep when the cries stopped. 

Funny things the kids said leading up to Christmas-

L-bug- "Mom, we need to put out a fresh roll of toilet paper, Santa might need to use our bathroom."

two weeks before Christmas the girls gifts were already wrapped- Ro-bear "Mom, you get me a doll for Christmas?"  Me: "I don't know"  Ro-bear "if you forgot we can unwrap it and see."

4 days before Christmas: Lbug: "how many more days until Christmas?" Me: There are (interrupted by someone's toot) days until Christmas. L-bug" LOL- there are toot days until Christmas. But wait that would be better if it were two."

Okay I'm sure there were others, but those are the ones that stuck with me.  Here are some pictures from Christmas far and wide.

 Chilling out on Christmas eve

 Milk and cookies for santa? Try egg nog and buckeyes

 Christmas eve pjs

 ready to go looking at lights

 Santa came

 Ug sissy, what's all the noise about?

 Boo and Ro-bear went to the wrong Santa gifts at first then Boo saw new boots and Ro-bear saw a train the one thing she asked Santa for, so they switched piles and were happy.

 Ro-bear's choo choo didn't have a battery, so she was a little upset, then Daddy to the rescue with a battery.

 Daddy's new tenor uke.

 On my birthday L-bug got a Christmas present (I found these on sale and hoped someone would give L-bug some money for Christmas then gave her these) she looked at them all excited then said, oh its your birthday are these yours?

 Spoiled rotten little girl has daddy feeding her cereal.

 Boo LOVES her new baby Jesus, who cares about any other toy, that baby is sweet.

 L-bug got an American Girl doll she's been dying to get.

 After Christmas my mamaw mailed L-bug a bracelet loom and L-bug loves it, she sat right down and made this bracelet.

Sorry there are millions of pictures, but that was Christmas, over three states and over almost an entire week.  Shew we've been a little tired recovering from all that excitement.