Accessorize!

I started to crop this picture and then decided not to.

First, look at Riya. Whenever she watches TV, you'll often find her chewing on her toenails just like this. I'm pretty sure I have another picture of her doing this somewhere on this blog...

Second, look at Sydney. This was a few hours after she was dropped off at our house at the last second because Sarah is still in the hospital (of course) and Jerry realized (almost too late) that he had a meeting that morning that he had to go to. She was lucky to be dressed, poor girl. :) I think she is stunned in this picture. haha.

Finally, look at Emma. She was the reason for this picture. This girl cracks us up. She will walk around the house and find anything that she can to put on her body and will do it. This is actually pretty minimal for how she looks sometimes!

Here's the rundown: On here right hand, she is ever so graciously sporting a cell phone case as a glove. On her head, she has a very stylishly placed hat. On her left hand, she is sporting the latest trend - a finger light. Let's not forget her mommy's necklace around her neck paired so perfectly with her orange beaded one. 

What a fashionista. :)

The Last Airbender

For movie night tonight, The Last Airbender was chosen. I didn't last through the whole thing but the kids LOVED it!

This was what they did during the closing credits and for awhile afterwards. They were doing some "moves" like in the movie - and even posed for the camera!

This is the only one I got that wasn't blurry from so much movement!

Jayden's head has to suffer though. :)

I'm sure John will be thrilled that he's in the picture as well...

Phineas and Ferb - movie time

Apparently, Blogger either wants this picture upside-down or like this. I'll take it like this.

In case you don't know, we are big Phineas and Ferb fans around here. Luckily, we have friends who share our love for them - particularly a certain 7 year old boy who is buddies with my 7 year old boy. :) They were so excited for the new Phineas and Ferb movie to come out so, naturally, it had to be a special occasion! They made corn dogs to go along with the theme and we brought fries. Unfortunately, they were a little soggy by the time they made it to their house.

Oh well.

Here are four of the kids (who knows where Emma was at this moment) staring in amazement at the awesomeness that is P&F. :)

More Family Time!

So... we got to go to the Ewell's house tonight! This is John's sister Sarah, her husband and one of her adorable little kiddos. Actually, this picture has 2 of her kids in it... notice her adorable belly? :)
We had a lot of fun playing Killer Bunnies and eating yummy soup and pie!
It is nice having family in the same town! (pretty much)

Lagoon

We had a ton of fun at Lagoon and discovered some things:
1. Emma does not like to ride and kind of ride that goes fast or sudden.
2. Riya LOVES roller coasters and any other "scary" ride her little 38" could ride.
3. Jayden does not like roller coasters after his first try - it was a little scary of a choice for this first time though. He wouldn't go on any other after it.
4. A family of nearly 70 people that all have the same shirts on (each individual family had it's own color of shirt) will be recognized time and time again at the park.
5. Just looking at some of the rides (even the kiddie rides) made me sick to my stomach.
6. All 3 kids LOVED the sky ride.
7. If sandals are not properly secured on Emma's feet, she will lose it while on the sky ride.
8. Carrying around a hideous gorgeous paper mache cow will make people stare quite a bit - or at least do double shots in our direction. :)
9. John looks forward to the day that Riya is 48" and can go on all of the roller coasters with him!
10. We will be one of the last to win anything at the family raffle but it was worth the wait - we got the one thing we really had our eyes on!
11. A suggestion to go on the river rapids ride will result in 3 adults with enough kids that we had to divide in to three different rafts!
12. Watch out for sticker attacks and mascot kidnapping!
13. Riya DOES NOT like Dracula's castle or any kind of that kind of "scary" - only the thrill seeking rides. She buried her head through the whole castle!
14. Lagoon employees will dig through the trash to get a thrown away mascot to keep in their office.
15. One Lagoon employee will express her LOVE of cows to us as we are getting ready to leave in an attempt to keep Molly for her self. Sorry girlie, we are keeping her. :)

One of our tasks was to take a picture of our mascot (named Molly Moo Cow or Molly for short) riding a ride. This was our best attempt. Emma looks so confused about why I handed Molly to her. Emma hated this ride. It was just a spaceship that went up and down and around in circles. She wanted off almost immediately. Poor girl!

Such a fun day!

Vacation Time!

Today we left for our vacation to Utah/Wyoming to visit family - some of which we haven't seen for 2 years!

One thing that is always awesome about our trips out west is the very entertaining view on the GPS.

Once we get on I-80, this is pretty much what it looks like the whole way - just a straight, boring line....

At the end of the boring line is always a ton of fun so it makes it more bearable. :)

Movie Night

With Jayden being gone and John going to one of his monthly LAN parties, we had a Girls' Movie Night tonight instead of our usual Family Movie Night. We have a coffee table (John thinks we should call it a "hot chocolate table" but it doesn't flow quite as well. :) ) in our living room now so we put towels over the top, our usual blanket on the floor behind the girls and ate pizza while watching our movie.

Riya was very in to the movie at this point and she just looked cute trying to keep her greasy fingers from touching anything. :)

Fun night with my girls!

Braids

I often find myself mindlessly braiding my hair while John and I watch a movie or show (currently, our obsession is LOST). I found a cute way to braid on a blog and I decided to try it without brushing my hair or using a mirror (translation = very sloppily done) and this is how it turned out.
Ideally, the braids (especially the top one) would be more sideways and more even and the bun would be more messy.
Oh well - not bad for having my concentration on the plane wrecked survivors trying to stay alive on a crazy island. :)

Fireflies

AKA - Lightening Bugs.

Every night, we can look outside and see the magical flickering of these little bugs and it makes us so giddy. John and I feel like kids again while we look around (probably with huge eyes and opened mouths) at these thousands and thousands of Christmas-lights in the fields around our house. That is really what they remind us of - flickering Christmas lights!

Tonight, I tried to capture some on film and they wouldn't show up on the camera from my phone. Bummer. However, I thought some of the images turned out very pretty anyway. Here is a view from our front porch looking northwest.

I really love this "country" living!

June Craft Night

Tonight was our much anticipated craft night - and we made these cute necklaces. We combined June and July this month because a few of us will be out of town in July. Our June craft was bandana (or regular circle) skirts for the 4th of July but I couldn't make mine tonight because I still have not unpacked my sewing stuff. I just decided to do the necklaces - I made a purple one for Riya too.
So easy and so cute - watch out family - I hope you like them... you might receive one. ;)

Grandma Time

Grandma Jordan (my mom) came to visit us today and she brought goody bags for the girls! They each got some bubbles that didn't pop very easily and they had a lot of fun blowing them on the deck with Grandma. These bubbles will stick to things and not pop very easily. We looked on the roof of the house after this and there were a lot of bubbles just sitting on the tiles!
We also went to a BBQ for John's department at Purdue and had fun playing on the playground. Especially Riya when I decided to help her on the seesaw. :)

Garage Sale Part 2

Today was day 1 of my second garage sale. One of our friends live in a neighborhood that is having a sale this weekend and they are out of town so I asked if I could use their yard. She is awesome and said yes - so we set up outside her house today. Another friend brought some stuff over to sell too so we had a good amount of things to look through!
John brought the girls up so he could go to the lab and they quickly got bored! By the time we closed up, we were all hot, thirsty and a little bit burned. Oops - I forgot the sunscreen.
We closed up just in time for me to head over to Sonic for Happy Hour and I got this BIG drink. Seriously - a Strawberry Limeade Smoothie after a day like today was so refreshing - I don't know that anything could top it! Yum!

First Day of Summer Vacation

The kiddos decided to go play outside on the driveway - and Jayden was the only one ready for the picture. :)
We let it be a lazy morning, so lazy, in fact, that Jayden is still wearing his play clothes from field day yesterday. I'm pretty sure he slept in them, too.
Bring on summer and a (hopefully) significant decrease in laundry!

"Oh No! She Caught Me!"

This had to be the picture for today because she made this face almost intentionally, I think, because she knew I was trying to get a picture for John. Usually, she'll pose for approximately 1.232 seconds and then she'll take off. If I don't get it the first time - good luck.
So - this time I said her name, right after she grabbed my keys (she LOVES to push the panic button on so that the van starts making lots of noise right outside the house) and she looks up like this. Haha. This is also the expression she makes when she pushes the panic button on the keys.
She'll love me for this picture someday. I'm sure of it. :)

Mmmm. Popcorn.

Yet another popcorn post.
I am so happy it is garage sale season again!! I love finding treasures. Today was particularly awesome - amongst my other great finds, I found a stove top popcorn popper - practically brand new! It has a handle and a crank with stirring thing (official name!) inside. I was so stinkin' excited because I love popping corn on the stove - it tastes a million times better to me - and now I could be pretty official about it.
The kids were so excited to help me and they both took turns turning the crank around and around.

Cool huh?!

Typical Emma

This is what our little Emma looks like most days lately. She walks around with her milk and sips on it. She will play for a bit but always has that trusty cup with her to take a drink as needed.
It's so funny to watch. It's only that cup that she does this with too. Her other cups just don't have the "it" factor, I suppose.
Funny girl.

Craft Night

This month it was my turn to host craft night and we made cute little project boards from HERE. I don't think that anyone finished tonight for various reasons but we still had a lot of fun chatting and lightly crafting. :)

Worms!

When I picked Jayden up from school today, he had with him a bird feeder he had made in his enrichment group from a recycled milk container. He was all too anxious to put it outside so when we got home, that is exactly what we did.
It has been very windy lately and raining a lot and that pirate ship behind Jayden likes to go over to the neighbor's yard if blown just right. John put it very close to the back door to keep it from blowing as easily so we had to move it to get outside. The rain brought in about 15 worms seeking shelter under the pirate ships sides. Riya, who moments before was so excited to draw with her chalk, took one look at the worm colony and took off back into the house. Jayden, on the other hand, decided it would be fun to hold them. He gave me all sorts of facts that he'd recently learned at school and proudly posed with his worm.
Yum!
(Jayden's hands are not cold. They are colored from the awesome bird feeder he made. In case you were worried.)

Earthday Party

Okay - it was actually just a birthday party on Earth Day with an Earth Day theme.
Today was Riya's good buddy's birthday and they invited us to help celebrate with them. This was the best shot I could get of Riya during the celebration!
It was fun and the kids got to take home a small potted flower and a butterfly net in honor of Earth Day - cute huh?
(Haha - notice John, Emma and I in the mirror? Oh, and Melinda and Heidi too! Oops...)

Spring Dress

Check out that pose! She is becoming quite the little model! :)
The picture is slightly blurred - there must have been movement on one end - but I still had to use it!
The sewing bug must have hit me because I made this cute little dress for Riya today after making the cute shirt for me yesterday! Ahhhh, I love to sew....
This dress was made from a women's size 20 button front shirt. One of the local thrift stores was having a $0.75 sale a few weeks ago and I found this cute Tommy Hilfiger shirt. I instantly pictured a dress for one of the girls. I asked Riya if she wanted a green and white dress or a pink dress (future post) and she chose this one. The ribbon belt is looped through belt loops that I made from the cuff of the original sleeves. I followed THIS tutorial but I didn't add the waist band. I just added the belt loops and ribbon.
She loves it. I love it. It can be dressed up for church or dressed down for play. AND - it cost under $1... PERFECT!