Tie Dye with Will

Mom found this craft on Pinterest, and, since we already had all the stuff, we decided to give it a whirl this afternoon when it was raining out.

You need a white shirt, colored sharpie markers, a cup, rubbing alcohol, a bulb syringe, and a rubber band or hair elastic. Oh, and an adorable age appropriate helper.

We put the cup under the shirt and secured it with the elastic. Will colored a few spots in the circle. Then, we filled the syringe with rubbing alcohol and squirted it on the marker spots. We watched them travel throughout the circle, experimenting with adding more when we wanted it to spread out more.

When one circle area was done, we moved to the next. There really was hardly any mess from this craft and it was so easy, Will was able to do all the steps except securing the band by himself. It was a great dinner time craft. It did get a bit smelly in the kitchen area from the rubbing alcohol, but it quickly went away. After we were done, we tossed the shirt into the dryer to set the colors and voila: a new shirt!

Photo Wall

We've been working on a photo wall for the dining room for more than a week. We decided to use all photos of our apple picking adventures from the last two years, with room to add as we continue the tradition. Here's what we have so far. (click on the picture to enlarge)

Izzy's Birthday Party

Today was Kylie's best friend's birthday party! Happy Birthday, Izzy! It was a Sesame Street themed party, not to be confused with Kylie's future "Elmo only" party.

Everything was very impressive and detail oriented. Just look at that food!

We brought our bounce house and the weather turned beautiful just as the party started. (note: Kylie is a bad influence)

The night before the party, Megan and Andi (Izzy's Mom), stayed up very late creating this rainbow layered cake for the party. It turned out wonderful!

The birthday girl loved everything; and tried everything on as she opened it.

Happy Birthday, Izzy, we love you!

Ky's Big Girl Bed

Since it was the weekend, Daddy had serious Lowe's anxiety. (Is there a Lowe's anonymous?) Originally, he wanted to do yard work, but this pretend spring we keep having leaves just as quickly as it arrives and it was very cold and windy this weekend. So, he settled on making a big girl bed for Kylie, which she's been asking for for quite some time. To be clear: Daddy went to Lowe's, got new tires on his car, came home, and had this entire bed made and painted by bedtime; it only had to dry overnight before it made it's way to Kylie's room by 8am today.



She's fully potty trained now and even wakes up from naps to yell, "BAFFROOMM!!", so we figured getting her out of her cage crib would be helpful.



The bed is a crowd pleaser, just ask all the babies and bears that will be joining her for bedtime later.

We ordered her this quilt from ebay to complete the princess resting place.

Pigtails Gone Wild

Our crazy girl is now day time potty trained. We don't know how that happened so quickly.

She has quite a personality and her vocabulary is amazing. It seems like there's nothing she can't say. She amazes me everyday with her ability to read emotions and show concern for those who are hurt or sad. She figures out how to comfort people, too. Yesterday, her friend, Izzy, stayed home from the Y because she was sick. When I told Kylie that Izzy was sick, she said, "Izzy sick? Need med-cine? Bwankie. Mommy. O-tay, Izzy." She's so caring and sweet like that.

Will Version 4.5

Someone in Will's preschool set the bar high by sending in treats for a half birthday celebration. Everyone in Will's class has a summer birthday because that's how they divide up the 4 year olds; young and older 4s are in different classes. So, since Will won't bring cupcakes to school for his actual birthday unless it happens to fall on the 1st day of school (and won't that teacher love cupcakes on the first day), we made cake pops to send to school tomorrow.

Grammie and Grandpa in the snow

Welcome back to the roller coaster of weather in Virgina. Sunday afternoon, the hyped up "snow storm" arrived, 2 hours late. Mommy had told Will that it was going to start snowing at nap time and when it didn't he said, "Why can weather men just change the weather like that?" True enough. Luckily, the weather man didn't make a complete liar out of Mom, and it snowed from 3pm on. We actually had some accumulation this time; almost 2 inches.



Everyone headed right outside after breakfast for a romp in the snow before Grammie and Grandpa headed home.

grammie and grandpa

Grammie and Grandpa spent Presidents' Day Weekend with us here in sunny snowy Virginia. There were lots of tickles, tackles, giggles, books, projects, board games, and of course, good food.

Grandpa and Daddy did a lot of projects around our house and even one at our friends' house. They managed to squeeze in a game of golf, too! While they were golfing, Grammie, Mommy, the kids, and the dog went down to the creek on Saturday.

Kylie wore undies all weekend! What a big girl!

and there's that good food we mentioned; Kylie sampled everything on Grandpa's plate each night.

We had a great visit and can't wait for our next round of visitors.