One Proud Mommy!

Look at my girl! 

She was recognized for good citizenship and all "A" honor roll.

Sorry for the blurry pictures, but it's the best I could do from the 9th row.

I'm one proud Mommy!

Have a great day!

Keeping the Kids Busy

School has been out since last Thursday and I've been trying to think of ways to keep the kids busy.  The weather also turned colder and so that means more inside activities.

My cousin and her daughters came over last week and the kids played tea party, decorated cupcakes, watched movies, ate soup and sandwiches, and painted their fingernails (sans Boo-Boo).

The kids dressed up in our clothes:

They also did some crayon crafts this week and learned "pointillism" art (definitely need parental supervision for this craft, thankfully there were no burned fingers in the making of this art).

My cousin and her kids went with us on a "field trip" to the Asian market.   I just wish I knew what the characters meant on the packaging at H-Mart.

 (aren't these ladies pretty?!?!)

(anyone know what you can do with palm sugar?)

Then we headed over to the Dekalb Farmer's Market.  The kids love oohing and aahing over the fish counter and meat counter...

  (right after this picture, Boo-Boo had a complete conniption fit and 

thought the crabs were scary and gonna get him!)

 (yes these are chicken feet...one of the highlights of the trip)

I have a last minute wedding cake and grooms cake due Saturday at 11 a.m.  I hope they turn out.  I really do.  I'll share the end result on our Blue Eyed Daisy Facebook page.  Have you "liked" us yet?

What do you do during the colder days of winter to keep the kids busy?

Disney's Tangled Party

When we first saw Tangled, I knew it was a keeper.  It appeals to girls and boys of all ages.  Our family thoroughly enjoyed it.  I immediately started planning a party for Sissy and her friends.  But then life happened and it got put on the back burner.  Finally, we had the party over the weekend.  I pretty much cased (copied-and-stole-everything) from this blog post and this one.  They had fantastic ideas and I saw no reason to change it.  After all, isn't that why we blog?  To share ideas with others?

So this is what we did.

We kept the decorations pretty simple. 

Wooley and I created two long braids with a whole skein of yellow yarn.  I hung one on the front door and one over the table from the light fixture.

Then I cut out the sun template and used a metallic gold spray paint to paint some purple pennants.  Then we hung them around the rooms and around the front porch.

I tried to recreate the tower in cake form using this post.  I found the orchid candy melts at Hobby Lobby and the waffle cone from Aldi.  I couldn't find the oversized muffin and forgot to bring home a muffin from work so I just used a big muffin from Walmart.  I ended up covering part of the muffin with the candy melts to exaggerate the roof line to mimic the actual tower in the movie.  I also didn't like the idea of the pecan swirl things, because I was unsure of the nut allergies of the other girls attending the party.  And I wanted it to be a tower...really tall.  So I baked some mini cupcakes and peeled them out of their liners and stacked them using a dowel rod.  It worked pretty good.

After it was all together, I piped green ivy and leaves all over the sides.  I had some old flowers from my wedding {gasp - I told you I was a hoarder!} and pulled them off to use on the sides of the tower.  I also used the larger flowers to top the cupcakes.

As for the cupcakes, I made the cupcake picks by print screening paused scenes of the movie on youtube.  I'm sure there is some sort of copyright infringement here, but I'm not selling them and used them for the kids.

We made tower fruit kabobs.  Filling cast iron skillets with fruit and cheese.  A cast iron skillet is a big deal in the movie.

I made braided pizza bread {reminiscent of her hair}.  I found a cute picture on pinterest and figured it wouldn't be that hard.  I used crescent rolls, but wished I had used puff pastry.  It would've tasted much better.  I served this with meatballs and marinara and a salad.

Sissy requested 'purple punch'.  So I made up this crazy conglomeration of purple powerade, purple cool-aid, purple grape juice concentrate, seltzer water and ice cubes.  It tasted pretty good.  The girls drank the whole thing.

They colored paper lanterns with water colors and markers.

We helped them make wacky hair with pipe cleaners, tulle and silk flowers.

The girls had a great time.

Having these friends in our lives is a blessing.  I've been friends with the mothers for years.  And I mean literally years, like 20 years plus.  So to know them and have them in our lives is truly a special gift.  And I thank Jehovah God for having such true and great friends.  Okay, enough of the sappy stuff :)  But I really do mean it.

Hope you have a great week!

Are you planning any parties?  Do you "case" ideas from other blogs?  If you don't, you should.  :)

Student of the Month October 2011

Guess who made Student of the Month?

You guessed it!

So proud of Sissy!

Enjoy!

Apple Picking 2011

We had the best time.  Wooley went with us for the first time.  Our friends Chris, Jana and Shayla came along too.  We picked apples and petted animals.  Then we ate apple pies.  We drove up to Amicalola Falls and walked down 425 steps to view the falls.  Breathtaking.  Then we walked back up 425 steps to get back to the the cars.  

All was documented on my camera.  

Lots of pictures, like 200 pictures.  

But I deleted ALL.OF.THEM!!!  

I was so sick to my stomach I couldn't even eat supper that night. 

But life goes on.  

We'll take more pictures another year and we'll make more memories.

This year we'll have our memories in our minds.

First Day of School Cake 2011-2012

This was our first time to have our first day of school cake for dinner.  Obviously I'm a little behind on sharing pictures.  Oh well, busy, busy.  

Do y'all have a first day of school tradition?

Enjoy!

First Day of School - Kindergarten for Sissy

As you may have heard, our charter school option fell through, along with many other charter schools, when they were put on trial with the Court system.  Oh well, I was thinking I was getting a little too involved anyway.  

I immediately went into plan B.  

Public School.  

I was happy to hear we were not assigned to the school about 2 miles away, but to another one, about 5 miles away.  It's an older school and the teachers are wonderful.  I was able to get a tour before the end of the school year last year by the principal.  She was super nice.  We attended orientation last Thursday night to meet our teacher, Ms. K.  She was so nice.  She's been teaching for 27 years.  She didn't look old enough to be teaching that long, she said she has 3 grown children and even a 2 year old grandchild.  I decided to take a little gift.  Since we will not be participating in the holidays or birthday celebrations, I wanted her to know we do care about the education of our child and that I would be involved in other ways.  I made this.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the one I made, but it was relatively identical.  I used an old picture frame from the garage and printed the wording on regular printer paper.  Then framed it without the glass.  After that, I sent the kids out to find three small sticks.  We hot-glued them on in the shape of the letter "A", wrapped the whole thing in tissue paper and attached a "thank you" card.  Super frugal, but very sweet.  She was deeply touched.  Today, when I took Sissy in for her first day, Ms. K gave us a "thank you" card expressing her delight saying she had a "show and tell" with all the other teachers in the building.  I was so happy :) 

So far so good with the Public School.  If for some reason it doesn't work out, we'll go to Plan C, homeschool.  

In the meantime, we are going to take one day at a time.  

Here's some pictures from this morning:

 I found these cute printables.

 she was so excited!

such a poser!

with her teacher Ms. K

 at her table with breakfast

 

she had cinnamon pancakes, apple and milk

Hope you have a great week!

Wordy Wednesday: 8/10/11

Last week was a whirlwind.  I feel like life is spiraling out of control lately!  I need to figure out how to take control of the wheel!

We took the little kids tubing in Helen on Saturday.  I tried to get pictures and video, but the camera batteries were completely dead.  UGH!  Here's a picture of us in the car on the way there.

Afterwards, we went to my cousin Brenda's house for a "movie under the stars".   The kids sat through the movie.  I'm not sure if it was because it was their first outdoor experience or if they were just plain exhausted from a fun day on the river.  

One of the sisters from their congregation had a popcorn machine, so the kids were happy to help get it ready.

We brought our blankets and laid on the grass in the side yard.  It was so fun!  We had a really great time!

 Lightning bugs came out just before the movie was starting and Sissy was so excited!  For some reason, we don't have any lightning bugs at our house.  I think it's because of the tree frogs.  I think they're eating them.  So you can imagine how excited she was to chase after them in the field!

 

Monday we went to a meeting at the Library in Douglasville to learn more about the K12 Georgia Cyber Academy for Wooley's 9th grade.  Thursday we are meeting Sissy's Kindergarten teacher.  Friday Wooley has an appointment at the doctor for a physical.  I need to make dental appointments for all the kids for check ups.  I'm not sure who's going to have cavities and who's going to need major work.  We'll see...

Have a great week!

Wordless Wednesday: Menchie's

Have you heard of Menchie's? 

It's a frozen yogurt shop.

It's so cute and fun!

I love all the flavors and the special toppings.

Everything from fresh fruit to candies.

The kids loved it!  "This is our mix"...

I got Margarita Tart with fresh strawberries and blueberries.

They got Chocolate with M&M candies.

So yummy!

Enjoy!

Have a great day and enjoy the Wordless Wednesday linky below:

This post has been linked to the following:

• Wordful Wednesday at parenting BY dummies
• Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom
• Wordless Wednesday at A Lot of Loves
• Wordless Wednesday at Newlyweds Blog 
• Wordless Wednesday at A Daily Dose of Toni
• Wordless Wednesday at A Beautiful Mess