a sense of impending doom...

The kids have been so snarly today! Picking fights, whining and so on. And I've been a tad snarly too, having a hard time being patient. Spencer has been his usual cheerful self, but he did take a short afternoon nap. Maybe that was his way of showing how upset he is that daddy is leaving on Saturday to spend the next month in Georgia looking for a job.

Sometimes I don't realize how much I look forward to him coming home, and the cheerful way he pitches in and helps out. How he tickles the kids until they can tell him where their femur is. How he teases them and they've learned to hardly ever take him seriously.

We're all going to miss him. Ain't no sunshine when he's gone.

kids with a camera

Fairy Visitor

Brighton lost her two bottom teeth! She had been wiggling one for weeks, and I didn't think she was ever going to get it out. I told her about the toilet paper trick (put a piece of toilet paper over the tooth and pull. Rocket science.), she tried it and it worked! We had just discovered that her second bottom tooth was wiggly the day before. I went upstairs to put Spencer to bed and she tried toilet paper on the second one and pulled it out!

She was so excited about A! FAIRY! COMING! TO! HER! HOUSE! that she made this little fairy sized envelope to put her teeth in. I was sure she would lose her teeth as she kept taking them out to show dad, Brooklyn, the man out walking his dog, etc. But she ended up with both of them that night and the tooth fairy left her two dollars!

Trees are budding...

This was another fun activity that I tied into their school work.

Take a piece of paper and add a paper trunk.

Cut out 1" (ish) size squares out of tissue paper

Dab dots of glue in a branch like pattern and have kids scrunch up tissue paper and press onto the glue dot.


This is Logan showing his tissue paper ball. He loved this part!








Brooklyn sticking her "leaves" on.






Brighton's finished product. She wanted a swing on her tree. :)

We'll definitely do this again! We could do pink and white for spring blossoms, and fall colors later on.

What to do on an overcast day...

Has anyone seen this book at their library? I just love it. It's a story about a town that was tired of the gloomy weather, so the baker decided to bake some sun bread so the sun would come out.
We love to bake sun bread on an overcast day.

The book has a good recipe on the back cover, but any bread recipe will do.

side note: Isn't that age when kids cannot give a sincere smile for the camera just fabulous? When pretty much every picture taken of them makes them look deranged and slightly crazy? Love it.Our finished products. Brighton decided to make a sun cat, Brooklyn a sun teddy bear, and Logan smooshed together a flower.

The best part? After we took our bread out of the oven, the sun came out. Success!!

the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth...

The tooth fairy will be making her first appearance at our house pretty soon. She's been waiting to come for weeks actually, Brighton is a bit of a non-wiggler. Her permanent tooth got tired of waiting for space and came in behind. She has orthodontia in her future, that's for sure. :)

But I was wondering, since a precedent will be set here for the whole family, what's the going rate for your tooth fairy? I remember getting a buck a tooth and $2 for molars. One glorious week I lost four molars and was rich!

But ended up with bus tokens. (love that book!)

So, how much?

If you give a child a chore...

they're going to get distracted. :)

Golly, do kids have the shortest attention spans ever?! I'm not asking a lot from them. We don't have to be ready to catch a bus at 7:30am, or to really ever go anywhere before noon. (Which is one of the reasons I home school.) I just want them to be ready for the day by 10:30, so we can start school.

Is that so hard?


Apparently. :)


If I send Brooklyn upstairs to get dressed, she spots the dress-ups and decides to be a ballerina.
If I ask Brighton to make her bed, she finds the book she hid under her pillow and reads for a half hour.
Logan is better, but I have to help him with his responsibilities. Get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, clean room. I help him with all that.

The girls though- come on! I made them responsibility charts, so I can just ask them to check their charts instead of constantly nagging.

This is one of those kid things that I think is funny bordering on frustrating.
I'm not really complaining, just venting. Kids! :)

Fairy Tea Party

I went to a Fairy Tea Party a few years ago at the Provo Library. It was so fancy, it was more like the fairy prom! I thought it would be really fun to do on my own, with my girls and their friends. I need something to look forward to during the ugly months of February and March. My family swaps valentines every year, and the kids and I always have fun making valentines. But after that fun is over, I'm just waiting and waiting for spring to get here.

So I decided that the first Saturday of March will now be the Fairy Queen's Annual Tea Party!

I invited six of my little girls' friends and asked three older girls to be my fairy helpers. I even sent save the date's out before the invitations.

{So posh!}

My three fairy helpers came over a few times before the big day to help me plan the menu, make wings, and plan the activities. My helpers were so great, and I could not have done it without them! Thanks to Fiona, Camilla and Ella who definitely do not read my blog. :)

Brighton and Brooklyn were really excited for a looong time, and had fun helping me with craft ideas and fancy food planning.
My helpers came about an hour early to help set up. After all the fairies arrived, we sat down and each fairy introduced herself and told us what kind of fairy she was. Then we had a talk on fairy manners before sitting down for lunch. I made little sandwiches (jam, ham and cucumber) and cheese scones served with lemonade. My fairy helpers were great here serving everyone.
This little girl on the right, Anne, was such a cutie! She stayed in character and always referred to me as "Fairy Queen". So sweet, I loved it! :)

We did two crafts- fairy wands and crowns. I liked the crown idea - using foil to make designs, but the wands didn't go well. I got out glitter, and it turns out that I can't handle the glitter.

After the crafts we had treats. I made little cupcakes, little cookies, cake balls and raspberry mousse. Fancy and fun! We had time for a little parade/dance and that was it. Two hours was a good time length. I have plans to make a fairy dress in the future, but this was the best I could do with limited time. My girls loved my skirt, which is actually a slip. Don't worry, I was wearing pants underneath. :) I also didn't get to decorate my house like I wanted to, draping tulle and putting flowers everywhere. All of my kids took turns being sick and throwing up the week before. Brooklyn actually spent the party watching from the couch because she had thrown up that morning. I'll have to make sure they know not to do that next time.

Now I get to plan for next year! :)

Back to the routine

We've been on vacation to Utah (yay!) We got to see most of my family, all of James' family and to be a part of his sister Jennifer's wedding. Crazy fun!

I need to get my pictures off the camera - all five of them, I am so bad at remembering to take pictures!

I'm off to unpack and get settled, but will leave you all with this thought:

I was getting out applesauce as a snack for my kids, and they like to have cinnamon sprinkled on top. I grabbed a spice that looked like cinnamon out of the cupboard and sprinkled some on. Wrong one apparently. Cumin is NOT a good substitute for cinnamon. :)