Monday, March 22, 2010

Amen! (Amen!)


Yesterday at church Thomas and his preschool class sang If You're Happy And You Know It. I had my camera on me and did my best to get a clip of it. Sorry it is a little blurry and bumpy in spots. I was giggling in part of it and our camera has a hard time getting a good shot in the church because there isn't a lot of light. Enjoy it though! Thomas is wearing the purple, green, and white sweater vest! He is also the one saying "Amen" after everyone! :-)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

North Liberty Easter Egg Hunt is Next Saturday!

Just want to share that next Saturday is the North Liberty Easter Egg hunt! Brent and I will hopefully be able to take the boys to have a fun morning out. We are supposed to be having a garage sale, so one of us will probably take the boys then. Should be a fun time!


Easter Egg Hunt

The North Liberty Optimist Club and the Recreation Department will co-sponsor the annual Easter Egg Hunt. Candy will be spread in the grass area. If inclement weather, event will move inside at the NLRC. Don’t be late, the candy vanishes in minutes!
Ages: 10 yrs & under
Date: Saturday, March 27
Time: 10:30AM Sharp!
Location: Penn Meadows Park fields 3 & 4 or NLRC
Fee: FREE

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Don't steal me' rainbow cupcakes!

The boys and I made rainbow cupcakes yesterday for St Patrick's Day. It was a great way to practice colors with Thomas. We went over which colors when put together make other colors. The recipe was super easy to do. You just make your cake mix as usual. Then you separate it out into 6 equal parts. You add food coloring to each bowl to make the six colors of the rainbow. Then you layer them with a spoon or teaspoon into your cupcake pans in the order of a rainbow. When you pull the cupcake liners off it looks like a rainbow down the side of the cupcake. Bite into them and they look even cooler!!! For extra flair we decorated the top of them with green sprinkles for St. Patrick's Day. Thomas helped me with everything and even Ollie helped in the kitchen. He had his own bowl and spoon he played with in the kitchen.

Here Thomas was practicing lining up the cup cake liners. I will have to remember how much fun it was for him to do this. He kept counting them over and over as he re-stacked them each time.

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He thought the liners were just hilarious. We normally don't make a lot of cupcakes so these are cool to him. I like that it is less mess, he likes that they, "are like blocks but make crinkly noises." Go figure.

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Thomas loves to help stir the cake mix. He kept asking me what things he can do. I don't let him crack the eggs but boy would he love it if I did. He had fun using the whisk to mix the ingredients together.

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Here the batter has been divided up into ceramic dishes. It took a little bit of trial and error to get the dye colors right but the turned out perfectly with a little extra hard work.

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Here is the batter all layered in the liners. Just remember if you try this yourself to allow for a little room from the top since the batter will expand. A little batter goes a long ways.

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Here you can just about see all the colors. The trick I think is using just a dab less on each layer if you want it to bake just right.

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Showing off the cupcakes before going in the oven. He was very proud of our hard work in the kitchen. Both the boys kept wanting to watch through the glass window in the oven.

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Ta da!!! They are done!!! He begged me to let him eat one right away. How could I say no?

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Unfortunately one meant TWO. I made him wait to frost the cupcakes before eating any. Oliver was getting pretty testy with me--he wanted those cupcakes right then and there!

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Thomas couldn't decide which one he wanted. This picture just cracks me up. You can just tell how excited he is to get his hands on that cupcake!

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Silly boy!

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Better take one last picture before they are all gone!

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The destruction of the first cupcake! Youngest always come first!

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At last....cupcakes for all!

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The aftermath photo. They both ended up with frosting all over their face. However Oliver also had a little sugar rush. He loves his sugar. Don't tell our dentist! :-)

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Hy-Vee - Red Hot Weekend - March 13th & 14th

Hy-Vee - Red Hot Weekend - March 13th & 14th
Just saw this from HyVee. They will be running some special deals on the 13th and 14th plus they are handing out special bonus coupon booklets for everyone who participates. Last year the coupon books in the spring were good for over $50 off in HyVee brand products. If you are headed out to shop this weekend would definitely be worth the trip. Make sure to check the specials online, they are not releasing them until 5 PM on Thursday.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Happy Birthday Thomas!

We had Thomas's birthday party on Sunday. Thomas wanted to have a Star Wars party so we did all things Star Wars. This was the first year that we let him help pick out everything (on a budget of course). These days he loves super heroes, anything related to science, and star wars. He has grown up so fast! I find myself wondering what happened to my little boy. He is so big now!

I made the invitations using an invite we found online. They turned out pretty cute. Thomas loves to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii with dad so it was a perfect find for us. They were cheap to make too because I just printed them from Walgreens for 10 cents each.

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We ordered our cake from Ginny's Cakes here in North Liberty. Normally I am not one to do the custom cakes but she also did Oliver's first birthday cake. I was so impressed I wanted her to make a cake again for us! She did such an awesome awesome job! She custom made us an R2D2 cake exactly like I wanted it to be! Thomas's face lit up when he saw the cake. R2D2 was a big hit with everyone else at the party too!

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I tried to get a couple of pictures taken for all the out of town people that couldn't make it. We decorated the place black, blue, and green and with little stars everywhere.

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Thomas got lots of presents and loves his new toys. We are going to be getting rid of some of his old things he doesn't play with anymore. We will be donating them this weekend with a special post-birthday party trip. We do this every major holiday and birthday to keep it simple around here.

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Here is another photo of the main living area. Brent set up some fun music for us to listen to during the party. We played star wars music of course plus a bunch of Thomas's favorite songs and a few party songs.

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Here is Thomas with his birthday cake! He was smiling so big!!!

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Here Thomas and Austin are posing by the big Darth Vader and Yoda poster we found at a party store. It was a lucky find and you can be sure it will be going up in the basement play room!

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These were the "yoda sodas" we made. They were made with lime sherbet, ginger ale, and lemon lime soda. They were extra fizzy and green like yoda! I found them online and couldn't resist, it was too cute of an idea to pass up! We also served "galactic pizza" and "space snacks."

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And what is a party without a couple presents? Here Thomas is opening some cool star wars gear. All the kids had a blast testing out the new toys.

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Grandma got him a star wars coloring book and pajama set too!

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Oliver was so cute at the party. He was calm here but he loved the balloons and the remote controlled R2D2 his brother got.

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Thursday, March 4, 2010

March is here!

What a wonderful month it has been already! I celebrated my birthday on the first of March and the boys and I have been enjoying the little bit of "warmer" weather we have had. Spring is definitely on it's way and we are all excited for some spring time fun. To celebrate my birthday Oliver and I enjoyed some yummy chocolate.

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The result was a sticky chocolate mess as you can see but fortunately no damage was done. Last I checked a little bit of chocolate is actually good for you so we treated ourselves to a couple pieces.

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Ollie and Thomas have been playing a lot lately in their little play house. The boys love to play peekaboo and hide and seek using the play house. We can't wait for the snow to melt so we can pull it outside for the summer.

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Oliver also has been really enjoying his Elmo's World DVD lately. Elmo is his favorite and he loves to dance around the room when Elmo is on. It is pretty cute to watch him do it. Funny thing is Thomas didn't care for Elmo near as much as Ollie does. I remember when Thomas was little we got him the TMX Elmo and he didn't care for it at all! Wish we had hung onto it because Oliver loves Elmo and all of the Sesame Street characters. Funny how different the two can be sometimes!

IMG_0127.jpg picture by hawkeyeglaser