Scott, Ashley, Rachel & Alexa

These were the priorities this morning:

It looks like we have a future food designer on our hands! This was at snack the other day. 

Rachel had a Valentine's party at school last week. We worked through the week to practice writing her name on each of her valentines for her friends at school. She didn't quite understand the concept since she had never exchanged valentines before. Each one she signed her name to, she was certain was for herself. When I picked her up from school, she was so excited to show me all of her valentines that she couldn't even wait the 5 minutes drive home! She tore her bag in the car trying to get it open! When the day of actually came, I had several things planned for the girls. Scott took them to the store because they wanted to give me roses for Valentine's Day!  As for them, they love to do little projects. 

Megs and I have been participating in a block of the month club at a local quilt shop. It's so much fun for us to "have to get together" each month to work on our blocks. I've been learning how to piece blocks together, which is something I haven't done much. Mostly my quilts have been squares or rectangles. These have mixed things up for me and I am starting to see how much I'm learning. I'm also starting to gain confidence in getting my corners together! This one turned out so well that I can't wait to do the next one!

We recently got to celebrate this birthday! Although we kept things low key, the girls still enjoyed celebrating Dad! Happy birthday, Scottie!

Last spring I started a project for the girls to have a fun and different way to practice writing their letters. It's started out with a trip to good old JoAnn's to find chalkboard fabric. Way cheaper than I ever imagined...it's only about $5/yard! The directions say to prime the fabric prior to use by rubbing it with chalk in all directions then wiping it off. I did this, then traced my letters in reverse on the back. The most tedious part of the whole project was cutting out all of the letters. 

Since Rachel got a bike for her birthday, I thought a book about riding a bike would be fun. I knew I needed to pick a book that alexa would enjoy reading with us as well. Eventually, I came across "Curious George rides a bike" at the library. 

Rachel came to me this afternoon with a forlorn look on her face. She said to me, "Mom, I dumped all of the princesses out on my bed, but I don't know which one to play with."  It is so rough being 4!

We have the most wonderful crib for the girls' baby dolls. One of the things that makes it so wonderful is how old it is. We inherited this crib from my grandmother, who was the original owner. While we are grateful to have it and love it, it has also been a small trial for us. Alexa climbed in one time and broke something. Scott has had to repair it several times by replacing the screwsand whatnot. These fixes have led to this... 

I was searching through the largest cork board ever (pinterest) for a valentine idea a couple of weeks ago. I came across a cute little valentine with key chains! That set me off on a search for key chain crafts. I found a great tutorial for sewn key chains. It was a Thursday and I decided to just see what kind of scraps I had. I just happened to have the perfect size scrap to make this!

Rachel has been growing like a weed lately and we realized how much when she recently had her birthday! The day as a whole was pretty low key. We started with birthday pancakes, which are regular pancakes with sprinkles on them. Rachel's had to have purple sprinkles, of course! She got to pick a movie to watch with Dad and Alexa while I was off to a YW meeting for the morning. Then it was lunch and naps, during which I made the purple cupcakes.


Alexa, of course, had to get the party hats out while we sent Rachel to check the mail.


Once we were ready with our hats on, Rachel got to open her presents. I had taken Alexa to the dollar store earlier and let her pick two things for Rachel. When asked what she got for her birthday, her response was typically something in regards to what she got from her sister. Apparently I need to let Alexa do the birthday shopping next year! She picked out a pack of Mickey Mouse stickers and a bag of brightly colored pom-poms.


The crowning glory for us this year though was her big gift from us...


We hid her bike in our bedroom and when she found it, she simply exclaimed, "My bike! Oh no! I don't have a helmet!" We didn't include the helmet because we wanted to let her pick it out herself. She has had so much fun shopping for a helmet even though we haven't found one she likes that fits yet. We have some time on that though since she is just learning to manipulate the pedals in our kitchen for now. I am looking forward to her being able to ride around this spring while I push Alexa in a stroller though. So many fun times are ahead for her!