Crazy Hair Day!!

I quit Facebook.  One of the hardest parts is not being able to post the blog updates or pictures of my kiddies. I will be sending out links to the blog to family members and close friends, as they are really the only people that want to view my lovely children.

Speaking of lovely.... Today was crazy hair day at the kid's school.

We got up early, got our supplies, and went a little crazy.

After the bird's nest last year Audrey wanted to do something else fun.  (Here are a few pics from the bird's nest last year):

I saw a picture, I believe from Martha Stewart, of a flower garden Halloween costume.  We created the flower garden a little differently. Audrey and I made the butterflies, Josh drilled the holes in our "fence", and I spray painted Audrey's hair green in the garden.

Hudson just wanted to color his hair, so we did that with the ponytails. He had blue in the middle row, green on one side, and orange on the other.  The orange didn't show up so well in his dark hair.

The novelty wore off early and they moved on to "Mindcraft".....
I'm going to try to keep up with the blog more, since this will be my only outlet to show pics of the kids. 

Have a great day!!!

Catch Up

I am catching you up on what has been happening with us since our Chicago trip in February.  You're welcome.

We had my Dad's Christmas in February.  We had to reschedule it a few times due to illnesses in the family.  We lucked out that they had snow as we really didn't see any accumulation here.


I always try to get a picture of the cousins together...it doesn't normally turn out. This time was no different.

The kids had fun in the snow with Josh, Jeremy, and my Dad.

Then the kids started chucking the snow. They should know better than to mess with the "adults".


We had a wonderful Christmas together. Family bonding and snow ball fighting...good times.

We headed up to Coleman one weekend for Josh's Great Uncle's 80th birthday party. It was really nice to see everyone. They had old pictures displayed. Josh brought this one to my attention. I made Cousin Mike hold it so I could take a picture of the picture...thanks Mike.

Do you recognize this look on the little boy? Look what he is about to do to these unsuspecting bundled girls.

This little boy is Josh's Dad. I've seen this same expression on Josh AND Hudson. Genetics freak me out!

We had Audrey and Hudson's music concerts one week apart.  Uncle Jim and Aunt Jeanette came with us to root the kids on.

Marshall has started to "photobomb" me...which is always fun.


Can you tell which of my children LOVE to sing?  Other children circled out so you know which children belong to me.


Here are the spectators to Hudson's concert.


I have one more post ready to go after I give you all a few days to digest this update.  Again, you are welcome.

Have a great weekend!!

Christmas

Here is a brief summary of our Christmas:

Illness, food, family, presents...yep that sums it up.

First here are the presents that I made that were received, warmly, I hope.

Elephant bag for my niece. I think it is the cutest thing I've ever made:



A set of two matching dresses for each of the neighbor girls. Audrey will also have a set...when I get them done:


We had gone to our church's Christmas extravaganza for the kids. I did a little face painting on Marshall. The mustache and beard were a big hit! Hudson and Audrey had their Christmas parties at school. I made Audrey's dress. It was super comfy and she wore it with leggins.


Marshall then got a horrible ear infection. I still made him go to his preschool Christmas program for 30 minutes so he could see Santa.


We had Christmas day at our home and Audrey was thrilled Santa brought her a doll with a horse. Santa also brought her and her doll matching pajamas which she had to put on immediately. Hudson received his coveted Beyblade set. Santa brought Marshall the airplane/guy/bullet set he had wanted.



We then went to my Aunt's house for dinner. It was great to see everyone and the food was excellent.


There was more illness in the Ikea parking lot, but I won't go into it.

We are home for the rest of our vacation. We are making more cookies, playing with legos, dolls, and I'm trying NOT to ignore my family by camping on the couch with my new Kindle.

Have a great New Year!!

Week of Firsts

We had a lot of firsts last week.

First day of Third and First Grade.  First day of Pre School for Marshall because I have a job!  An honest to goodness, get a paycheck direct deposited, do my hair and makeup kind of job.  It is part time and it is working with a lot of people that I know from my BBDO days.

Aren't the kids cute even when faced with the realization that summer is over and they now have to do homework?



What is a first day without shiny new tennis shoes?


First soccer game for Audrey. Please note Audrey's awesome, straight out of the 80's, t-shirt clip. I found it at a flea market for 25 cents. She needs it for her huge soccer uniform that I bought really big...so I wouldn't have to buy another one when she keeps growing.  Some might say I'm cheap...I like to think that I'm forcing Audrey to be slightly ahead of the fashionable craze.


She really got into the mix of it all. She ran right after the ball and actually took it down the field to put it in the goal. The opposing team had a good goalie who stopped Audrey's attempt.  She really liked the game, but said she got really sweaty.  That's my little lady.


First Tigers game of the season for Hudson and I.  It was Star Wars night and it was AWESOME!  The Star Wars characters, food, and game were so much fun! I'll post those pictures soon.

Overall, it was a busy, but very fun week. I hope your week went just as swimmingly.

Flash Back

Once I left High School I didn't really keep track of my friends from Coldwater.  In the last few years I've started to reconnect to some girls on Facebook.  That is the one nice thing about that time sucking application...I have been able to see what my classmates lives are like now.


One of my friends from school is Alicia.  Here are some pictures of us. Can you tell which decade these are from?  One time we went to Chicago and could take a friend.  I took Alicia.

My Mom let me have friends over before dances to get ready together.  Please note the awesome hats, bangs, and our Halloween costumes we rented from Tibbits Opera House.  My hair is not permed.  I used to enhance the curls with a tiny curling iron and a can of RAVE!



Anyway, Alicia and I found each other on Facebook.   She lives out west now, is married, and expecting her first baby in June.  She and her hubby are not finding out what they are having so I was challenged in finding some gender neutral cute fabric. Audrey and I headed out and we found the owl fabric.   How cute is this little set?  The little booties would look cute with blue jeans or frilly socks.  She just received this present last week so I had to share.  



Here are my new tennis shoes...you like?  I wanted to flash back to college so I bought myself a pair of Chuck Taylors.  I wanted blue, but only found black at the store.  I think they are pretty awesome, but I also thought my hair was sweet in High School.



Thanks for indulging me in my Flash Back moment.  It was fun going through my old photo albums.  The kids had a kick looking at all of the pictures from my High School days.


Have a great week and congratulations Alicia!!!  

Beautiful

The weather was wonderful yesterday.  The older kids had a half day so Marshall and I took his new bike down to the bus stop to pick them up. This is Marshall's "driving a bike" pose.


 This was not a staged photo shoot.  Audrey always runs off of the bus ahead of Hudson so she got to Marshall first.  As soon as Marshall saw them his arms went up and he yelled, "Audee" and then "Hudun".




I've been busy this week wringing my hands over the political stuff going on in Michigan and the horrific events in Japan. I needed to unplug and stop checking CNN for updates.  Pioneer Woman (my favorite blog) was having another photography contest.   She has tens of thousands of entries so I never think I'm going to be selected and I wasn't, but it was fun to pick out some of my pictures and work on them in Photoshop.  It reminds me how lucky I am to have time to do this and lucky to have such a wonderful family that lets me take their photos.


We aren't doing anything really fun this weekend.  Just working around the house.  Have a great one!!

First Day of School!

Audrey had her first day of Kindergarten & Hudson his first day of 2nd Grade on Tuesday. They both seemed to enjoy themselves. Marshall and I are still adjusting slowly.





Audrey picked out a Hello Kitty backpack. I was worried that one of her 27 classmates might also have this same backpack. I embrodered a little heart and filled in the flower stem. I thought this might make it stand out in a sea of pink Hello Kitty backpacks.  It worked and she found her stuff everyday.


I have to plug myself...

I was chosen as a finalist in a photography contest!! There are thousands of people that enter this particular contest daily. A few times a month Pioneer Woman sponsors a contest relating to different subject matters. I'm totally amazed that one of my pictures was chosen out of all of the professional photographers that entered.  Now mind you...she is not saying that my picture is in any way a "perfect" picture (exposure, composition, etc.).  I was chosen because my picture fit the subject matter which was "funny". I think that my picture was definitely funny. Check it out here (fourth pic down).  Man I love Tom Selleck fake mustaches and Hudson's silly faces!!