Roller Skating!

Today is my niece Karen's 24th Birthday! (That made me feel very old writing that...) On Saturday, she had a 90's themed party at a roller skating rink. My kids have never been roller skating, so I thought that it would be fun for them to try it.
Lily & Ares were happy to see each other! Now that they are both in school, they don't get to see each other as often. =(

All of the kids were super excited about getting their skates on!

Until they actually tried to skate on them.....

Riley decided to be safe & have Lindsey help him.

Zach tried to brave it on his own, but his feet just did not want to stay under him.

Lily had help from her Daddy.

Zach decided he was going to practice on the carpet for awhile:

While all of that was going on, I got to hang out with these two cuties, rockin' their cupcake jammies. (The party started at 8:00 pm)

After trying several more times & getting very frustrated, Zach finally accepted help from Karen.

These two did a lot of this:

Goofballs!

Then it was time for cake! It was very yummy. Karen made it (she works in a cake shop) and she made each layer a different flavor. The top one was for adults only & was a margarita flavor. It was good! Then there was a vanilla & Irish cream flavor, & the bottom was apple & pear. They were all so good!

Brigid snuck a handful of frosting...and was very excited about it:

Jeff on the other hand, was not very excited about it. ;0)

We put hats on the kids & this is how Ceri felt about hers: 

She was really happy....

Seriously, these two are so silly!

By the end of the night, all of the kids were getting pretty good at skating!!

And, even though they were sore from falling (Poor Ri has huge bruises on his elbows.), they all had a good time! =) 

Thanks for the fun party Karen!

Fun With Dad

Jeff had been out of town a lot the past few weeks. He went to Houston for 4 days, was back for 1 1/2 days and then was in California for 5 days. When he is gone for long periods of time like that, he likes to get the kids something from where he was. This time, he brought back quartz rocks for the kids to break open. The kids are all about rocks....and breaking things open. So this was perfect for them. =)

Jeff got them started with a chisel and hammer: 

This was what was on the inside. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. I thought they were going to be the kind with purple on the inside with a hollow center. These were cool too though & the kids liked them, so that's what was important. 

Next, it was Lily's turn.

This way of cracking turned out to be extremely time consuming, so Jeff & Lily took it outside & smashed it. Which proved to be even more fun for the kids. Who doesn't love helping dad smash things with a sledge hammer?!?

Lily's was more sparkly on the inside. She loved that!

Zach didn't even try the chisel, he went straight for the sledge hammer. Shocking, I know.....

His was sparkly too. These pictures don't really capture how sparkly they were though. :0(



Each of the kids got 4 rocks to smash, so Riley got to use the sledge hammer too, and he ended up with some sparkly ones too. The kids really had fun smashing rocks with dad. =)

Dying Easter Eggs

We dyed Easter eggs yesterday afternoon.

The boys are really good at this now. They don't need/want help at all. They also love to use more than one color on each egg.

Lily still needs a little bit of help, but she does pretty well on her own too.

She likes to use one color per egg.....and likes to take it out immediately. We have to talk her into leaving it in a little bit longer to make it darker.

She was done way before the boys were. =)

She did her eggs (7) and then wanted to do the boys eggs too since they were only on their 3rd or 4th egg each. We told her no. :0)

They all did a good job! This year there were no spills, no crying, no fighting, and only a few cracked eggs. This was the most relaxing egg dying experience we've had with the kids! Hopefully we can continue this trend next year. ;0)

Homemade Ice Cream

Lily got an ice cream maker for Christmas from her Grandma & Grandpa. We finally used it the other day.
Lily wanted to make chocolate ice cream. We needed these ingredients:

She measured and poured the ingredients into a bowl:

Then we did the same thing only, we switched out the chocolate with vanilla for vanilla ice cream. We put the bowls into the refrigerator for an hour to chill, and then we got the ice cream maker ready to use:

Jeff helped the kids pour the ice cream mix into the tumbler. Then they all took turns cranking the handle until.......

we got ice cream!!

Then we did the same thing with the vanilla mix.

We put both into cups so they would have twist ice cream:

Then we let them put whip cream & sprinkles on it!

It was yummy!

They can't wait to make ice cream again!