Ponies

Lily has a lot of My Little Ponies.
A lot.
She has ponies of all colors and sizes.
She LOVES them.
Recently, I have noticed ponies in odd places.
I notice this at least once a day.
I thought it was funny.
So, I started taking pictures of where Lily's ponies were throughout the house.

I found her ponies on the blinds in the family room one day:

(There is a window in the dining room where the princesses hang out.....)

I found these two tiny ponies on the chair rail that goes around the family room another day:

I have found these ponies on these candles several times.

They must like it there.

And yes, it is always the same three ponies.

I was putting some of her kitchen stuff away one day and found some ponies eating a hot dog in the microwave....

...and these ponies in a bowl....

on the stove....

with a spoon....

I'll let you decide why they are in that exact spot....

But the funniest place I think I have found ponies was here:

One night, I pulled back the covers in our bed & found two ponies.

I have a very silly little girl. =)

Taking Advantage Of The Nice Weather!

Today was beautiful!
It was sunny and warm. =)
After the last week of snow and FREEZING temps, this was a welcome change!
Since it was so nice (and we were all getting cabin fever) we headed to the zoo with Grandma Logan.

We always check out the flamingos.

They are so pretty.

Today they were crazy loud though.

Maybe they were excited about the warm weather too. =)

Another pretty bird I like to see at the zoo is the peacock.

When I was growing up, the neighbor down the street from my grandparent's house had peacocks. Sometimes at night you could hear them yelling what sounded like "Help! Help!"

Kind of creepy when you're only 8 years old.......

(and you're welcome for that little peacock anecdote.)

The petting zoo is always a dangerous place.

The kids always want to feed the sheep.......

until they actually have food in their hands and they remember that the sheep aren't very nice.
Poor Riley got hit in the back before he could even get any food to feed them.

The sheep finally settled down long enough to get fed though.

Then we headed to the penguins!

The boys love to go to the reptile house.

There are 3 giant turtles (tortoise??)

Lily actually likes to come in here too.

She may be a girly-girl, but she likes to show her brothers she can do whatever they can do.

For instance, a zoo keeper took a snake out and let the kids touch it.

It didn't really surprise me that the boys ran up to touch it.

It did kind of surprise me that Lily ran right up there to touch it too!

I don't think it even occurred to her that it might be something to be afraid of.

She saw her brothers do it, so she knew she could too.

I love that!

I, however would not go near it.......

Next was the tigers.

I don't have any pictures of the real tigers.

Just the one that the kids always have to pose with...

The gorillas were out walking around enjoying the sunshine too.

This one came up really close to the glass and walked up and down the length of it.

This little hut in the gorilla house (along with various statues throughout the zoo) is one of the kids favorite things about the zoo.

Not the animals......

the hut and the statues......

But, what they actually enjoyed the most today, was this:

Running around outside!!! =)

Of course right after I took this picture, poor Lily tripped and fell into a puddle of water.

The first thing she said when I went to her though, was not how hurt she was, but:

"My favorite shoes!!!"

They were all wet & muddy.

Yep, definitely a girl....

Then we checked out the lions.

The last thing we saw were the elephants.

If you look closely at the bottom of his trunk, the elephant is picking up a piece of ice to eat.

He did this several times. It was really funny to watch.

We enjoyed our day out today so much!!

The weather this week is supposed to stay nice.

Hopefully it will.

I am SO over snow!!

Valentine Art Projects

With all of the snow and Lily being sick this past week, we did not get in a Valentine Craft Day like I wanted. Even though she still has a yucky nose and a cough, Lily is starting to feel a lot better, so today we got crafting!

While I cut our hearts for another project, Lily used foam stickers, crayons, and glitter glue to make this picture:

Heart Bugs!

Then we moved onto making a heart wreath.

I cut out the middle of a paper plate & lots of hearts!

Then Lily put glue all over the plate.

Yes we usually do crafts in a princess dress......

don't you?

Then she stuck hearts all over the wreath.

I added a ribbon to hang it with.

Our last heart project was making hearts with paint and heart shaped cookie cutters.

I just put paint on paper plates (easy clean-up) and let her put the cookie cutters in the paint and then onto the paper.

She really liked this one.

She made several pictures, this is just one of them:

All of these are pretty easy to do.

Lily really didn't need my help at all!
We are going to make Valentines too, but we have to wait for the boys to get home so they can make some too!

Snowman!

The snow has started melting, which makes it more packable.
After listening to Riley & Lily cry and yell at Zach many, many times for throwing giant snowballs at them, I decided to have them do something more constructive with the snow.
So, they built a snowman.

Although I am very over the snow (and the cold), it never seems to get old for the kids. =)

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Today Jeff turns 35!
Happy Birthday to the most loving, caring man I know.
You are a wonderful husband, father, and person.
We love you SO much!!
Happy Birthday!!!

Finally!

That's what the kids said when they got to play in the snow after school today.
They watched it snow Monday night and all day Tuesday.
Then they looked at it all day Wednesday.
It was just way too cold to go out in it.
It was even too cold this morning still, but by the time the boys came home, it wasn't too bad, so we headed out.

There is a lot of snow on our deck!
Poor Lily had a hard time wading through it.

We also have a lot of drifts in the yard.
We have spots with no snow at all, and then spots where the snow is up to the kids' knees!

This snow is not very pack-friendly, but somehow Zach got a snowball out of it.

Don't worry.....

Riley got him back.

This is right before I told Zach to NOT throw those at me.

Lily is such a big helper!

Silly Riley.

My three snow angels. =)

They didn't last too long out there.

It's still pretty cold!

Is it sad that I am looking forward to 30 degrees tomorrow? ;-)

Bead Art

Riley's 100th Day of School was supposed to be Thursday.
But, since this is our second snow day this week, I don't think that is happening now.
We still took this opportunity of being snowed in to work on his 100th Day project though.
He had to make a picture using 100 objects.
Riley chose colored beads.
We started out making a rainbow.
It takes a lot of beads to make a rainbow.
100 beads seems like a lot, but it really isn't.
So, we switched to a sailboat.
Riley counted out how many beads we used for each thing he made.
(We tried to keep them in numbers of 5's & 10's so it would be easy for him to remember how many beads we used.)
After he had his picture made, we hot glued the beads on.
Here is his picture:

After we had it made, we realized there were only 99 beads on it, so we had to add one more.

At least we caught it before he turned it in. =)

(This picture does not have 100 beads. I didn't include all of the blue beads for the water. I cropped the picture.)

When Zach and Lily saw what Riley was doing, they wanted to make a picture too.

So, after Ri was done, I put the rest of the beads in bowls (I got 500 beads for under $2.00 at Wal-Mart) and gave them just regular white glue.

I did outline Lily's butterfly and flower with glue, but she filled them in with glue and added the beads herself.

Riley made another picture.

This time he made a smiley face.

This is Zach's picture.

I'm pretty sure it says Hello I'm 8.

This actually kept them entertained for awhile and it was a cheap art project.

We will have to do this one again soon.