Forever Young at 24!

Happy Happy Birthday Tina dear, Happy days will come to you all year, If I had a wish then it would be......... for you to come back and never leave. Someday it will be forever and we will have her back and she will never have to leave us again. I am so excited for that day. Although I am not quite ready for it yet, I owe her big time. Yesterday Chris asked the boys to check his shoes for spiders. And it reminded me of every morning I would yell for Tina, and she would come running downstairs and I would point out which shoes I was going to wear for the day and she would bravely stick her hand inside each shoe to check for spiders. (A friend of mine slipped her foot in her shoe and a big spider ran out the hole in the tip of her shoe, I saw it happen, and it left me terrified.) Tina was told every morning to check and see if there was a surprise. Day after day she hoped for a piece of candy or something, but she got nothing (at least she didn't get a spider). This went on for at least a year. I owe her a surprise, but what? I'm not sure yet. I think of her daily, we talk of her often, I often hear the boys have conversations about her. Sometimes at our house it seems as if she is still alive, then sometimes the reality of it all hits. I wore one of her knecklaces to church on Sunday. Hayden asked me where I got it and I said "I stole it from Tina". He didn't like the idea of me stealing and said, "maybe she wanted you to have it. You better 'bive' it back when she comes back alive." He doesn't fully understand but he knows she is alive in heaven and someday we will have her back. Happy Birthday Ti! Love ya bunches!

I love having this little girl!

She makes me smile and laugh everyday. She is such a delight!

We tried something different with her hair today, it lasted about 15 minutes.

I bought this cute little straightener, it is tiny, so you can toss it in your purse and have for touch-ups, I guess. I don't carry a straightener in my bag, I promise, I just thought it would be perfect for Kyrie. It doesn't even get hot enough to do anything to my hair, but just the right temp and size for our little miss. I saw it one day at the store and thought it would be perfect for her as she gets a little older, but then thought what if they discontinue them or something, so I purchased it that day and have had it for awhile and decided to try it on her. It worked perfect for taming her tight little curls.

Day of the Irish

I love celebrating the little Holidays, I guess I somehow have to make up for not liking Christmas. The little holidays are so much easier and funner for me. Last year St. Patrick's Day was a huge deal (mostly thanks to Dusty's kindergarten teacher). Dusty made a Leprechaun trap, and on March 18th, he was already planning how he could make a better one for this year to catch that little green guy. About 4 months ago he told me he knew how he was going to make it. But since then, I guess he had forgotten all about it.

The kids started the day off with some green oatmeal with raisins and some green milk.
And for dinner we tried a new dish for the first time: corned beef and cooked cabbage. We also had parsley potatoes and pistachio salad. One of Hayden's teachers told me how they have this meal every year on St. Patrick's Day and I thought we should give it a try, so she told me how to prepare it. The corned beef was really different for me, it has it's own smell, texture and taste but it was yummy, especially with mustard! I had purchased a 4 lb chunk of the meat, and it shriveled up to only 1/4th of it's original size. I was shocked! There was not much meat at all from that 4 pounder. This picture is of Chris's plate and he got almost 1/2 of the brisket. We may try it again next year. I just have to try to get used to the smell while it is cooking.

I tried

I had this fun little idea to make some cute little cake pops to help celebrate St. Patricks Day tomorrow.

I don't know what I did wrong with the outer coating, maybe I over heated it or something?
This was my first attempt, funny looking and it slid right down the stick.

I made a second attempt with some more coating and WaLA! I did it! I made 3 cute cake pops, 1 for each of my children (SORRY CHRIS)! I had this idea to make a whole bunch and share with some friends and neighbors. But I guess they will get nothing, I quit after 3, it's just not my thing!

What to do with these? Maybe the kids will eat 1 or 2, maybe not!

A favorite

Playing cars has always been a favorite for Dusty, ever since he was teeny tiny he was making car sounds. If it is a form of transportation or has wheels, he loves it and can't get enough. He has a few hundred cars and I think he knows every single detail about every one, including which kind of tires they have. He spends hours and hours playing. Hayden plays as well, but I'm not so sure it is really his interest, I think he plays because his brother does, and sometimes his brother begs him to and he feels bad and gives in, and he is a pretty good sport about it.

On Sunday we sluffed church because of a couple of sickies. Chris was not feeling well and Ky had a cold, the croup, was cutting 4 teeth and had not slept much for 2 days/nights. Kyrie seemed to need to be attached to her mother for a few days, so that was my excuse to stay home. It was actually nice to be forced to sit back and relax a little. Anyway, so we stayed home from church and the boys played cars ALL DAY LONG! Seriously all day. They were playing before breakfast, and it was kinda a war getting them to bed because they still wanted to play - CARS! They took a couple of breaks to eat, but I swear they scarfed down their food and RAN back upstairs to their cars. I know it was serious though, they did have some cars that were unconscious, I guess that's why they were in a hurry.

They usually build a building or a garage or something, but this time they built a town. Here are just a few pictures of the town, and the few choice cars that were selected for the day.

I love listening to how they play. They pretty much play every aspect of life, they play "house" with their cars. Sometimes they race, sometimes they are families with babies, they go to hospitals, they get fed fruitsnacks! The babies have cottonballs to sleep on, there are security cop cars at the mall. The male cars go to work, and I have heard their boss, I'm glad I don't have to work there! Just recently I heard a mother car get a phone call from her child's Elementary school saying her child was in the nurses's office because he was dizzy. (I just got a phone call from our school nurse a couple of weeks ago for that very reason). The cars also go to jail, they play pretty much anything with cars, they play cops, doctor, cowboy, other than sports, I've never seen him line them up for a soccer game. I love how my boys play!

Bowling

A couple of weekends ago Chris decided to take us bowling, the kids have only asked and waited for like 2 years to go. They finally were able to try it out for the first time!
Almost a strike! Looks like a spare. Dusty caught on really fast. Hayden did better using a litlle magggigger thingy that he would set his ball on and gently push it off. It took forever for the his bowling ball to get to the pins, but at least it extended our fun!

Here is Dusty waiting for his 10 lb ball to come up. He wouldn't use the 6 lb ball they gave him, or even the 8 pounder, he needed to show off his muscles I guess. The boys both did really good and we all had bunches of fun (except for Ky - she was unhappy until she spotted another baby). And I won both games! I wanted to take a picture of the scoreboard to show the boys first bowling game, but my camera barely had enough juice to take the few pics that I did get. I also got a new pair of fun striped socks out of the deal, I didn't know we were going to go bowling and was wearing my flip-flops so Chris dropped me off at a store - I love fun socks!