Edible Gold Medals

We had "gold medals" for our Family Night treat this week and the girls loved them so much they wanted to make a how to video like the ones they have recently seen on YouTube.

Here are Emily and Kitty's debut tutorials.

Catch Up (sort of)

Here is a picture review of January and February, not in any particular order.  Oh. And I managed to goof up loading the first video so there's no sound. Just hum the Blue Danube Waltz to yourself while you watch. :)

 My lovely and talented assistants!

Dress Up

Paper Dolls

  Dancing at the Kids' Museum

Cinnamon Roll Waffles

K Loves Her Baby Hedgehog

Valentine's Day Garland by Yours Truly

Aunt Tuffy Made the Girls Doily Shirts 

SNOW!!! Finally!

" I gave her chocolate syrup, but I missed her mouth." ~Emily

Visiting Elmo at the Roller Rink

Playing on the Beach

Masked Crusaders at the Playground

   A while back, some of you heard that I accidentally won a church chili cook-off. These things are a bit overdone at this point and it showed by the number of non-traditional entries. Anyway, when they first sent around a sign-up sheet to bring food to the social, you could enter whether or not you wanted to be judged in the competition. I didn't.
   It was a dark and stormy night. (Okay, it was really just sprinkling.) I set my pot on the table away from the pots that were numbered for the contest and went on my merry way. At least, as merry as it could be tending a 2 year old who had burned her hand on the iron half an hour earlier. Said 2 year old also hadn't taken a nap. Good times. Or not. After eating some fabulous pumpkin chili, I waited in the foyer with a sleeping Kaitlyn for the night to end.
   It turned out, the powers that be changed their minds and decided to judge all soups and chilies brought in and the muffled applause I heard, was actually for me. I won a wooden spoon and bottle of authentic Mexican hot sauce. I'm not a big fan of hot sauce, but Josh was really excited about it. Until I dropped it getting out of the car. Oops. But if any of you like white chili, this one worked for me! I doubled the recipe, substituted dried minced onions for fresh, green enchilada sauce for half the chopped chilies, a pinch of Chinese white pepper for cayenne, reduced the beans (and mashed some of them), and stirred in a carton of sour cream in lieu of serving it with cheese (since it was pot luck style).

I can always tell when certain persons of a certain youthful age have had fun with mommy's phone. And markers. They always seem to leave evidence behind.
Evidence like this...

That would be Kaitlyn's leg, by the way.

When I Grow Up

We made a family outing to Wal-Mart yesterday and at one point I found myself walking alone with Emily. Or maybe Kaitlyn was in the cart and I was too busy laughing at listening to Emily to remember her being there. We passed a display full of backpacks and Emily became very animated.

Emily: "Mom, when I am 9, I am going to buy my kids backpacks!"

Me, amused: "Haha. Emily there is no way you are going to have any kids when you are 9."

Emily: "Okay, then when I am 19 I will buy backpacks for my kids for school."

Me, alarmed: "You definitely better not have any kids when you are 19, especially school-age kids!"

Emily: "Okay, I will when I am 29. I can have school-age kids then, right?"

Me, relieved: "Yeah, you can totally have kids in school when you're 29."

Emily: "Because you are 29 and you have a kid in school. Me!"

Me: "Yup. That's right."

Word to the wise- if you are sensitive about your age, don't tell Emily what it is. She has the memory of an elephant.

Emily's First Day of School

Emily is officially a kindergartner. She was very excited that her daddy wasn't going to work so he could take her to school and pick her up on her first day! She picked out her clothes the night before, but in true Emily fashion tried to back out of her choice and fight getting dressed that morning. It didn't work. Getting to listen to stories on the ipad on the way helped calm her down.

On the ride to school.

Walking to the building with Daddy.

In front of "A" building.

Emily is in the Children's House. Her class is a mix of 3, 4, and 5 year olds. For these classes, they had staggered start dates. On her first day, it was just the kindergartners. Her teachers, Mrs. Yenny and Mrs. Amy talked about the classroom materials and prepared them for the younger students that would be joining their class over the next few days. They reminded them there were going to be a lot of younger children and of their important job to be good examples for them. Emily was very proud of being a good example.

Emily and Mrs. Yenny.

After we picked her up, we surprised Emily with a trip to a delicious little frozen yogurt place called Local Yogurt. It was Josh's first time trying it. They generally have 3 or 4 flavors of yogurt and all different kinds of toppings. One really fun topping is popping boba. They are little fruit juice filled gelatinous balls. But in a good way. You really just have to try them to understand. Emily chose chocolate yogurt with Lucky Charms. Kaitlyn chose watermelon sorbet with blueberries. Josh chose chocolate yogurt with brownie pieces (we were disappointed in their dry brownies). I chose plain yogurt with blackberries (the berries were pretty flavorless; I should have gotten popping boba). But the yogurt was still top-notch. 

Mmmm...  LoYo serves good froyo!

And for some reason, Josh looked at that corner every time I took a picture. 

Emily had a great day that will (hopefully) be the start of a great year!

Watch if wiggle, See it jiggle

That's right, I'm talking about Jell-O, people. One of the joys of childhood. For a fun summer snack / dessert, we decided (and by that I mean Emily has been begging me for ages) to make some jello. As it turns out, cookie molds make good jello molds, too. We made raspberry and berry blue. 

Love the lips!

Kaitlyn's first taste of Jell-O. She loved it.

Jell-O is maybe the only slimy thing Emily doesn't mind touching with her hands.