Girl party

For a couple days Kara has been wanting to have a "girl party". I didn't know exactly what she wanted to do, as she insisted that she wanted to plan it. We have just been so busy doing other things, that we didn't have time til sunday night. The first thing she planned was a makeover for all of us. I let them each wear eyeshadow, nail polish, and lip stick. Then Kara did my makeup and Kiersten did Grandma's.Here's a group picture after the makeovers. Kara did an okay job on mine. Kiersten's hand turns out to be a bit shakier.Kiersten had to get the same color lipstick as kara once she saw how much darker it was than what she had on. She picked a pale pink eyeshadow, the same as what she used on Grandma.this picture turned out a little creepy, as Kara thought she looked really glamourous, and tried to make a face to match. but the way she opened her eyes made it hard to even see her cool purple eyeshadow.Evie definitely wanted to participate, but I couldn't bring myself to use anything other than the lightest pinks on her sweet little face. and her lipstick lasted about 10 seconds before she rubbed it all off onto her binky. She is still pretty proud of her nails, though.
After the makeovers, we had a quick tea party, and then watched Alice in Wonderland, since it's about a girl. Evie and I fell asleep pretty much right away, (we were on Kiersten's bed) so Kara invited Kiersten to have a sleep over in her room that night.

The girls celebrated Dr. Suess day at school, and were very excited to come home and tell Evie all about it.

Kara had an idea to make a count down calendar to count the days til we all see daddy and move to St. Louis. So I let them color strips of plain white paper to make a paper chain advent calendar.

Kiersten's strips all had so much detail. She only did about half as many as Kara did.

Here they are with the finished paper chain. I was going to print out a picture of Ben's face for the top, but got feeling lazy, and just wrote the words, "moving day". sorry Ben. Luckily Evie was aslep while they did this, so it went well.

When Evie woke from her nap, she was pretty excited about the calendar.

Since my mom is here, we decided to go to church today. The girls all got to pick out their lovely dresses. Evie is big enough for nursery now. i don't know how it went because I just introduced her to the teacher, and then plopped her in a chair andhustled out of the room. I figured it'd go like when she goes to the dayccare at the gym. She cries til she can't see me anymore, or gets distracted by a toy or another kid. She sure was happy to see me when I came in to pick her up.

Kiersten thought daddy would like to see a silly picture. so here it is.

3/2/12

The girls have been pretty good the past few days. (they wouldn't quit being goofy while I tried to take thier picture, though) On tuesday, the first day Daddy was gone, Kara and Kiersten both tested me to see if I'd be sticking to the rules without him around to back me up. Kiersten colored on the couch and wall, which she definitely knows is not allowed. She told me the reason she did it was because she thought that no one would find out. Kara teased and tormented Kiersten at dinner, and after I warned her to stop, she looked at me, and then slowly reached over and shoved Kiersten's placemat away. So she had to be in time out for 6 minutes, which seemed like forever, but I'm glad she decided to find out from the beginning that the rules are no different with daddy gone. They have been good ever since. Evie gets a little upset when we close the computer after skyping with daddy, but she recovers pretty quickly and has been going to bed pretty easily. So we miss you tons Ben, but things are going fine here, and we are plugging along, checking things off the to do list.

missing daddy, and a recipe to share

Yesterday I took Ben to the airport to fly out to St. Louis. He's there for good, and the girls and I will be joining him on March 17th. My mom flew in from utah to help me out with the girls and a few things I have to do while we're still here. He got there yesterday afternoon, and got settled in at the temporary place we'll be living through June. Today is his first day at work in his new branch. Yesterday went fine, and I think having my mom here really will help the time go by faster. I wanted to post a few recent pictures of the girls for Ben to see in St. Louis. This is the most recent one I could find of Kiersten.
This one of Kara is actually from my etsy shop, but I thought it was a cute pose.

Evie has been a happy girl the past few weeks, unless I've had to take her with me down to our old house in spanaway to clean or paint. She doesn't really like going down there any more. She has seemed to understand that Ben was leaving when we talked about it the past few days. She got a little upset when she saw him packing his suitcases, so I think she may remember that from the last couple times he has travelled. On monday she even got her little rolling suitcase and chased him around the house with it. Luckily she really likes my mom, so I've actually been able to get a few things done while my mom hangs out with her.

The girls were watching a movie in the car, and marshmallow lasagna kept getting mentioned. So Ben thought out a way it would be good, and asked me to make it. I used brownie mix for the sauce, graham crackers for the pasta, strawberries for the meat, and marshmallows for the cheese.

I layered it as you would a lasagna. brownie on bottom, then crackers topped with marshmallows and strawberries, then repeat.

here's how it looked when finished. It was super tasty. Things I will tweak for next time: equal parts marshmallow to strawberry. we really missed the strawberry when we got a bite without it. add marshmallows on top at the end of cooking to make a marshmallow crust on top. possibly substitute pie shell for the crackers. They were really good the first night, but the next day they were a little soggy and didn't add much texture any more. I might also make a strawberry mash or syrup to pour over the top. Anyway, if you try it out, let me know if you come up with any tweaks that make it better. :)

Ben called this morning and talked to Evie. She accidentally hung up on him and got very upset while I was trying to call him back for her. She was crying hysterically and begging for "dada" until I got him back for her.

Then she started up crying and begging for him again when he really had to hang up with her the second time. She cried for at least 10 minutes, and had a hard time calming down. I think she'll be really excited to see him in a few weeks.

Our Valentine's evening

I spent most of Valentine's day cleaning our rental home in spanaway. The tenants didn't clean at all when they left, and left some damage, so I've been busy down there every day since they moved out. After working hard down there, I picked the girls up from school. They were super excited to tell me all about their party at school. When we pulled into the garage, daddy was standing in there with 3 balloons waiting for us. That really added to the girls' excitement once they spotted him. He also had some stuff for the girls that he ordered online. Kiersten got a hoodie, Kara got 2 night gowns, and Evie got a special Mickey mouse.

The girls were really happy with their heart shaped boxes of chocolates, and valentine's themed pillows and blankets.

We took a video of Evie getting her Mickey out of the box. She was so cute and happy. I just wish I could have gotten her to smile for a picture with him afterward!

Here they are with their balloons from daddy. Every time I snapped a picture, someone pulled down on their ballon and got blocked out. This was the best one I ended up with.

Of course we had to get a heart pizza, as we always do. This one was barely shaped like a heart. Someone really didn't feel like going to a lot of trouble with it.

I already got my gift from Ben last week. the first day we were down in spanaway to do a walkthrough with our tenant, Ben surprised me on the way home by stopping at the jewelry store. I got to pick out some fun new earings. I chose a set of diamond hoops, and I am thrilled with them! Ben kept saying he was looking for a starbucks to get wifi on my kindle. I was totally annoyed, and kept saying, "let's just go home and use the internet". Then he seemed to be pulling into costco, and I reminded him we canceled our membership there. He said he thought there was a starbucks around there. As we pulled up to the jewelry store, I said, "there's no starbucks in there". he just laughed and told me why we were there. I felt pretty silly for being so annoyed with him, and being so oblivious.