Sweetheart Dance

Ben was lucky enough to have 3 lovely dates on Saturday night. He took the girls to a Valentine's Daddy-Daughter dance.



The girls were really excited to get dressed up for the dance. Kiersten was nervous for a few days beforehand. She kept asking me to help her practice dancing.



Apparently, Kara was not very sweet at the dance. She refused to dance with Ben, and wanted to hang out with her friends the entire time. Though she says she had fun and would like to go next year, I'm not sure if Ben will be willing to take her, unless she promises to dance with him.



Kiersten just loves this sort of thing, and was on her best behavior. Ben said she was very cute and sweet at the event.

Evie had fun too. She is still talking about what a great time she had. She keeps trying to console me because I was left out. I guess she doesn't see the fun in relaxing alone at home with a bowl of popcorn and my kindle.

They had dinner, cupcakes, a craft and goodie bags.

I hear from Kiersten that the chicken strips were a-maz-ing!

Kiersten always enjoys dancing with her Daddy. She didn't need to be so worried about knowing how to be a great dancer.

Our littlest sweetheart. I'm glad they had such a great night!

What I learned about shoveling the driveway

This post is going to make me seem kinda prissy, but we all have our roles, right? I've never really had to shovel the driveway. I've done a small area once or twice when the snow was just powder, and easy to move. When we were snowed in a few years ago, and Ben was out of town, I went out and tried for about 3 minutes, before I gave up and went back in the house. Growing up, that was always my Dad's job, and I got married young, so it became my super manly husband's job. I appreciate that it must be hard work, and have always been grateful when Ben goes out in the cold and takes care of that task so I don't have to. I'm much more capable with my indoor contributions to our life. If something requires being outside in order to do it, you can bet I probably don't want to do it. It's kind of rare that I'm even willing to go out in the snow to play with the kids. So Ben has never questioned it as one of his duties. (I promise I really do my share of the work around here. I'm great at housework, and he never has to help with that.) But he has been stuck at work late all week, and the driveway was pretty bad. 2 days ago, for the first time ever, he asked me to take care of it for him. Of course I forgot and then felt terrible when he got home late to an unshoveled driveway. So yesterday I only stayed at the gym for an hour, so I could get home and take care of it like a good wife. (and it turns out I probably didn't need to go to the gym at all that morning, considering the workout I got from the driveway) Though I never thought it was a pleasant chore, I really came to realize just how difficult it actually is. It usually takes Ben about 20-30 minutes to do the entire driveway and the sidewalk and path to the porch. I thought it would take me a little longer, maybe an hour. After an hour, I had finished a little more than half of the driveway, but had not even started trying to tackle the frozen treads. How does one go about clearing those? I was kicking and jumping on the shovel, and couldn't really break them up. So I decided to take a break. I couldn't find any ice melt in the garage, so I thought I'd put down some salt. Turns out it is not effective to sprinkle table salt on ice. It didn't do anything. It was only 9°, but it was sunny, so I thought I'd let the sun do it's thing. That worked out, and most of the ice cleared, though there is still a lot left at the bottom that I still couldn't break up today, even though it's a balmy 13°. This morning after the gym, I finally went out and finished the sidewalk and porch, and an hour later, it is almost safe to walk up to our front door. Hopefully I don't get to be the shoveler again, but in case I do, here is what I learned: It does not make sense to shovel snow in ballet flats. Even with socks on with them, I just slid all over the place. Since I do not own snow boots, I finally put on my wellies to get the rest of the job done. Table salt doesn't melt ice, unless maybe you put tons of it on, and want to use up all the salt in the house to clear a 2ft section. Plus, you look like a weirdo with a salt shaker, sprinkling the drive. Kicking icy treads while wearing the aforementioned ballet flats does not work to break up the ice. All it does is bruise your toes. Wearing a sweatshirt and 2 coats is a horrible idea for shoveling snow, as you can barely move your arms, and have to scoot the snow to the edge instead of being able to pick it up and pitch it. Also, you get sweaty real fast working so hard. Going out without gloves is a poor idea, even if you think you're just going to do the sidewalk "real quick". When you're jumping on, and kicking the shovel in a futile attempt to break up the ice, it's likely several neighbors will stop what they're doing to stare. It probably helps speed things along to possess huge muscles. But most of all, if you have a super manly husband, or someone else that regularly takes on this horrendous task without complaining, or making you help, they deserve nothing less than your adoration, admiration, and appreciation!

Craft day

The girls had another snow day yesterday. One of the first things Kiersten said, was, "Can we do projects instead of cleaning the house?" So I decided to get out some paint and let them make art for their bedrooms. (after we cleaned up the house, hehe)

They each got a couple wooden shapes to paint. I got a whole bunch of them on clearance for .10 each, and they have been great for doing quick crafts.

After they painted their shapes and let them dry, I let them pick out some scrapbook paper to glue them onto. Then we put them in some old frames I was no longer using. Evie is quite proud of her butterflies and flower, and can't wait to get it hung on her wall.

Kiersten made a lovely bird and flower picture. She picked paper that was kind of busy, but I think it turned out very well.

I didn't have another large frame, so Kara got to make 2 pictures for her room.

I have built up quite a collection of empty glass jars. I use them for discarding bacon grease, etc. I started to run out of space to keep them, so I figured they might as well make a craft with a few of them. Kiersten made a toothbrush holder, and Kara made a jar for keeping hair clips. I painted some as well to use as livingroom décor, but did not take a picture. But mine weren't as cute and creative as the girls' anyway.

I finally finished Evie's cupcake hat she has been asking for. It turned out pretty cute. Not quite how I imagined it to turn out to start with, but she loves it, which is what matters.

Kara's grumpy cat hat. Ben did not know what I was talking about when I said it was grumpy cat. Who doesn't know about grumpy cat???

Kiersten's Minion hat. She really loves this hat, and now wants me to make her an evil Minion hat as well.

I made Kara and Kiersten's hat a week or two ago, but just got around to taking a pic since I was getting a picture of Evie's. Now they have requested Valentine's hats. I will put up pictures of those when I finish Evie's You can see a sneak peek of Kiersten's in the above craft pictures, though.

Kara bear party time!

Kara asked for a smurf birthday cake this year. She was very specific about how she would like each layer to look. She was actually able to help quite a bit with the decorating, and I think she really like that. I didn't want to make red frosting, so I bought a few cans of red cupcake icing, and had to sort of squirt it onto the cake and then smooth it out. When I started doing that, she exclaimed, "yay! a bloody entrails cake!" I have to say I was slightly shocked to hear her say that, but we had a good laugh once I recovered. I wasn't a fan of how the red frosting tasted, however. I thought it tasted like playdough smells. I was nervous to use frosting instead of fondant, but it's what she preferred, and it actually was easier than I expected to stack it and transport it. I had several backup plans in case something went wrong, but nothing did. It was one of the easier cakes I've made.      

I just bought some toys to put on the top so I wouldn't have to get too artistic. (I was particularly glad about it after the debacle of her cake on Friday) I tried to get a shot of the cake by itself, but she wouldn't stay of out the pictures. She kept saying, "okay, I'll stay out of this one" but then she'd jump in the picture right as I clicked.

She had her party at Olympiad gymnastics. It was a funny choice to me, as she isn't particularly good at gymnastics, but she had so much fun. She was limited in the amount of friends she could invite, but she really had a great time.

She is quite proud of the birthday trophy she "won"

All the other kids got medals. I feel slightly bad, that I sat in the other room chatting with the other moms, and didn't really see much of what they were doing in the gym.

She also had blue koolaid and the blue goodie bags she made earlier.

She says her wish already came true, but wont spill as to what it was.

Her BFF made her this big necklace. It was large enough for 3 girls to wear together!

She was such a sweetie, and really wants to get enrolled in gymnastics. I think she's pretty done with swimming lessons for now, so we'll have to see, I guess.

Karalee turned 8!

My biggest girl turned 8 last week. It's hard to believe that she is getting so big, while at the same time it seems like she's always been around. I love the person she is and is becoming. At the same time, I miss my baby Kara, my toddler Kara, and my preschool Kara.

I made her a bacon and pancake breakfast. She was much quicker to come down for breakfast than usual for a school day.

Lots of presents for a very loved girl!

I had a baking mishap while making the cake for her birthday party. I didn't want to waste this cake, so I decided to decorate it for her to enjoy after dinner. My first thought was to just decorate it with stripes or polkadots, and I probably should have stuck with that idea, with the cake already being such an odd shape...

But I thought I'd get artistic instead. Hehehe. In my defense, I want to say that the smurfs looked really cute when I drew them with a toothpick. It's when I started filling them in with the icing that things just went...wrong. By the time Kara got home from school, a bit of the blue gel had escaped it's confines, and run down the cake, making it look like clumsy smurf had a little accident. It was pretty funny, though, and her reaction was very gracious. I also misspelled the word "smurfy", and had to erase it, and rewrite it, but had already turned all of the blue frosting gray for the outlining, and couldn't really clean up the smudging there. But it tasted really good!

Kara had picked out a birthday crown at the store, and then refused to wear it. But her sisters were great sports. For her birthday dinner, she asked Ben to bring home Chinese, which was perfectly fine with me. Less time cooking, and more time for decorating :)

Kiersten was very excited to pick out these earrings for her.

She was thrilled to get an Egyptology book from Papa and Grams. It is a pretty cool book.

ready to blow out the "8" candle on her pathetic little cake.

Happy happy birthday to my sweet Karalee!