fall cupcakes and sprinklers

This was our last week before the girls start school, so we've stayed pretty busy. Kiersten has been begging to make cupcakes, and on wednesday, she cleaned her room, and talked Kara into helping clean the playroom too. So I went through a cookbook with them to pick out a flavor. They ended up choosing a yellow cake, which was good for me, because it was a simple recipe.

They took turns putting in ingredients and turning on/adjusting the speed on the mixer. They both still complained that the other was getting to do more or better ingredients.

Evie really wanted to be involved, so I let her down from the highchair to participate. She didn't get too many jobs, but she still felt like a big kid helping out. the other 2 were going crazy over who got to put in the eggs, so Evie ended up getting to do that part. She almost smacked away the measuring cup I'd put them in for her, because she was clapping so wildly for herself.

They looked through my hello cupcake book, and chose to do pumpkins. there was a template for the faces, but being a little lazy that day, I just melted down some colored chocolate and free handed the faces. They are on that wax paper to Kara's right. I didn't have any yellow, so I used a neon green to look like they were glowing, then I outlined them all in black. In retrospect, they would have probably looked a lot better had I just used the templates, and it probably wouldn't have taken much longer, but owell, too late now.

We made a vanilla buttercream, and colored it orange. Then I piped that onto the cupcakes with a star tip to make it look stripey. Then Kara's job was to put the faces on. I kept reminding her to keep the stripes vertical, but she did several of them horizontally, and they didn't look too bad.

I happened to have some chocolate covered sunflower seeds, so i decided we'd use those for stems. That was Kiersten's job. she kept saying she wanted to make them girl pumpkins, and asking if she could put bows on their stems. I told her no several times, but she ended up doing it anyway on most of them, and they actually looked kind of cute, I have to admit. Both of the girls only wanted to eat the boy pumpkins, though. Maybe they were trying to keep the girl ones around longer or something. Some of them got named, but I can't remember the names. See what I mean about the faces turning out a little sloppy? That's what I get, I suppose for being lazy.

I made enough faces to decorate 15 cupcakes. Even though I cut the recipe in half, we got 32 mini cupcakes out of it. So I sent a bunch of them to work with Ben to share. They are certainly not perfect, but good enough to make the girls happy. Kara also had a few issues with the spacing of the faces, but I guess it doesn't matter.

They were very proud of their creations. It was torture for them to have to wait until after dinner to eat any.

Since only 15 got to become pumpkins, we made some chocolate frosting for the rest. I also let them use the sunflower seeds to decorate the chocolate ones. They turned out very...interesting... and artistic...

Today was super hot, so after we got back from grocery shopping, I got out this sprinkler beach ball for the girls. Kara picked this out weeks ago, and this was the first time they've gotten to play with it. We've just been so busy for the past month.

She kept trying to run and jump over it, but she'd just end up hitting the top and bouncing back.

Kiersten complained a lot about getting wet. I don't think she had much fun. The only reason she kept getting back in the water, was to prove Kara wasn't having more fun than she was. She took a nap when we went inside, so I'm sure she was just tired and grumpy.

Ben went grocery shopping the other day at sam's club, and came home with this cute little picnic table. It's perfect for the girls, and they are always asking to eat in the backyard. When we had people over on monday for burgers, Kara took her plate out here, and sat by herself to eat.

8/9/11

Just a few pics of the kids enjoying the new swings Ben put up for them.
Ben's friend, Jon came over with his little boy to play for the afternoon.look how she's enjoying that swing! :)We all had to play several rounds of "guardian". Kara's been wanting to play it with daddy forever.It took the longest time to get all the balls past Ben. He was a pretty good guardian with those long monkey arms.Evie is fighting her nap lately. Yesterday I just could not get her down for her morning nap. So when i put her in the highchair of lunch, she was asleep after the first bite. Not the preferable way to get her down for a nap, but lately this is one of the few places she's falling asleep.a little stowaway. She thought it was so funny to be all zipped up in this bag.

taking the tour

We are finally unpacked enough, that I felt comfortable taking pictures of our new house. This is the familyroom, which has 4 functions; tv room, playroom, office, and sewing room. This angle shows the tv area, and to the left, you can see some chairs. That is my sewing area, which I didn't really get a picture of. Our glass table is there in the corner with my sewing machine, and bow making stuff.
This is our office/computer area. We just got that desk and the bookshelf on the left at ikea when we moved in. Ben has been great about putting things together every weekend since we moved in.

The play area is on the other side of the bookshelf, and behind the couch. I was nervous about losing our playroom, and having to have all the toys out, but the girls have been doing a good job of keeping everything straightened up.

we went from having a walk-in pantry, to no pantry, and fewer cupboards. So some things are in the garage, but we also bought this cabinet to keep some pantry items in the kitchen. There is also a broom closet outside of the kitchen, with a shelf that we are using as a pantry as well.

The kitchen is a good size, and is working out really well. Ben and I have disagreed about the placement of a few things, but I get the last word, since I'm the one using the kitchen several times a day. Some of the cupboards and shelves are high up, and hard to access, so we found that stool at sam's club.

This is the livingroom. My favorite part is how nice and bright it is. Our old house doesn't have a window in the front room, so it was always dark. Ben's least favorite part is the windows. I open them as soon as he leaves for work, and he closes them as soon as he gets home. our old computer desk is in the left corner, and to the right is the new tv Ben decided we needed for this room. I don't love the baby swing there, but we probably wont be using it much longer.

We sold our dining set when we moved, so this is the new one we got. It came in 5 boxes, and said it would take 2 adults 2.5 hours to assemble. Ben did it all himself in that amount of time. My contribution was keeping the kids downstairs and out of the way. and I also organized some of the screws for him:)

This is the mess that was left behind after he was done! I was reminded why wal-mart always had one person whose job was to follow Ben around cleaning up. He is quick, but messy. It took me over an hour to break down all this cardboard, and haul it all down to the recycle bin. I was covered from head to toe in little cardboard crumbs. But it was worth it for a brand new dining set!

Here it is in the diningroom. I've wanted to get a counter height set for a while now, but we kept putting it off. We had said around the end of the year we would get one, so I was thrilled when Ben decided to get this table the other day!

this is the view of the diningroom from the kitchen.

Here we are enjoying the new table. We don't need the 8 chairs on a daily basis, but it will be nice when we have guests over. The leaf folds down into the table, so we can just have a square table if we'd like as well. and it's nice not to have to worry about storing the leaf anywhere.

There is a little deck outside the diningroom. There are no stairs, though, so you can't get down into the backyard. The landlord came over and put that piece of wood around the bottom, so we don't have to worry about the kids falling off. We carried the grill upstairs, and then it wouldn't fit through the door. So Ben had to remove the door and put it back afterward.

He bought some wood and built a frame to put this tent on top of the clubhouse. we still might paint it, but that's something that can wait til later. He also swept and cleaned it out really nicely for the girls.

I cleaned the slide with bleach, but you can see it didn't come fully clean. but it looks much better. Ben attatched that, and we bought these new swings with plastic over the chains, so the girls don't get their hands pinched. you can kind of see the baby swing we got for Evie. Kara wanted a tire swing, but the plastic tire was $60! so we may try to find a cheaper tire later, or let her ask for it for christmas. We didn't realize swings cost so much. They've been having so much fun out here. I can't wait til all the wood is gone, because I don't want them climbing on it.

I will do another post with pictures of the bedrooms/bathrooms, as this one is getting long.

playing in the yard

Here are a few pictures of our new backyard. There is a play structure which the girls were so excited to see. But they weren't able to play out there at first, because of all the cut logs stored down there, and also, I wanted to get it cleaned up first, and make sure it was safe. The landlords cut down 2 80ft trees back here before we moved in, so there is tons of wood. They are selling it on craigslist, but Ben finally just decided to move some of it so the girls could play. they were asking every day when they'd be able to play out there.


We also sprayed the whole yard for bugs. This gate was covered in spider webs. But I think Ben got most of them. We haven't encountered any since.


finally swinging. We have since bought new swings, and fixed up the clubhouse a bit, and cleaned and put the slide back up, so I'll have to take another picture to show the difference.

this is just a view from the playground to see the back of the house.Evie loves playing outside. But I have to be following her closely, as she keeps trying to get down to the playground by going down the hill side, instead of the stairs. Also, there is a non working fountain back there, with some standing water. She hasn't been too curious about it yet, but I still wouldn't want her falling down there.

Kiersten on her trike.

Kara loves playing "guardian". which is either a game she made up, or learned at school, I'm not sure. It's basically like soccer, but with 7 or 8 balls, instead of 1.Evie honestly thinks the trike belongs to her. Kiersten can't ride it too long, without having to let Evie on, and then push her around. She's a good sister.

She can scoot it along by herself a little bit when Kiersten gets tired of pushing her.

I'll get a few pictures of the playground with the changes Ben made to fix it up, and also post a few pictures of the house. The girls' rooms aren't quite finished, and we are getting our new dining table tonight, so it should be all finished by the end of the week.

playing together

Ben was disappointed that I didn't post a blog update last week, so I thought I'd give him 2 this week. A few days ago we had a barbie hair salon in the livingroom. Everyone got new hairdos. I'm kinda weird about not wanting them to take out the original hairstyles the barbies came with, but I realize these are their toys, and meant to be played with. So we took out all the elastics and clips and they got to brush them out to their heart's content. They'll never look like new again, but neither of the girls care, so I shouldn't either. I really am trying to change my annoying ways. Eive was all up in everyone's business. She kept putting these play earings in her mouth, so I decided to clip them onto her ears. She kept them on for almost 30 minutes.

Kiersten had to have her picture taken with every single one of the barbies she styled. I did end up helping her a bit. This one was particularly hard to see the perfect curls get brushed out all frizzy, but oh well.

Kiersten loves making Ariel and the other barbies dance with "prince Eric". Eric from the little mermaid is her favorite prince. She completely plans on marrying him eventually.

This is pretty typical when the big girls are trying to play. Evie-saurus just gets right in there and joins in the fun.

Kiersten loves the days when Kara doesn't go to school. Here they are playing volleyball in the backyard. I think Kara has some natural talent for it.

Kiersten thinks she is such a big girl. and I guess she's more right than I may like to admit. She is SO excited about going to preschool in the fall.

They played a little soccerr too.

One of them kicked the ball right at Evie. It knocked her down and bounced off. she didn't cry, but she was a little stunned. I was trying to get a picture of them kicking it, but caught it a little late, right as they were running away and blaming each other for knocking her down.