Finley's fake birthday

Finley got to have a fake birthday celebration at preschool, since her birthday is in the summer. We sent in treats--she picked brownies. And when I picked her up, she was wearing this cute birthday crown. 

 She was so cute and excited to celebrate her fake birthday!

The wheels on the car go round and round

 We did a lot of driving this year. Here is what some of that looked like for Isaac.

 A self portrait.

 Lots of views of sissy.

 A nice upside down shot of his missing tooth.

 Another self portrait.

 And another one of sissy.

 Finley was sitting in the back.

 Crazy pose by Sareny.

This little girl has gotten pretty used to being in the car. I love how happy and smiley she is!

If you want your kids to eat dinner...

 have them help make it!

I needed to make a tinfoil dinner for a young women's activity I was going to, so obviously that's what everybody in our house was going to eat that night. The only problem--none of the kids like potatoes or cooked carrots so I could imagine how big this dinner was going to go over. I came up with the solution of involving them in the preparation and letting them assemble and fold their own meals. They thought it was great fun.

 Even writing their name on their meal involved some fancy artwork.

Look how thrilled they are!

I still wasn't convinced they were going to actually eat the food, but Keith said that night they were all exclaiming how good it was, and they have since asked me when we are having tinfoil dinners again. I call that a success!

3-D model of Saturn

Sareny's third grade class ended the year with a big astronomy project, and for part of it she had to pick a planet and create a 3-d model. She chose Saturn, because it starts with an 'S' like her name. She started with a nerf-like soccer ball and covered it with paper mache'. (I know that word is not punctuated correctly, but that is as close as I know how to make it.)

Keith assisted Sareny with this project, although she really did it all herself and he was there to help and offer suggestions.

While the planet was drying, she worked on Saturn's many rings and ringlets. We all learned quite a bit from this project--for instance, I previously had no idea most of the rings are actually called ringlets.

 She had the idea to watercolor the rings and then use some puffy paint to add detail.

Here she is in her class with the finished project. She worked really hard on it, but I know she had fun too because she got to paint and do crafty things. Saturn and the six moons that she painted all have multiple colors that she sponged on to give them a realistic look. I was really proud of her for working so hard and doing such a great job.

Shrinky Dink Magic

Another idea I had for Isaac's recycling project was to make shrinky dinks out of old plastic. The one difficulty with this idea is that #6 plastic is kind of hard to come by. I checked every piece of plastic we recylced for several weeks before I finally found some, but I will reveal the mystery product you need to buy so that you, too, can make shrinky dinks. You are in luck if your family likes to eat...

Oreo cookies! The insert inside the package is made of #6 recyclable plastic and works for this project. Start by cutting your plastic into little squares and use a hole puncher to cut a hole. Make sure you make the hole a little bigger than I did, because the hole puncher I used was not the standard type and the holes in the finished product were too little to poke a needle through. If you are wondering what you need a hole for--we were planning on stringing them on a necklace..

Use sharpies to color the squares of plastic. You can see in the above photos the size of the squares before we baked them.

Then put them in the oven at 325 degrees for about 2 minutes, and watch them shrink! These were really so cool, and the kids had so much fun making them. I had so much fun making them too...

Lego head guy

Isaac's class was talking about recycling, and the kids were supposed to bring something in that they upcycled, or reused from garbage. I had this empty red vines container waiting to be recycled, and I thought we cold make something interesting out of it. We decided to make a lego storage container!

The first step was removing the label, which was no easy task. We peeled off as much as we could, then I used a goo gone type product multiple times. I had the best results when I used a plastic disposable knife to scrape after letting the goo gone sit for several minutes.

We spray painted the whole thing several times with Krylon sunshine yellow paint for plastic.

Isaac picked out a face that he wanted, and I painted it on using acrylic paints. Lastly, we spray painted it with a sealer. It turned out so cute!

His teacher thought at first that he was bringing in one of the real lego head containers that they sell, so I think we were pretty close to the real thing!

The next day

The day after Keeley's birthday, she wore one of her new outfits from grandma Nancy. She looked so adorable in it!

 Seeing her little smiles just makes me smile too.

 I think she likes having her picture taken.

 She also likes sticking her tongue out.

 Then she did this little lip vibrating/raspberry type thing she likes to do.

 We love our cute little girl!

Keeley River turns 1!

 This little girl had a birthday! I could hardly believe a whole year had gone by.

First we opened presents, and daddy helped her open them up.

She got this cute little dress from Lexi and Scott.

She needed a bit of help to get the wrapping off.

 She got an Arial barbie for the tub, and she carried it around with her for the rest of the evening.

She got the monkey George movie, which I realized I have now purchased this same movie three times. The first time, we had borrowed the movie from the Dominguez's. It somehow got lost or broken, so I had to buy them a replacement movie. Our kids had liked it so much that I ended up buying it for ourselves a little later. Then, we somehow lost a whole sleeve of movies after a road trip that we never found, and that was one of the movies that went missing. So this makes the third time! 

 Here she is with the Arial.

 Lexi and Scott were the only other party guests.

 I wanted a cute picture of me and her, but she just kept squirming and trying to get away.

Then we got out her cake and sang to her.

She was cute and looked around at all of us as we sang to her, but unlike Finley's first birthday, she didn't join in.

 Isaac loves her so much and just wanted to be close to her.

 Then all the kids got in for a picture.

 They had to help blow out the candles.

And then it was time for her to go to town on the cake. First she removed the cookie from the top.

And tasted it.

And liked it!

She really got the hang of eating that cake.

 She left no piece undemolished.

 I was seriously surprised by how thorough she was. Here she tore a big chunk off.

 And then she shoved the chunk in her mouth.

 Then she lifted up the entire cake.

She didn't actually eat it all, but it kind of looks like she did.

 I have never seen a baby trash a cake so effectively and methodicallly.

She was so darn cute! We love our little Keeley River. How has the time flown so fast??