Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Micah's 1rst Birthday

Micah turned 1 this past week!  I can hardly believe he is already a year old!  To celebrate his birthday we had a small party for him.  We invited just family and kept it as simple as possible.  I just frosted cupcakes instead of a fancy cake.  We didn't do any games or activities since Micah is too young to participate and it was, after all, his party.  :-)



 Micah really enjoyed his cake, he knew just what to do with it and didn't need any prompting!


I had all the kids sit on the kitchen floor to eat their cake and ice cream.   It worked so well, it kept the mess contained and the kids occupied for quite a bit of time.



Micah opened his presents last, there were only 4, and it was very manageable for him and not overwhelming at all.  We like to let the kids play with their toys a bit as they open them so when there are a lot of gifts it can take a while to open all of them and sometimes our guests get a bit impatient.  So, this was great to have a smaller amount!  :-)  Micah loved all his gifts and has played with them a lot!  It was a good party, very relaxed and much easier for me to handle than the last several.

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day we had a pretty normal day.  During school time we made valentines for each other.  The kids made one for each of their siblings and me and two for Mark, I guess we know who they love more!  For dinner we set the table with our very best china and used a red tablecloth.  Mark bought me flowers for our centerpiece and we had a red candle burning.  Our menu was :
         Heart shaped meatloaf
         Pink Mashed Potates
         Green Salad with tomato slices cut in the shape of hearts
         Red jello
         Fruit Punch
         Pineapple Pie, I died the filling pink with food coloring
Our table, set and ready to go, with everyone's valentines on their plates.


Pink Mashed Potatoes, they look more like frosting!
It looked so festive!  And, as Mark said at the end of the meal, "Everything was great Betsy, and we just got our years worth of food coloring in one sitting!"

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Birthday Party!

On Saturday we went to a friends birthday party.  The kids had a great time with all the other kids there. 
 The party was a farm theme and here are some of the decorations... so cute!

Jewelry

For Christmas Elijah gave Emmaline some beads to make jewelry so on Sunday Emmaline and I spent some time making her a bracelet and necklace.  She used the beads from Elijah as well as some of my beads from my jewelry making.

Extra 300S

For Christmas I got Mark an Extra 300S model airplane kit. He has been working on it faithfully and is making great progress! Here is how much he has done so far:

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

More flying

On Saturday Mark's brother and some of his kids came over for a little while to visit.  We all went over to a nearby empty field to fly some of Mark's planes.  Unfortunately, just as we arrived the wind picked up so Mark was only able to fly his trainer.  He was pretty disappointed, he really wanted his brother to see him fly his bi-plane. 


dollhouse update

Here is what I've accomplished on my dollhouse so far.  The shell of the house is together.  I don't have the roof glued on yet, I'm just checking if for size in the picture and marking the eves so I can paint them.  Slowly but surely I'm checking things off my huge to do list and the house is starting to look great!

Moving up!

After 5 children in 7 years I was a bit tired of having a permanent highchair in our kitchen so I decided to pack it away and move Micah into a booster seat at our table.  So far, so good!  Micah loves being with everyone else!

Run in with a piano...

Emmaline was playing on our couch the other night, sitting on the arm and goofing around.  She slipped and fell, BAM, right into the side of the piano!  She was screaming bloody murder and at first glance I thought she was going to need stitches, but fortunately didn't.  Here are some pictures of her the day after: