new backyard

here's the semi-finished product of our hard labor a few months back. new sod.

ted turned the back half of the side shed into a playhouse for the kids.

here's our vegetable garden.

the peas are almost ready to harvest.

here's part of the unfinished side of the yard.

mother's day weekend

this was a great weekend. saturday night we spent with our dear friends, scott and april. we went out to eat at la texicana and then headed over to redwood covenant to see phil wickham.

mother's day included beautiful flowers from my sweeties

sweet little ella button

my free-spirited corinney-rinn

lots of sillyness. this was kind of funny. while ted was bringing out the furniture ella said, "should we have music?" next thing i know she's got corinne's ariel boom box playing "be our guest". they started "dancing" around the table.

my sweet family

cuddly bohdan bear

anticipating dessert. as we started eating the cake corinne said, "should we sing 'happy birthday' to mommy, daddy?" of course ted informed her that it wasn't my birthday but they could sing "happy mother's day" to me. he started singing "happy mother's day" to the tune of "happy birthday". ella started frowning and said, "no, no that's not very good, daddy." poor ted.

ella asked for seconds and while she was partaking of her second sliver she sang "happy birthday" with the lyrics of "happy mother's day" to me...it's all a matter of perspective.

easter

this easter was lots of fun. on good friday before we headed off to the good friday service we dyed easter eggs. the girls had fun putting their eggs in the dye. for the last egg we mixed all the colors together to make a brown egg. we sang "mighty to save" while we waited.

our church put on their annual easter egg hunt. all the kids lined up and waited for the word to start.

here's ella getting ready!

bohdan didn't get to participate this year, but he didn't seem to mind much.

that afternoon we went over our friends mark and carissa's house for a yummy dinner. mark hid easter eggs in their backyard for the kids. they had lots of fun searching. corinne wanted to just eat the candy.

it was a great day!

girl's night

a few weeks ago i took corinne out for ice cream while ella was at cubbies. she chose 3 different kinds of ice cream with sprinkles and ate the whole thing!

too busy

yesterday i was looking through a gardening magazine. they had a little article about pumpkins and it reminded me of the pumpkin seeds we bought over the weekend. the previous day the girls helped me trim back some of the bushes and smaller trees in the backyard and we really cleared quite a bit of space. i said to ella, "oh ella, i know what we could plant in that space we cleaned up yesterday!" she then looked at me, sorta grimaced and said, "mom, but, ugh, i just don't have time to plant things all day long!"...okay then.

bedtime story

the other night i was nursing bohdan in his room while ted put the girls down for bed. we have a routine of a bedtime story, prayer and a song. ella asked daddy to tell them a "story from [his]head". ted asked "what kind of story" and ella replied, "a princess story!" then ted suggested a princess story with spaceships. and both girls agreed. so ted began the story of princess elayna. i couldn't catch all the details, but basically she is a princess from another planet with 3 arms and 3 legs...this is what happens when your sci-fi loving techy engineer daddy tells you a story "from his head"!

ella's "tangled" 4th birthday party!!

ella has been looking forward to her birthday since before christmas. she kept track by whose birthday was next. finally her day came...

this year she asked to have a rapunzel party. i used a lot of ideas i got from this blog: http://www.supermommoments.com/2011/01/tangled-birthday-party-games/. ella really had such a good time.

one of the activities was to paint pictures. then we taped them on the walls. some of the kids did a pretty impressive job!

next the kids played "pin the pan on flynn". i copied the flynn rider wanted poster from the "tangled" movie and the kids took turns trying to hit him with their own paper frying pans.

i thought i got a picture of the kids decorating their sunburst cookies, but i didn't. for dinner we had fix it yourself sandwiches with homemade artisan bread, grapes, veggies and dip, jello "shots" (just kidding). actually, i borrowed an idea from the above blog, to make floating boats like the movie using blue jello in individual little cups with an orange slice and a purple sail attached by a toothpick. the kids liked them, but it occured to me as i was pouring the jello that it looked like i was serving jello shots to a bunch of kids! i have to say i wish i had taken a picture of the food table. ted was the one who assembled the trays of food and they were beautiful. who knew the man could make veggies look so good!!

ella had so much fun opening her presents from her friends.

she got over the fear of being sung to and enjoyed everyone singing "happy birthday" to her. she was really excited about her rapunzel cake.

i thought and researched for a do-able cake idea for the longest time. in the end i ordered one from safeway and saved myself the stress!

here's the party scene. of course, i didn't think to take a picture till the party was over.

the last activity of the day was lighting a lantern and "sending it off" (which we didn't really do as it was tied a piece of twine to it so as to avoid setting someone's roof on fire). it did float up for a little before catching fire. the kids enjoyed it, though, and it was a good ending to a great day!! i love you my little button. i can't believe you're a big 4 year old now!!