family fun night: putting it all together

The choice for family fun night last weekend was: game or puzzle?

Perhaps seeking after the unknown, the girls chose PUZZLE and were a little overwhelmed when we opened a new puzzle that mimi and G bought them for christmas. It was a 100 peice Beauty and the Beast puzzle.  They were enthralled at the picture on the box and were anxious to open it.  

When we dumped all the pieces out on the table, Emma gave them a quick look and then asked josh:  "Where's the board?"

Oh yes, there's no board with these puzzles.  We jumped into Big Girl Puzzles. 

After a quick survey of the situation...

...and hearing Emma's thoughts on how to best go about it all...
...we decided to divide and conquer.  Daddy and Emma started to work on outside pieces with borders, and mantha got stuck with...you guessed it...looking for all the pieces with yellow.  
I was really impressed with Emma's problem-solving skills. Sure, she wouldn't be able to do it on her own yet, but josh let her do a lot of it by herself - including making her share of mistakes.  But she also proved daddy wrong more than a few times!  She did a great job!
It really was sufficient for a Family Fun Night activity, because we all had to work together and it actually took a long time.  But here's the hard workers, proud of their big accomplishment!

giving in

Emma is SO over nap time.  

Maybe once every two or three weeks, we'll require her to lay down in her bed at naptime to rest, but even then she doesn't sleep.

Recently, during naptime, she loves playing with her leapster, reading books, or taking her dollies on all sorts of adventures.  

One day, I went into our bedroom to check on her (that's where she has to have her "quiet afternoon time") and this is what I found:

I guess some days we all need a little break!

the baby's room is ready!!

I'm writing this one from thailand, but I wanted to post some pictures of the baby's room. I had mentioned before that I got on a painting kick one night while josh was doing something, but I hadn't taken pictures yet of everything.

Anyway, the girls have enjoyed helping me get things ready for baby's arrival...making welcome signs, pulling out baby toys and clothes, moving furniture around.  They're excited to see their baby sister!

So here's the grand tour:

Looking through the doorway, past the welcome sign emma and samantha made for her:

Fabulous brown chair, donated by john and rachel (thanks to their move)

Curtains, circa wedding present, 2000:

I bought that scroll stencil in America after being inspired by steve and misty's house and all her cool stenciling.  Can I hire you next time, misty???

Toys, all arranged by big sisters...
Come soon, baby Abby!  We're waiting for you!

dinner time

After having two kids, I started planning all my meals for the week on Sunday night.  This is particularly useful for me because  I have a fabulous house helper who will go to the store on Monday morning and buy whatever I need.  If I forget something, it usually means I will go to the store later in the week...so I really try to remember it all!

But sometimes I get in a rut.  We get tired of the same rotation of foods every few weeks.  Surely this happens to you all too?  So one night last week, I added a new addition.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes were on the menu for the first time ever in the eggroll house.   I'd never made them, never even ordered them at IHOP or anywhere else.  Joy of Cooking provided me with a recipe, so I thought I'd try it out.  

They were good - but loaded with chocolate chips inside, what's not good? Emma and Samantha were excited, and why not?  We even had sliced strawberries and whipped cream to go with it.  Dinner to be excited about, I tell you!

We also made some regular pancakes, because my deepest (yet unspoken) question was legitimate - do chocolate chip pancakes really count as dinner? 

Really?

free paint - Mantha

Samantha's turn for free paint came the next morning (she was otherwise occupied during emma's free paint).  She too, happily chose her colors, carefully looked over her brushes, and started painting away.  Yellow, a color missing from Emma's masterpeice, was all over mantha's!

We tried our best to keep the colors separate, but after a while...
Is this the look of a proud artist? I think so!

free paint - Emma

When I gave my girls the option to paint the other day, they were totally jazzed.  

They were even more excited that I just gave them the brush, let them choose their colors, and then moved out of the way.  

Painting at our house is usually a structured activity - we're trying to make something, or complete a part of something else, so there's rules and restrictions on colors and places to paint.

Not this time.  

It was "anything goes" (including, as you can see, clothing - where "everything went"!)  Emma loved the freedom she had to paint anything, and her imagination went far beyond my ability to keep up! She kept pointing out puppies with eyes, clouds, more puppies...

Finally, her finished product had several puppies (which I never could quite locate) but also a beautiful sunshine (which was easy to find, and quite well done, I might add!) and some clouds and her name.  

I guess everyone loves the feel of a blank piece of paper and a brush...

Boomer!

A few weeks ago, my friend Amy had a birthday.  

Amy's husband wanted to send her away for the day.  (Not like "send her away" but like, "send her away" to go shopping and have some time for herself.)

Amy's husband also thought it would be more fun if Amy's friends went with her.

Amy's husband talked to my husband and Rachel's husband.

They conspired together to send us on a 30-hour break from home life.  

It was lovely.  We read books, ate ribs, went shopping, ate sandwiches, did some more shopping, bought candy and snacks from America, did some more shopping, ate ice cream, and shopped some more.  That was pretty much how the time was spent...  =)

One place we went had ceramic platters and kitchen dishes.  I'd been to that store before, but never had I seen the sight I was to behold that day:

For less than three dollars, I snapped it up and added a new chip and dip tray to my collection.   It's ceramic and heavy - not like my light plastic ones that I love and use often - but it's Boomer Sooner, and I found it in Asia, and how can you not like having Boomer Sooner stuff, even if it is ceramic and heavy??

I hadn't had a good chance to use it until the beginning of January, January 8 to be exact.  We had a few friends over to watch the big game - along with some mexican dip, puppy chow, and fabulous frosted brownies.  The platter echoed our sentiments exactly - Go Sooners!

And, in the end, even if the game didn't go how we had hoped, I was still happy to use my tray.  I was still happy to eat the food.  I was still happy to enjoy the company.  Plus, we're starting to get used to losing big games, so it didn't seem like such a loss this year.  

So for this year and for next year, and for all the upcoming years:  Go Sooners!

a post from america...well, you know what I mean

We leave in just a few days to head to sunny thailand, where we will (eventually) be having a baby, among other things! =)  In the meantime, I've anticipated things will be busy with packing, travel, getting settled, seeing doctors, etc...and that probably means my blogging will be a little on the infrequent side.  BUT....seeing as how I am a super-planner (ha!), I'm trying to line up a few posts for you so that every few days, it will at least feel  like you're hearing from us...even if it was stuff I wrote a long time ago.  

So this will be installment #1 of previously written posts until things settle enough to blog about current events.  Plus, I've had these pictures saved in my blogger account since october; it's about time I put them on my page!

This will also be my last post of fun stuff we did in America...I know, you probably thought it would never end!

On our last weekend in America, Josh's parents took us all out to the Orr Family Farm in Oklahoma City.  There were all sorts of fun things to do - and we were really excited about it.  The whole crew went - our family, josh's sister, the boys, his parents...

Here's samantha and nick playing on some of the toys when you first walk in...

And then we got on the train to give us the tour of the place.  
Samantha sat with Kristen in the back and got a few photography lessons before the train started down the track.  

I thought of Alex and Peter when I was on the train so I took this picture for you guys!
After we got our full tour by train, pony rides were next.  Kristen was willing to stay by samantha, so I just got to sit on the sidelines and watch and wave and take pictures.  She was really brave.  I think there was poop and stuff in there.  =)
Jason, Emma and Samantha were the only pony riders from our group...

Ok...these little things are not made for tiny kids!  We had to hold them up behind the holes, and that wasn't easy.  I won't be doing that again!
There was a barn inside that had several "farm" animals, but before you see the animals, they had this attractive "cow-milking" display set up right at the entrance.  You can pull on her udders and water comes out. It was a little...weird.  But my kids thought it was way cool.  
I hope that's the closest to another udder I ever get!
Yo! Is this not the fattest pig you've ever seen?  You could go in his pen and touch him, but who wants to touch a pig like that?  I was a little afraid of him. Actually, coming here came at the height of my children's Charlotte's Web craze, so they thought it was great to see the animals so up-close-and-personally.
These sheep were totally uninterested in visitors.  Even cute visitors in pink shirts who are asking them their names...
...they were especially uninterested in samantha's type of visitation.  She nearly chased them around their pen; they tried their best to ignore her, but she kept after them!
Black goat outside had some personality disorders or something.  Emma tried to make friends, but again...uninterested.  
While the bigger kids did a maze, josh's mom and the girls and I moved on to the pedal cars.  Debbie was the first one to be willing to take emma around in her car (I later gave in, but not so willingly!)  They did a great job!

Samantha just couldn't quite reach the pedals herself...

Riding with mama wasn't nearly as great as doing it by yourself, but when you're two, sometimes you have to have help! 

On the carousel with Gigi...
Yikes, she's such a big girl!

After the carousel, we waited in line for the hayride to take us out to the pumpkin patch.  Kristen kept samantha entertained while we waited...
Emma loved picking her own pumpkin, and spent a long time making sure she chose the exact one she wanted...
Mantha finally found one too, but it took her a while...
I think samatha and kristen were the last ones to get back on the trailer! 
We had a cute group picture of all of us on the hayride, but somehow it got left out of here.  Anyway, we had a great time at the farm!  thanks to Al and Debbie for taking us all there!