Mr. Roboto

Meet my friend Mr. Roboto. He is know for eating fish burritos. I had to post him doing his little jig. This is VERY memorable moment in the "faces of Ross"! It takes a lot of personality to do this!

Easter Time with Family

We drove up to visit my brother and his family for the Easter weekend. It was his birthday also, so it was celebration all around! The weekend was busy and filled with crafts. I had to saw a tree out of wood and cover it with cork for our preschool, Sean and his son, Gabriel, were making a Derby car for Cub Scouts, we all created hand-made birthday cards, there were Easter hunts galore, and of course the dyeing of eggs.

This idea for dyeing eggs was from Family Fun. You choose leaves and place them on the egg with a hose around it. The panty hose holds the leaf in place. Since we had the "natural" theme going we used natural things to dye the eggs. Tumeric was used for the orange, fruit tea for red, coffee for brown, juiced up carrots with the pulp and broccoli for green. Secretly we added green to the broccoli and orange to the carrots. . .the kids did not know.



This is the grouping in a basket the kids and I made.


The artist in me came out as I roamed around the house with my favorite eggs choosing the BEST background for their close up. A white background was the winner, too bad it took me about 45 minutes to figure that out.
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Easter morning, inspired by my son's teacher, we made Easter egg pancakes. Keep the griddle a little hotter than normal so they hold the egg shape and sprinkle with your favorite sugar sprinkles. We also food colored the pancakes purple and yellow. The kids loved them!!! The big hit was the crunch that the sugar sprinkles added, my son didn't even use syrup. I liked the crunch but even more I loved the fact that even though they did not taste like lots of sugar was added, it tricked the kids into thinking there was.


The lighting was beautiful that morning. Stripes of light fell over the table as we ate our breakfast. I tried to get a photo with us all, but I was getting brotherly nagging about how much I use my camera.

My Favorite Number

Happy Birthday Brother!!! To our six "to-kill-ya's"!!!


My brother, Sean, turned 37 on March 22nd! Our families celebrated together and had a wonderful time. I had to post this photo of him blowing out his 37 candles! Lookin' good!

Blow those Eggs!

This was such a fun activity for the entire family. We all were together the other night and hollowed out eggs and decorated them with tissue paper and good ol' Mod Podge. We were screaming and hooting for each other as we blew out the egg, and I was really getting into seeing how the colors changed as you layer the tissue paper. I thought the kids would too. . . maybe when they are older!
Everyone blowing. . .minus mumma!



Miss Sela Rose having a little fun with the dangling egg!

Aidan Rue gluing squares of tissue paper on the egg.

Showing off their eggs!

Here are what they looked like when they were all done! Very cute, and the Mod Podge turns them very hard so if they fall they will not break. Wonderful if you have children. . .ours have fallen only about 20 times by now, and not one break!

We found a bird nest on a walk through the woods the other day. The egg looks cute in here. It is on display on our kitchen table.

Shhh! It's a secret.

I had to tell you all this when Aidan Rue was sleeping. I didn't want the word to get out so early and him be disappointed.

The other day while our cousins Sadye and Ella were over, Aidan Rue was removed due to his lack of listening skills. After being in the bedroom for only 30 seconds he comes out "needing to tell Sadye and Ella something!". I let him know that he could tell them after he was done sitting. He then began getting very persistent. I asked him what he needed to say. His reply, "I need to let them know that it's o.k. and I'll be right back."

Gosh. If he had any clue!!!!!!!! Such a man!

A little art and a whole lotta sleep

Can I brag? Is that an O.k. thing to do while blogging? I slept for seven, yes, seven straight hours last night! Our daughter, Sela, has been sleeping with us still after almost three years. Aidan Rue was in a toddler bed around 2 years in preparation for the arrival of Sela. He did great with the transition, Sela on the other hand has been a bear. A lady bear, of course, but a sure sassy one! After trying the toddler bed in our bedroom and failing we pondered the idea of "just get her out now!" This past weekend we painted her bedroom and got her excited about her own room. The room finally became Sela's room vs. Aidan's old bedroom. Night #1. Cried all night. No sleep for any of us. Night #2. Woke at 8 then 9:30 with extreme leg cramps. (Her little calfs were so tight. They felt like little rocks under the skin.) I massaged her legs for 30 minutes - then - presto! She didn't wake until just after 8!!!! I awoke at 5 checking her breathing, that is where I got my 7 hours. Lets all cross our fingers again tonight.

Here is a historic home I painted in Caseville, MI. I am going to give you there Chamber email - GREAT festivals in the summer. www.casevillechamber.com The building I painted is now a coffee/tea shop that sells antiques. The funkiest little lady owns the shop and they are keeping it going in that teeny tiny town.

Outdoor catnap

This is my little niece, Nola Joy Leland (I think there are more names I just can't remember them) Hogan. She is awake!

This is Nola Joy, outdoors in the freezing cold, sleeping, on a sled!


If only I could get this good of a sleep anywhere - anytime! My brother is her father though. . .hopefully she doesn't end up snoring like him. I snore like my mom though, so. . . . .

SnowChic

This is how we are all feeling lately!!! We are holding in there though, painting different colors in my kids bedrooms has been helping us all out!


My children and I have made so many snowpeople this year!! It has been fun, but I am a little over it now! Our snowpeople have consisted of feathers and food coloring for lips, bottles and ice for noses, and always bouncy balls out of my children's bouncy ball collection for eyes.
Now onto SnowChic! She was made after my 88 year old grandmother requested a snowman in her backyard. She has large kitchen windows and a sliding glass door looking straight into the backyard. I think she was welcoming a new "friend" to keep her company during the day. This SnowChic took the cake after the reaction we got. My sister-in-law, Andrea, and I ended up making her after the kids decided throwing snowballs was more fun. Grandma was at the sliding glass door watching us the entire time. We added size 38 DD's to her, reflective of G-ma. My grandmother has a tiny waist, thin, sexy legs and large ol' boobies that she is proud of. Andrea and I were giggling waiting for her to notice, which obviously took many minutes. All of a sudden we heard a bellowing, high pitched scream and we saw Grandma nearly fall off her chair in laughter! They did their job!
This special SnowChic has another special attribute. Look real closely at her nose. Since we didn't have a large carrot, and Grandma was insistent on a carrot, she suggested straight pinning three mini carrots together. You can see the black pin balls on the carrots in the photo. Very forward thinking for an 88 year old!

Parting with our Winter Candyland

Ahhh! I finally am sitting down, with child wrapped in my lap, and am typing my first blog. This is going to be my therapy to treat my "not wanting to go to bed syndrome". Actually, it probably won't "treat" it as much as helping me cope with my night time boredom, I only can read so much. I need to stay quiet because the entire house is sleeping and I don't enjoy starting art projects in the evening because they usually take me later into the night than I want. I take back 'the entire house", our Kola the Cow Cat comes alive wanting to play fetch and sliding all around our home making LOTS of noise, on purpose I am sure.

As to our Winter Candyland, these gingerbread houses were made in December by my son Aidan Rue. A local coffee shop, local bakery, and local novelty candy store (www.therocketypsi.com) donated space, gingerbread, and candy to make these wonders. We paid twenty dollars and received rectangle gingerbread pieces and icing. The table was lined with more candy than I had ever seen: foot long swirled taffy, gumballs in every size, marshmallow trees, mints, gum drops, gummy bears, and an array of suck candies. My child made his much like his personality - organized chaos! A gentlemen behind us had been eyeing Aidan's creation the entire hour and a half and exicitedly commented on the brilliance behind his design. From my mommy perspective, I just loved that he sat for 1.5 hours concentrating having a ball covering every possible section of the house. The other gingerbread to the left was made out of graham crackers at his co-op preschool, very fun and easy, even for our daughter who is 2.5. I have been keeping these around the house for months now just trying to figure out how to save them as my husband keeps nagging me to toss them. I am a pack rat!! I admit it in every sense on the word! I thought about spraying it with polyurethane to keep it and bring it out every year but one day I just did it, I threw them away. I felt sad, but I do have this beautiful photo as a reminder and I get to see them make a new one every year. I guess that is the most important part, being around and experiencing the gingerbread house being made.