Royal Wedding

I've been wanting to post about this for a while and I just haven't gotten around to it.

The girls and I were so excited for the Royal Wedding. We kept talking about Prince William and Princess Kate (even though she's not really a princess until he's next in line). And since it's practically a law in England for ladies to wear hats to a wedding, we decided that we needed have fancy, fabulous hats as well. The girls thought their hats were so fun and they were very specific about their color choices-purple for Siobhan, green for Audrey. (perfect timing by the way, right after Easter, we were able to get Easter bonnets at the dollar store and decorate them up with supplies from the dollar store). I had DVR'd the wedding so the girls and I could watch the wedding in the evening. We had a tea party (orange kool-aid) and pizza. It was a great time!!!!

These fabulous hats from the royal wedding...A-MA-ZING!!!

Audrey wanted Green for her hat. You can't tell, but there is a butterfly coming right out of the top of the hat!

Siobhan wanted Purple. We had lots of fun with hers!!! Thank you dollar store.

Ethan had a great time!

Mr. Will was obsessed with the hats!

My best snooty British face!!

First image found here.

Second image found here.

Why My Kids Rock!-Mother's Day Pt. 1

A post about the people in my life who make this day a reason to celebrate.....

Siobhan

*Siobhan is silly little five year old who loves to play outside and scares the crap out of me on a daily basis with her tree climbing.
*She frequently wants to bring worms inside to keep as pets.
*The other morning, she said, 'I'm glad you're awake!' It was the best way to start the day. I even wrote it down so I wouldn't forget that she said it to me.
*I think Siobhan has found her calling in the culinary arts. She loves to help Carson cook. She loves to bake with me. Maybe we'll send her to cooking school.
*Siobhan pretty much sell you on any product that she see's a commercial for. The other day she came to me and said, 'Mommy, there's a bed that eliminates back pain. It's call the Sleep Number bed. You should get that.' She's done that with Swiffer, Cedar Pro Steamer, and Packit. She might watch too much TV. Or she has her mommy's memory.
*She wants to be a big girl so bad! I'm content to keep her little!
*Siobhan got a pair of black skinny jeans with embroidery on the back pockets....very grown up! This is how she styled herself.


Audrey

*Audrey has a beautiful smile but whenever you pull out a camera, she instantly goes into serious mode. I think it's a trait she got from my mom.
*Always the jumper, we decided to put her into Irish Step Dancing and wouldn't you know, she's really good at it!
*Audrey is such a girly girl so, true to form, I get a bouquet of flowers almost every day from back yard. They're usually dandelions.
*Would prefer to wear dresses which is great since she owns a million dresses and skirts but not so good for the millions of jeans she has.
*She's the method actor of the family. Pretty much all day every day she is in character and, in her mind, you are too. Right now, she's Repunzel from Tangled. Siobhan is Flynn, Ethan is Pascal, Will is Maximus (sometimes Will and Siobhan are flipped) and Carson and I are King and Queen. When she decides to be Buzz, Carson and I are Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. The thing about it is that we always have to refer to her appropriately and if you don't respond in kind, there are problems. The other night, she said the blessing at dinner and referred to everyone in her prayer by their Tangled characters. It was hilarious!

(In her fabulous hat while watching the royal wedding....another post to come)

Mr. Will

*I may have posted this before, but he loves toilet brushes, toilet plungers and brooms. Either he's trying to tell me to clean more or he's destined for a career in the janitorial services.
*He has the most piercing blue eyes!
*He decided that he wants to be potty trained. He pulled me over to the toilet and pointed and said please. I put him on there and he just went. I wasn't planning on potty training him for a few more months, but I guess we're doing it a little sooner. The boy can't really talk, but he sure can pee on the potty.
*The 'compliment' that I get from pretty much everyone is 'Will is so cute....he has soooo much energy.' I don't really know what to do with that.
*He's at that stage where he likes to put on everyone's shoes. Case in point, look at the pic below.
*There's a hilarious story about him going down for his nap, a problem with his diaper and boy parts and the word 'stuck'. Carson won't let me put it on the blog, so use your imagination.



Ethan

*Ummm, best.baby.ever!
*Ethan has been sleeping through the night since he was six weeks old. He seriously is such an angel!
*Sir Ethan is such a smiley guy!!!
*I don't have much to write about him because he's so young. But I'm so excited to get to know this little guy!

Easter Sunday

Forgive me for not writing much more than captions. But I know most of you show up for pictures anyway. Easter was fun, pretty standard. I made the girl's Easter dresses (out of vintage curtains and material from the thrift store) and boy's bowties. Everyone got fun Easter baskets filled with goodies. The girls each got some pants, Mr. Will got a toy from Dinosaur Train, Ethan got Cars, I got the book To The Rescue and Carson got a new belt. It was a fun day as always!

Carson and Ethan. Ethan didn't get a bowtie fore a few reasons. 1. I didn't have time. 2. He doesn't have a white button up shirt. 3. I figured a bowtie would bug a little guy that small. But he really doesn't need it. He could be a wearing a paper sack and still look adorable!

My initial instinct was to make my own patterns for the dresses. But instead I went with an online tutorial for Audrey's dress and a vintage pattern for Siobhan's. Yeah, that didn't work too well cause everything that I cut out was WAY too big. So I ended up having to make up my own patterns anyway. But I'm so pleased with how the turned out! Nobody had anything even remotely similar at church! I had a to do a lot of new techniques that I've never done before so it was a good learning experience!

It doesn't get any better than that does it?

Sometimes they really do love each other! (They've been fighting a lot lately!)

The boys! Aren't they so handsome! And yes, I did convince Carson to wear the bowtie willingly!

We can never get a good family picture and forget about me ever getting in one. We need to learn how to use the timer on the camera.

The girls...I got my skirt at DI! I love thrift stores!

Mr. Will...he's always got to be doing something!

Sleeping Babies

I think that there is nothing more peaceful than a sleeping baby! Case in point.....

*Sir Ethan, sleeping soundly which he does so well....are you totally in love with his face???? How could you not be?*

That is not the case, however, when it comes to toddlers and young children......

*Mr. Will...we always find him in funny positions in his bed. But he's always in his bed and never in his closet or on his floor. Such a good boy!*

*Audrey is usually always on top of her covers which she insists on having on top of her when we tuck her in. Her and her brother definitely inherited their mommy's sleeping habits which include but are not limited to sprawling, flip-flopping, kicking and taking up as much space as possible with a tiny body....seriously, ask Carson how many times I've come close to kicking or pushing him out of bed while I'm asleep.*

Well, Siobhan may be a little more peaceful than the other two.....

*She may not look all that comfortable but at least she's not sucking her thumb!*

Think I'm Going to Have to do This

I found a blog called No Big Dill this evening. I've seen it mentioned before but now I'm in love. Her most recent project is this and I think it's awesome. I think I'm going to have to give it a whirl. We'll see how it pans out. the possibilities are endless. Fancy Nancy, Pinkalicious, The Prayer Tree, The Gorilla Did It, Alexander and Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, Caps For Sale, The Magician's Nephew, Rainbow Fish....just thinking about made me excited!!!! I can't wait to see what I come up with. Maybe I'll alternate letting the girls choose a book and then make them something inspired by their choice. Hooray!

Spring is in the Air

*Yep, I totally copied this idea that Dana did with her kids over at Made. Just FYI, none of this was my own aside from the creativity that was had in decorating the butterflies...that was all us!*

We were supposed to have a friend come over to play today so I wanted to come up with an art project for the three girls to work on together. So this was the plan...decorating butterflies and hanging them up for all to see. Unfortunately, plans fell through and Emma couldn't come over (we sure missed her but I already have another idea of what to do when she does come over to add in with the butterflies) so me and the girls did the art project and we had so much fun!!!

Siobhan was very proud of her butterflies....this is a mommy butterfly carrying her baby butterfly.

The mess....it always happens when you craft with kids! But this is nothing compared to what we've had before!

Audrey hard at work. She would get so excited about them going up on the wall that she would just color a little bit and then make me hang it up!

The top of the stairs....

Bottom of the first flight of stairs...

The top of the second flight of stairs...

The bottom of the second flight of stairs....


We hung them up in the stairway going down to the basement and Audrey was so excited that Spring was 'coming up in our house.' We had a blast and I think they look so fun and beautiful!

Friday Funnies!!!!

A few of the goofy things that have happened this morning...

The girls came upstairs after their showers, asking me to tie their towels around their necks like super heroes. Siobhan said that Audrey's super hero name is Super Pinkalicious. Her job is turn the world pink and sweet. Siobhan's super hero name is Coconut Green Apple and her job is to turn everything in the world into lollipops. I love those girls!!!!

Usually, they really love each other!

Mr. Will came running upstairs wearing only a diaper and Audrey's princess bike helmet backwards. He knew he had the helmet on wrong so he had me fix it. Then he ran over to the garage door asking to go ride bikes. I told him not right now so he started to get into the pantry. Can you just picture him wearing only a diaper and a princess bike helmet? Go on, picture it....it's hilarious!!!As handsome as they come, no?

A Post That Is More Pictures Than Text-Enjoy!

Disclaimer: All pictures where I am present are super unflattering...just keepin' it real. But the kids look cute as always!

The girls got in trouble for fighting so they were sent to the couch holding hands. They were NOT happy about it!

I know I posted a very similar picture in my previous post, but I couldn't resist. He's just so cute!

Tried to snap a picture of Audrey who had fallen asleep on the couch. But Mr. Will could not pass up an opportunity to mug for the camera! Such a silly boy!

While getting ready for FHE, I snapped a few pics of me with the girls. I pledged to get more pictures of me being a mom. Whether these qualify as such, you decide.

She has a knack for making weird faces totally unintentionally for the camera. Let's just say that unless the smile is totally candid, it very rarely looks natural. But she's still adorable!

This one on the other hand couldn't really make a weird face to save her life.

7 pm Tuesday night. Not sure why she was so tired, but she slept until 7:30am Weds morning. I've found her like this a few times and it's always so cute!

Fairies!!!!

Of course, the girls wanted to be fairies for Halloween (at first Siobhan wanted to be an astronaut, but we decided on Tinker Bell instead.) I had a bunch of fun making all of their costumes! Mr. Will was going to be Paul McCartney, but then we decided that he might be more comfortable as an owl. They were all adorable!

For Siobhan we decided that as Tinkerbell, we would go with the version from 'Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure'. She's a little more modest in that she wears pants and a shirt under her dress. I'm glad we went that direction for two reasons...the dress I made was shorter than I planned and it was really cold. So it worked on all accounts. I got a shiny green button up shirt at the thrift store and turned it around so the buttons were the closure in the back. Then I used the sleeves for the boots along with twine. Then with all the scraps, I braided her belt. For the pants and shirt, I took some white long johns and dyed them green. Take a look. Her hat was made with two giant leaves from Hobby Lobby. It was fun making it!


Audrey has always loved Silvermist. So it was only natural that she would want to dress up like the water fairy. I took a little more poetic license and didn't go quite so literal. I took a really large, unattractive bridesmaid/prom dress as well as the lining from the dress. I made a basic peasant style dress with and overlay. She loved it. Again, it's not exactly what Silvermist looks like but what can you do? A three year old is not the easiest body to make a fitted dress for....especially a wiggly one like Audrey. Take a look here. By the way, their wings are from Savers and were like as big as Audrey but I got them $5 each. Can't beat that!

Mr. Will's costume was really easy and fun to make! I used this tutorial but made a few changes. Obviously, I didn't make it pink and instead of a mask which I knew he wouldn't wear, I put the face on the hood. I got the hoodie at a consignment store and then matching/coordinating fleece from Hobby Lobby. I also beefed up the wings a little bit more than the tutorial. He was so cute but wouldn't really pose for a pic.

I love making their Halloween costumes! Call me crazy for spending the time, but it's fun for me and I have always loved dressing up for Halloween so I don't mind spending the time. We went to the ward trunk-or-treat which was super fun and we had my grandma join us which was a bonus!!! We weren't able to go trick-or-treating for real because it was pouring rain when we were planning on going. But they got plenty of sugar anyway. I hope everyone had a happy (and safe) Halloween!

The Great Pumpkins!

The week of Halloween, we were going to carve our pumpkins for FHE. Well, that didn't go as planned due to the girls choosing to not clean the playroom. So we did it the next day. Siobhan got to go get a pumpkin with her preschool class and then we got a few more from Wal-Mart. (Siobhan was so proud of her cute little pumpkin!). So we had the girls design their pumpkins then Daddy and I went to work cleaning them out and carving them with the girls supervision if you will. It was super fun!

Siobhan and her cute pumpkin. She drew the face on and made sure that it had one triangle eye, a square eye and a diamond nose. She loved it!

Carson doing all the hard work. Carving pumpkins is not his favorite thing, but he was a good sport!

Audrey showing the 'angry' face that her pumpkin was making.

So proud of how their pumpkins turned out!