HaPpY BiRthDaY Quin!

WOW! Between school (assessing and report cards) and sick kiddos at home, we have been MIA for sure! It has been over a month since my last post. Sorry! During my absence, we celebrated one amazing little lady's birthday! I can't believe that Quin is four already :( To see her pictures of birthdays past, go here. Time flies when we are having fun!

We did not have a party for her this year. We did have the chance to meet up with both Jason's side and my side of the family for little get togethers! It is always nice to see family!!!

On Quin's actual birthday, the babes were very sick. We decided it was best to take Quin out for a little lunch date. We invited her BFF, Izzy, along and met up with my parents at Red Robin (yum!).

Sidenote: Soon after Quin turned 3 she asked me if she could have gum. Without much thought, I answered not until she turned 4. Well, she never forgot! Anyone who knows Quin(and many strangers as well), knew that when she turned 4 she was going to be able to chew gum! Such a small reward for her patience. I made her and Izzy both gumball necklaces. She was totally smitten with it :) Quin's very first piece of gum (on her birthday). Quin and Izzy before our luncheon - are the two of them cute together, or what?!?! My mom brought them little princess goody bags. They quickly became the queens of Red Robin! A big thank you to Izzy for joining us for lunch, and helping to make Quin's birthday a blast! When we got home, Quin quickly went down hill. She was still fighting off the end of a cold herself, and was tuckered out from lunch! This is how she really felt about me trying to take her birthday picture :( She did tolerate me for this one, but that poor nose... it had been wiped one time too many!

For her birthday, Jason and I bought her a coin operated gumball dispensper. She loves it, and it has been the best 'good behavior' motivator ever! If she has had a 'good day', she gets a piece of gum when we get home from work. I have even made a gumball coloring sheet for her to keep track of her good behavior. I had no idea that gum could be so rewarding!!!

Unfortunately, I do have to tell ya that we have tested, and approved, the peanut butter trick - it does work to get gum out of hair! UGH! I am hoping that it was a one time only test :(

Happy, happy Birthday Quinner the Winner! We sure do love you!!!

Quin's 4th Birthday Interview

I just couldn't stand the idea of Quin's 4th birthday pictures going down in history, with that icky raw red nose! I had to take a few more pictures with the birthday hat, after she was feeling better!
On with the post...

Around New Year's I remember reading, somewhere out in blogland, about somebody who did kiddy interviews at the beginning of each new year. The idea has been brewing in my head, and I love the idea of doing birthday interviews instead. How much fun to see how their likes/dislikes, interests and general thoughts change over the years.

I started out by asking Quin what her favorites were...
Food: macaroni and cheese (and she doesn't like pizza!)
Vegetable: carrots
Drink: water
Restaurant: Wolfies/Red Robin
Place to go: Mommy's school
Color: purple/pink (although she likes all of the colors)
Toy: her 'babies' (dolls)
TV Show: Handy Manny
Thing to do: play dress up
Type of weather: summer
Place to play: go to the park
Game: Memory
Book: Any sticker book

I also tried to ask a few questions to get her talking (didn't work out so well)...

If you could change your name, what would you choose? Loma (long vowel o, she has many variations on this name that she gives her stuffed animals, dolls, imaginary friends...)
What is something Mommy says to you? "Don't write on the counter" (Really, that was all she could come up with!?!?!)
What do you want to be when you grow up? a princess, a mommy, a big kid and a teacher
Who is your best friend? "Izzy and I can't wait for summer"

Love ya Quinners! I hope all of your 4 year old dreams come true!!!

Quin's Heart Shaped Crayon Valentines

A few of you asked either how Quin's Valentine crayons ended up turning out, or wondered how I made them. (Thanks for asking!)

I started them way back mid January. I always buy enough crayons before school starts so that I can replace them half way through the school year. (Crayons are MUCH less expensive before school than now!) I always feel guilty throwing away the crayons, but my students really have no interest in using them once they are broken or dull, and I hate the crayon sharpeners (I usually give the end of the year crayons away to summer type camps...).

Quin asked me a couple months ago how crayons were made, so I thought this would be a great project for the two of us to do together with all of the old, gross crayons from my room!
We started with these!
And then sorted them by color.

After sorting them by color, we peeled them. Okay, I peeled them! Quin tried, got frustrated and gave up very easily. The peeling was by far the most time consuming part!

Quin and I broke the crayons into little pieces and placed them into like colored heart spaces. I bought the heart shaped silicone ice cube trays on clearance last year for $1.

We baked them in batches, for about 8 minutes at 300 degrees.

The process of baking and cooling takes a long time! It isn't hard, just time consuming (like laundry!). We would have to remember to take one 'load' out, let it cool, dump them and then start another 'load'.

We put various colors of the crayons into plastic bags and tied a heart onto each one. I wanted to write 'Will you be my valentine, for crayon out loud', but Jason didn't think it was very threeschool-ish. We settled on 'Crayon you be my valentine?'.

Quin loved passing them out to her friends, and she was able to keep a set for herself!

We made a large rainbow heart crayon for her teacher, and the classroom aide. It was so much fun to watch the colors run together!

Overall, I don't think I spent more than $8 (I bought the trays, ribbon and paper). Not bad... I would probaly have spent more than that on cards and candy.

Happy {Very Belated} Valentine's Day

I have no idea where the last two weeks have gone! Well, actually I do... Most of it was taken up by screaming, whining, coughing, nose wiping, antibiotics... you name it :( I am so happy to report that we are over all of it, for the moment anyways.
(Okay, maybe not the whining, we always have a lot of that - ugh!).

Unfortunately, because of the cold/ear infections we didn't spend a whole lot of time 'feeling the love' of Valentine's Day at our house. The kids all started to get colds a few days before Valentine's, but really started to lose their battles the day before. I saw a picture on line of cinnamon rolls shaped like hearts, and thought they were adorable. I used my regular monkey bread recipe, and rolled them instead of balling them. (We love a good butter/cinnamon/brown sugar weekend treat!). Not even these yummy creations could keep smiles on their faces for long :(
Well... the cinnamon rolls were the one and only thing that we did that day. I had a few more ideas (heart shaped pancakes, pink playdough...) that I wanted to do, but we never got to them :(
It took the kids over a week to get over their colds/ear infections. Oh well, there is always next year!

I did, however, want to get pictures of them in their heart shirts. I had to take the morning off this past week to attend one of their speech therapy appointments. We had an extra hour or so together, so I was able to snap a few shots.

Quin got into her dress up clothes before I could get a picture of her just in heart shirt.
Ellery

Easton, in action!

Gianna had no interest in a picture. She kept blowing me kisses instead :) She was too busy playing with Quin's little hand held game thinga-ma-jig.

I couldn't resist posting this one of Ellery. She comes across very serious, but once she warms up there is a silly side to her!

We hope that you all had a fabulous Valentine's Day!

Snowday(s) Snapshots

We had an unplanned mid-week break due to the 'blizzard' this past week. We got around 18 inches of snow in a very short amount of time, coupled with lots of blowing and very cold temperatures. All of these together equalled two snowdays - yay!

By the afternoon of the first day, Quin and Jason were out trying to shovel/snowblow the driveway. Quin loved it, although I don't think her little shovel made a dent in all that snow!
This is the view from our front door. The area on the porch is covered, and snow doesn't usually accumulate there. The wind blew tons of snow on the porch - you can't even tell that the porch floor has a checker board pattern on it!

In my book, Snowdays = Food+Crafts+Fun

We started out the morning with gorilla bread (aka - monkey bread on cream cheese steroids) Double Yum!

We made heart shaped apple and strawberry pies.

I love this picture!

And, snow ice cream!

We put 10 cups of *fresh* snow in the bowl, a can of sweetened condensed milk and a tsp. of vanilla all together - and mixed. (note to anyone who wants to try - I would refridgerate the condensed milk for a few hours before hand, so it wouldn't melt the snow so quickly).

All of the kids loved it!

Easton

Ellery

Gianna

There was a whole lot of dancing throughout the two days. (Thanks again Uncle Nate for the Yo-Gabba-Gabba CD... not sure if I ever want to hear that one again! ;)

Quin and I made good ole' fashion heart suncatchers (crayon and wax paper melted with an iron)

She and I also spent most of the second day finishing up our 'heart crayons' that we have been working on. She will be giving these away as Valentine's to her classmates later in the week.

I was also giddy to have had some extra time to start organizing my sewing supplies! We have been slowly working to refinish our basement into a playroom/sewing area (it has been painfully slow!). My sewing machine was covered with a few inches of dust, and I found fabrics that I had forgotten all about. My old sewing room/guest bedroom will soon become Easton's bedroom. I can't wait until it is all moved and organized!!!

I was telling Jason last night that I think the last two days are what weekends should really feel like! Our weekends are so often filled with running errands, making meals, cleaning and lesson planning that I forget to spend REAL time with my family! I am so thankful for the two days that the blizzard gave to us!

Winter/Valentine Art

I had a life lesson when putting together our latest footprint art.
I thought it would be adorable to have a set of footprint snowmen decorated 'perfectly' by me (on our front door, facing the road) and Quin's version (facing inward on the door, towards our living room). While working together on the snowmen (I was drawing on my own, and she was copying on hers), I had to go to the kitchen for two minutes to do something with dinner. When I came back, all of the 'scarves' and 'faces' had been drawn on both my paper and hers. My gut reaction was to quit, we were done - they didn't look anything like I had intended! After looking again though... I saw the most adorable snowmen! They are so much cute-er than if I had instructed her step by step...
So, my lesson for the day... It is the process, not the product. (Although, the product is pretty cute too!) Thank you to Quin for reminding me of that!
We also worked on handprint penguins, but those too went a little awry! After cutting them out and decorating them, I realized that all of the fingers should have been black - with just a white belly. Oh well... they are still cute!

The woman who watched the kids last year put this adorable Valentine's Day foot hearts together, and I had hoped to do a replica of it for this year so that we could compare the foot growth in the past year.

Unfortunatley, we didn't get to it over the past few days, so chances are it won't happen. Maybe next year!

Birthday Dinner

So... my babies turned 2 yesterday... {sniff, sniff, big sigh!}

As sad as their growing up is for me, I do love that they are getting old enough to go out to eat - woo hoo! We have taken them out to very low key places to eat (think sub places, pizza places, local hamburger dive...), but never a 'sit at a high chair, eat off of your own plate and behave' kinda place. Before we had the triplets, we loved going out to eat. That is one of the few things that I miss about my 'pre-kid' life, but we are slowly getting back there.

To celebrate the triplet's birthday, we went out to eat!!!
We chose to go to Red Robin. All of my kids love french fries, the place is loud and the staff usually does a great job when we take Quin there. We weren't disappointed. The food and the staff were great, and the babes did a fantastic job! My parents, my grandpa and my Uncle David joined us.

Easton was excited to see us all from his 'head of the table' position.
It totally helped that they had presents to open while we waited for the food. I hope they don't expect presents every time we eat out now ;)
Ellery

Easton

Gianna

Dinner was great, but... the big highlight was that the staff sang Happy Birthday and each of the babes got their own ice cream sundae. YUM! They loved every drop of them!

The people watching, french fries, presents, sundaes were all good, but what did the girls love the most??? The Balloons!

Ellery was so distracted with her balloon that she almost didn't eat all of her sundae. Good thing she caught the waiter as he was trying to take it away!

My dad, Popa, and Gianna

Ellery never let the balloon get more than 6 inches away from her, leading to the most static electricity hair that I have ever seen on a 2 year old! Poor girl has fine, crazy hair to begin with, she didn't need help from the balloon ;)

When we got back to the house, I was hoping for a picture of all three kids and me. No such luck! Good thing I can count on Gianna for some lovin'!
Quin had some ups and downs when it came to the focus being on the triplets, and not on her. She handled it well for being only three! She did want to play with all of their presents the moment we got home though!
Thank you to my parents, Grandpa and Uncle David for the gifts and helping us at the restaurant! It was a great way to spend their birthday!