What A Girl!

My little LoLo girl is such a special girl.  She loves to play, especially with messy things.

She played so much at playgroup that she got this dirty.

I had to text James and tell him that Ariel looked like a Mountain Child.

Playing in the sink while I made dinner.

The cookie jar was her potty.

(she is wearing a 12 month outfit, little peanut)

American Girls

We went to Chicago a couple weekends ago and while we were there we visited the American Girl store.  Annabelle hasn't ever really loved dolls, but she had a lot of fun looking at everything at this One Stop Doll Shop.

When we got home we got an American Girl magazine in the mail.  She was so excited to review every item on every page.  She was so excited to have her own magazine.  She said, "I can't believe I have my own magazine.  I feel like a mom now." 

Annabelle brought the magazine over to Grammy's house and did more reviewing.  My mom was able to find me and the girls' dolls from when we were younger.  Now Annabelle has her very own American Girl doll (and I still have my $100+). 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I've always been a little indifferent about St. Patrick's Day.  I would wear green if I remembered.   I never did anything fun to celebrate.
This year I thought that we could make it a little more exciting.

Annabelle made a trap to catch the Leprechaun.  The Leprechaun was supposed to go through the tunnel and get closed into the box.  We thought the colored pom pom (or little mushrooms as Ariel calls them) would make the leprechaun want to come over.

We didn't catch him, but he did leave a little M&M treat for the girls and a scavenger hunt.

These are the cupcakes that I "helped" the leprechaun make.
The green one is supposed to be a shamrock.  Looks like I need to perfect my decorations before I head to Cupcake Wars.

We were given 7 clues to follow. Annabelle had a really fun time figuring out each clue. The clues led us to a tray of cupcakes outside on a bush.


We all wore green!  I was able to find a shirt from about 8 years ago that was the same green as the girls.  Arianna was also wear a cute outfit with a green tutu.

We went to the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown.  It was such a lovely day for a parade.  There were quite a few people there.  The girls had a great time getting candy and necklaces and seeing the horses, doggies, and other fun St. Patricksy things.

After dinner the girls finally got to eat a cupcake.

Ariel is wearing a bathing suit.  The girls spent a long time outside. 
I gave them each water, ice, sugar, Kool-Aid mix, baking soda, vinegar, and various bowls and untensils.  They had a lot of fun mixing, stirring, and creating.

For some reason I really like to take pictures of my children with food, even if they are not going to eat it.  So I put a cupcake on Arianna's tray.
  

I wasn't able to get it away from her fast enough and she grabbed for it.

This little one was pretty proud of herself!

Looks like St. Patrick's Day can be quite a bit of fun.
We did a few other fun things throughout the day.
I knew at some point the girls would be hungry so I put some Lucky Charm cereal bars in a plastic baggy with gold sparkles and a note from our Leprechaun, Archie.  The girls were saying they were hungry and then I said, "Hey, did you just see that.  Archie just gave this to me."  They were quite excited about this.
I also put green food coloring in the toilet.  Annabelle is convinced it was food coloring and not Archie, but I think she still thought it was fun.

I am looking forward to make the little holidays a bit for fun for my girls!

A Hiking We Will Go

We went on our first hike this afternoon.  We went to Winstrom, walked the trails, and played on the toys.  Such a beautiful day to be outside!

Little Sweetie Girl

I took some pictures of Arianna today.  She is looking not as babyish these past few weeks.

Treats and Snacks for the Girls

I have a board on pinterest called Treats and Snacks for the Girls.  I thought it would be a good idea if I actually made some of them.

I had a half day and the girls wanted to stay at playgroup so I made them some pretty cookies.

They were supposed to look like this

But they actually turned out like this

So I decided to just do cut out cookies instead.
I was going to make them for my students at school, but after 4 cookies I gave up.
It was very time consuming to mix 4 colors, roll it into a worm, then wind it up.

The girls were just as happy with butterlies, chicks, hearts, and flowers.

I also made frozen yogurt drops.

These have been a huge hit.

I alreay made them 3 or 5 times.

I used my frosting set from Pampered Chef to squeeze out the yogurt.
So far we have used Cherry, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Blackberry yogurt.
Boston Cream Pie (with sprinkles) is currently in the freezer!

We have also done the raspberries with a chocolate chip inside.

Annabelle liked it a lot, but Ariel wasn't so sure.

I love pinterest and all the great ideas on there.  Now I just need to make sure I don't spend all my time pinning, but actually doing!

chicago

We went to Chicago this past weekend.  We had a hotel coupon from my dad that we had to use by March 8, we went March 3 & 4.  We stayed right downtown, just off Michigan Ave.

The girls check out how high we were.

Bundled up and ready to go.  We walked everywhere we went.

We didn't think we would make too many friends if we

took 2 strollers on to the bus and we didn't think we could fit everything into a cab.

Plus we didn't know what to do with carseats in a cab.

We walked a little over 3 miles each way to the aquarium. 

She is ready too! 

We went to Shedd Aquarium.  It was pretty affordable.

I got to get in free because I am a teacher.  Ariel was free. 

James was $8 and Annabelle was $6.

We also paid a little extra to see the 4D Dora and Diego movie.

Totally worth it!

Annabelle and Dora!

There was a lot of things for the kids to touch and explore at the aquarium.

Annabelle in her 3D glasses.

Waiting for the show to start.

Ariel had a hard time with the glasses.  She ended up not wearing them,

but she still enjoyed the movie.

We all enjoyed the movie.  It may have been the highlight of our trip for everybody. 

There were bubbles, wind, water mist in our faces, rain forest smells.

It was really cute to see the Annabelle reaching for the

different things that were right in front of us.

Ariel exploring the sea creatures.

This was really cute.  There was a whole penguin area. 

They had penguin costumes for the kids to wear. 

There were rocks to climb and slippery, icy

slides to play on, and tunnels to crawl through.

My 3 sweetie girls

We visited Sprinkles Cupcakes.  Annabelle chose the

St. Patrick's cupcake because it had a clover on top.

Ariel had a chocolate cupcake with chocolate sprinkles. 

Arianna showing off my lemon cupcake.  The girls actually liked

my cupcake better than their own. 

We had a fun trip, but decided we won't be visiting a big city for awhile.  It isn't stroller (especially 2 strollers) friendly.  Most of the doors are revolving so we had to skip some stores or find alternate entrances.  There aren't many kid friendly restraunts.  We did find a Fridays and had a great meal.  James and I would love to go by ourselves sometime.  We found a few restraunts and places we would like to go.