Ashling's 5th birthday party

I invited 5 little girls over to our house for a princess tea party to enjoy Ashling's 5th birthday. They were instructed to wear a princess dress and shoes. They showed up wearing boots and had to change into their princess shoes because it was snowing but at least the snow was not too bad yet.

This is the cake I made. It is leaning a little and not perfect but she loved it and that is all that matters. Sometimes I will have to take lessons so I can get better. This is the tea party food.

This is our Beaty and Beast Area with our own Rose that is losing some petals.

These are the castle walls to help the girls feel as if they were in a castle.

This is the part of Snow White I read to them before they asked the magic mirror on our wall who the fairest one of all was.

Here are 3 of the little girls who came to the party. One is not here yet and another couldn't make it.

We played freeze dance with princess songs.

Here they are asking the Magic Mirror questions. The funny thing is that this mirror answered their questions. (I let Ali stay home today to help with the party.)

Here they are using really china and having a little tea party. They behaved like perfect princesses and I called them miss and pretended to be the maid.

After the tea party I put sparkles on their faces, we played a couple games and then we made magic play dough. We put glitter in the dough and made it sparkle and then played with play dough.

Ashling couldn't wait to open her presents and was very excited when it was finally time.

Emily gave Ashling sparkling shoes that are pink.

Emily is a year younger than Ashling but they are best friends. I wish we could smuggle Emily into Kindergarten but I think her size would give her away.

Chloe gave Ashling a fur real puppy. My dog didn't know if it was real or not and kept sniffing it for about 5 minutes before she decided it was a toy.

Illeana gave Ashling art supplies and a hello kitty bag to put them in.

Hanna gave Ashling Pez princesses.

Then we had birthday cake.

I loved the party and can't believe my little girl is 5.

Later we went down the hill for dinner at Red Robin. The kids love it there. They served her ice cream sunday with a balloon on a spoon. Her eyes were so wide and her grin was so big. She ate until her tummy hurt all with that spoon on the balloon. We then came home in a snow storm and opened presents before she headed off to bed wearing her new Ariel pj's.

As she was climbing into her bunk bed she begged me to take her to the office of the elementary school and see if they would let her come to Kindergarten now that she is 5. She really doesn't want to wait until August. Maybe I will take her in the morning so she will believe me.

Spring Break

If you will remember last year I went to my sister's house in Phoenix for Spring Break. It was a great idea and I decided that I would do it for every spring break. I left my house on Monday morning in a snow storm. I dodged large basketball sized rocks rolling down the highway and braved winds and rain in order to get to the desert. By the time I arrived in Palm Springs it was sunny. I told Ali she was in charge of entertainment and offered her 10 dollars if she did a good job. The kids were all happy in the back seat.

At my sister's we went on bike rides, I went running, we went to the park, we went shopping and we watched movies and t.v. It was fun and relaxing. It was still a little chilly for the pool and the girls only swam in it twice. But we went to a splash park near their house and the girls loved that. We finished our trip by visiting the world wildlife zoo. You can see the pictures and read about it on my sister's blog.

I know her bathing suit is too small and sometime soon I will buy one that is actually modest but for now this is what I have.

I also had to visit Firestone. While I was driving my car started making a weird noise coming from the tires. It ended up that one of my wheels was cracked. The firestone guys said they had never seen that happen before and had no clue how it had happened.

I had to call all around and find someone who could get me a matching wheel. (I didn't want to pay full price for a brand new one. Finally I found a guy who said, "send me a picture and I will get the right wheel for you." I don't know what method he used but by the afternoon he had the right wheel. It was in a bad part of town so Tony met me and we bought the wheel. Then I went to Firestone where they put my tire on the new wheel and installed it. I was grateful that it was a 150 dollars instead of 500 I thought it might be if it was bearings.

Sunday Afternoon Hike

We decided to go on a hike to Ashling Creek after church on Sunday. The weather was beautiful and the snow that is in to extended forecast convinced me that even an afternoon nap would not be nicer. Ashling Creek is a spot that we always go to and it is not named on a map so we named it after Ashling who hiked there when she was barely 3.

We let Annika start out walking to get rid of some energy where the road was nice and flat.
When Annika saw Grandma Sue she ran straight toward her with a smile on her face and wanted to be picked up. It made Grandma Sue's day!
There were creeks everywhere! I couldn't believe all the flowing water. Last year there were only a couple of streams.
The end of the hike was all on snow. We hiked on top of about 5 feet of snow which is a ton to still be left in the San Bernardino Mountains for this time of the year.

Here is a picture of Pa Pa and Ashling Creek.

The girls and Pa Pa.

Annika really, really wanted to get in the water but mean old Daddy wouldn't let her.

Pa Pa let the kids climb up the hill a little bit.

Family photo Opp.

We hiked a little bit from the creek and sat down to eat some chocolate that Grandma brought. Afterwards everyone walked around and soon it turned into a snow ball fight. Annika thought that was the best idea and loved picking up the snow and throwing it. (She didn't manage to hit anyone though.)

Another reason we like the hike to Ashling Creek is that there are very deep canyons without anyone below. Cameron loves to roll rocks right off the edge. With his dad there I didn't have to wonder too hard as to where he got the idea since Mike rolled just as many rocks off as Cameron did.
The best part of rolling rocks over the edge is that our dog loves to chase these rocks straight down the hill. She takes amazing leaps and bounds down steep hills and chases the rocks. She usually never brings anything back but this time she dragged a huge rock back up the hill for us. She gets her exercise this way and got pretty tired chasing rocks.



I am glad that springs is coming and that we will be able to hike more this summer.

Going Out to Eat

I am sitting here trying to figure out what to have for lunch and wishing to go and buy something instead of eating whatever is in my house. I don't know why. We have decent things to eat for lunch. Nothing romantic like the thankgiving salad at the Bus Stop but I will not be hungry eating here. I just like going out to eat. My kids do too and they always ask me if we can go out to lunch or go to the cookie store for an after school treat. But I know it is expensive.

In another instance Cameron swears to me that everyone is his office goes out to eat everyday. He says that he is asked if he wants to go out nearly every day and while he turns it down most of the time he goes out to eat at least once or twice a week. Often it is when he forgets his lunch.

So I decided to tally all the times we went out to eat in the past month. The final count was 142.34 but I am sure there were some cash purchases I have not accounted for. This includes my date night with Cameron as well as our trip purchases that we made while going out to Arizona. It seems a little extreme to be spending so much on food when we are just paying someone else to cook it. But I sure do love it.

I also tallied the food we bought. It came out to 388.82. It seems like we spend too much on food. I wonder what I need to do to spend less?

I wonder.... how much do you spend on your going out to eat budget? Do you go out or your spouse go out most days when you are working? Do you go out if you are a stay at home wife? Also how much do you spend on your grocery budget? Please share if you want.... and if you share be completely honest!

Reading

The other night Ali had nothing to read. And she wanted to read because they are doing a monthly read-a-thon and she wanted the prize. She wanted to read Twilight. I said, "no." I think she needs to be much older for that even if all the other kids watched the movie and she is pretending to be Bella at school. So I suggested Harry Potter. I insisted it is grown-up and very good. She was not convinced and didn't want to do it. I finally insisted that she at least let me read the first chapter to her.



We cuddled up in her giant queen bed and read the first chapter. And I saw a light inside her mind click on. It has been a struggle to get her to read long books. She says she doesn't like to. She says it isn't fun. But I know it is and I am trying to convince her. I finished chapter one and kissed her good night. At night she has to be in bed but I allow her to read as long as she wants to. She read the first four chapters that night and finished the whole book within a week. Now she is on Year 2.

I read her a little each night but she reads most of it. She wears her own sorting hat pulled far down over her head while I read to her. That way she can see the pictures. I love Harry Potter. I love the pictures I see in my mind when I read it. I love the story and the make believe world they create that parallels our own. I love how it inspires kids to read everywhere. But most of all I love that Ali is loving reading it.

Ice Skating

The girls have been taking ice skating lessons the past two months. I would take more pictures but I am busy trying to entertain Annika who would much rather be on the ice with her sister instead of sitting on the side lines. I like the local training center, The Ice Castle, which trained Michelle Quan. It has lessons for a fairly good price and then have been teaching the girls a lot. They really like the lessons quite a bit.

The first time we took lessons Ali fell a lot and Ashling could hardly stay on her feet. But they had big grins and have been doing better each week. Ali is learning to skate backwards now and Ashling is even starting to try it. They both would like to do it again but it will probably wait until next year as there are swimming lessons and soccer to pay for in my near future.

St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day brought a little green man who colored our milk green and make our eggs green too. He also left a mess of clovers all over our table. I dressed all the kids up in green four leaf clover shirts and then added green clovers to their faces for fun! Here are the few pictures I took to remember the day. I do like green on my girls.