Grace's 7th birthday!

Grace's birthday was on Thursday, but we did the birthday fun this weekend.  She wanted to go to Build-a-Bear Workshop and make a bear.  The nearest one is in Colorado, so we braved the cold and crowds and headed south.  Grandma and Grandpa Yearout and Jeremy's sister, Cheryl, and her family celebrated with us.

Anna wasn't interested in finding her cat that she made and having it pose in the picture too.  The TV was too darn interesting!  The pink one is Grace's and she named it Snowflake.  The other one is Leah's and we named it Sweety Pie.  Anna's is a cat and she named her kitty Stuffy.

After we made some bears and had lunch, we headed back to our house and had cake, ice cream and opened presents.

I think she enjoyed her birthday fun!  Happy Birthday, kiddo!

Spirit and Markers

I’ve been busy working on a Christmas wall hanging just because.  I thought the theme was cute.  I finished it a few days ago and promptly hung it on the wall in the dining room to bring some holiday spirit.

I like the cute little presents in their festive paper.

On a different note, Leah was being quiet and this is what I found last night.  She’s happily drawing on the dryer.  At least it was dry erase marker.  And dang, if she didn’t throw a royal fit when I took the marker away.  And this is why I confiscate all markers in my house and keep them in a drawer to be taken out only when the kiddos are fully supervised.

Christmas Party

On Saturday, we went to the kids Christmas party put on my Jeremy’s employer.  It was at the bowling alley and it was pretty crowded.  Grace and Anna bowled 2 games before Santa came and food was served.  There was pizza and chicken nuggets and cookies...you know...total kid food. Here's some pics of them standing in line waiting for the big guy in the red suit.

 Anna's got quite the crazy excitedness in her eye!

Then they got to see Santa.  Anna was totally not the shy one we expected.  Leah gave Santa some serious stink eye!  She was gonna have nothing to do with this stranger in the fake beard and hair!

 They each got a small stocking with candy and brand spanking new $10 bills.

Update, I am still around

I know, just smack me, I haven't been keeping up to date around here lately.  Nothing very exciting it going on a Chez Yearout.

We’ve been bowling, which the girls seemed to enjoy...although my feet did not enjoy the shoes, or my wrist enjoy the weight of the ball.

Grace is still working on gymnastics, we finally got her in some private lessons to help her on cartwheels, handstands, the basic stuff.  How do you beef up a little girls arm muscles?

Anna has become the girl who learns that the best time to have to go to the bathroom is when I ask to fold the laundry or set the table or something she doesn’t want to do.  In fact, I gave Grace $2 to fold and put away Anna’s laundry last night....I would have given the $2 to Anna had she done it.  We’ll see how that goes this weekend when Grace gets to buy something and Anna does not.

Leah is learning where her body parts are, the only ones that she knows for sure are her nose and bellybutton.  The kid loves to draw on anything and everything.  I caught her with a pencil and my kitchen floor once.

I’ve been working on Christmas crafts, so I can’t share on here.  I am knitting a garter stitch shawl that’s starting to drag, I’m nearly to the part where the pattern changes and it speeds up a bit...so I’m pushing myself to get past the boredom.  I also have a baby sweater I best get started on soon (hey, Tiff!).  I’m wondering if pastel blue would be too boyish if it goes with pastel yellow and green for a gender neutral sweater?  Comments are welcome.

Halloween

We did the usual Halloween festivities this week.  (A week prior we painted some pumpkins for a contest through my employees association at work, more on that later.)  The big girls carved pumpkins, or rather, they gutted, I carved.  I’ve never been keen on pumpkin carving, but it’s not so bad when you get somebody else to take all the yuck out.  A kitty and Frankenstein.  I was gonna do one for Leah, but my bed called before I could get to it.

Last night, we went to a neighborhood in town, took a turn around a block, then went home.  We hit maybe 10 houses and got just enough loot to be satisfied.  This year we had a Rapunzel

a cupcake

and a ladybug.

The ladybug really wasn't grumpy, but it's darn hard to get a good picture when everybody just wants CANDY!

Color Affection

A couple of weeks ago I walked into a yarn shop (I know, such a shocker, eh? J) and I saw this shawl that I knew I had to make.  I’d seen the pattern on ravelry and the Yarn Harlot had knitted one, they were pretty but not something I needed to make.  I don’t know why the one, several actually, in the yarn shop made me HAVE to make it, but they did.  So I downloaded the pattern and have been obsessing about what colors to choose.  It’s a 3 color shawl, oh, I forgot to mention it’s the Color Affection shawl.  Also called the Color Addiction/Affliction because they are addicting.  I was an obsessed woman, I perused internet pictures, I looked at a bunch on ravelry and I thought I’d settled on 3 colors.  I went back to that yarn shop on Saturday to check out yarn.  Mind you, I had 3 rugrats with me, so I must be quick otherwise things usually run amok.  I settled on these colors...what do you think?  Of course, I started it right away.  (on a side note, I wish I could knit and drive at the same time)

Some Random

I was playing around with a new app on my phone, it's called pudding camera, if you're interested.  What better subjects than my kiddos, thought you might enjoy seeing them.

And in other news, Leah is walk, walk, walking everywhere.  It's easier to keep up with your big sisters that way!