smiles

Peter has the sweetest little boy smiles.
(and yes, I say little boy because he is becoming more of one each day)

He also has a super cheesy smile.

Guess where he got that one?

And a "sshhh..." little eyes lighting up smile.

A "what's going on over there I'm missing out on?" look

And a slightly mischevious, "Here I am" smile!

Here's to hoping you have as many smiling faces as this little guy does!

What do you get when you take lemons,



peel off the rind

squeeze out the juice

pour a lot of other ingredients in the mixer

spill a few of them

add in the joy of your three year old assistant

and bake???


Hopefully, a delicious  lemon cake to share with dear friends tonight at dinner.

Just in case you want to try this yourself, here's the recipe:
1 cup oil
1 2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
rind and juice of 1 and 1/4 lemons

Mix together oil and sugar.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Thoroughly combine dry ingredients.  Slowly mix in small amounts of dry mixture to oil & sugar, alternating with adding the buttermilk.  Add lemon juice and rind. Pour into a thoroughly greased bundt pan.  Bake at 350 degrees approximately 50 minutes.  Let cool completely.  Pour frosting over cake.

Frosting: Mix 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons lemon juice.

my budding artist

Hannah loves to paint!

At school, it is the one area that she goes to every day.

At home, we finally have a good setup for her to paint - paints that don't spill, a water cup that can't be knocked over and a huge tablecloth to protect the table.  (I must admit that this setup is probably most delightful to me, as she was not at all dissuaded from painting by spills or splattered paint.)

And we have a place now to hang her artwork in her room.  She takes a lot of pride in her art and loves to see it up around the house.  The refrigerator ran out of space long ago and even though I try to rotate what's up there I could not keep up with her art.  

She says that she likes looking from her bed at her art as she falls asleep.
Aahhh....

Relax

Kids are in bed. 

Hubby is working. 

Time for this mommy to sit down, relax and have a cup of tea. 

(The dishes can wait until later.)

purple & pink

Today Hannah's face had an intense collision with Peter's forehead. The only positive spin I could think to put on it was that her face would now be purple and pink (her favorite colors) for the next few days.  

It seemed to satisfy her.

burger me

Do you remember this picture from when Hannah was a year and a half?

Peter reminded me of it today at lunch!

like sister, like brother


they both know how to enjoy a delicious in-n-out cheeseburger

bubble wrap

In the milieu of post-Christmas cleanup Hannah discovered a large piece of bubble wrap.

Yesterday I noticed her walking around with it trying to pop the bubbles while Daddy took down the Christmas lights.

Today she brought it to me and asked if I could "fasten" it around her with a clip.

So we got out a clip and on went the bubble wrap skirt.



She was pretty excited about it.

She looked down at it and then back up at me and said "Mommy, do you want to push a button?"

What?

Where does my three year old get these hilarious and off the wall ideas?

By the way, if you laugh at her jokes and then tell her that she is funny she gets very upset and informs that in fact, she is not funny.  Go figure.

P.S.  I now realize why my blogging has been so infrequent.  As I type this Hannah wants me to wrap her pots in the same piece of bubble wrap and Peter is trying to climb up to the computer and press buttons.  When I stop him he gets red in the face and yells, "Dooh, Dooh" (his version of no)

a tradition

Growing up near Pasadena it was a tradition to watch the Rose Parade every year.  In fact, it was a rite of passage when my sister and I were finally old enough to work on decorating the parade floats.

So now sharing it with my kids is awesome!!



Hannah keeps screaming "look at that one mommy".

I can't wait for the day to come when they are old enough to go see it in person.

p.s. I just shared with Hannah my idea to go see the parade when she is older - to stand on the sidewalk and watch the floats, bands & horses go by.  She said "I think I might want to sit down mommy.  My legs will get tired." :)