Lucky In Love

Matt and I often sit back and look at the kids with wonder and amazement and marvel at how we can possibly have two kids.  Our amazement grows as we see them playing together and we wonder how we got so lucky that they love each other so much.  They are already plotting about how they can play together at recess when Ben starts kindergarten in another year.  School yard bullies be warned that nobody better mess with McKenzie's brother.  I can still remember when McKenzie used to introduce him by saying 'This is my brother, Baby'.  I hope their enjoyment of each other company continues through the years.

For Valentine's Day this year we went on a mad hunt for holiday themed clothes and somehow red was not in the cards for us and we ended up with black with red accents.   They were surprised with lots of love when they woke up in the morning which always starts a day off right.

Look at all the love!

Lego Mini Figures with love quotes

Our cuties - so happy to be together.

We are so lucky to have found each other to love and then doubly lucky to have these great kids to complete our family.

I Mustache You A Question

How much fun is it to make your own Valentine's Day cards?  The kids really got into Valentine's Day this year, they were super excited to make their Valentine's for their friends.  That was until it came time to actually make them.  We had a lot of fun coming up with ideas, planning out what we were going to do, cutting them out on the Cricut and that was the end of the fun. The kids picked out mustaches attached to suckers so it would look like you had a mustache when eating your sucker.  Very cute and fun up until it came to writing names on the cards.  Ben of course got off easy since his class asked that no names go on the cards to make passing out easier but McKenzie had to slave away on hers for what seemed like forever.  Next year I'm going to break it up over a week or so and try to cut down on the pain.

Here's our prototype when we were planning.  The kids really liked them at both classes.

Mid process trying to explain over and over the correct way to write them out... To XXX and then Love McKenzie.  Most of them ended up Love XXX to McKenzie.  The good news is everyone in her class is at the same age so they won't notice.

We almost ran out of hearts we had so many restarts.  That was one time I was glad I hadn't just picked up a box of cards at the store - we would have run out for sure.

During our planning phase - testing out different mustache options.  In then end a mustache is a mustache - all were worth a good laugh.

Wanna Skype?

One of our weekend rituals is to Skype with Grandma and Grandpa C.  If we aren't going to their house then the next best thing is talking to them on the computer.  It's always fun when we can surprise them by having visitors over to join in the fun.  Here's all the grandkids on a recent slumber party weekend enjoying some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa.  McKenzie and Ben love Skyping so much they don't really even grasp that people can only hear them on the phone and so they continue to want to hold the phone away from themselves so people can see them.

I think Grandma and Grandpa enjoy it as much as the kids.  The best part is you can sign off and no one has made a mess in your house.

Dreams Really Do Come True

Our family has been dreaming of a trip to Disneyland for as long as we can remember and to make our dream come true we've been saving all of our change in a six gallon glass carboy jar in our family room.  The kids call it the Mickey Mouse House jar and any change we get, earn, find or sometimes sneak from others goes right into our jar.  On my birthday this year we finally filled the jar and started on really making that dream come true.

I got home from picking the kids up and was surprised with cake, balloons, streamers and party hats when we came home.  It was very exciting for all of us to have it be my birthday.  There was also a big pile of money for my gift and the jar had been getting closer and closer to the top.  These last few inches have been exciting for the kids since they think that each coin they put in may be the one that finally fills it up.

Here we are putting the money into the jar...

And it was finally full!  I opened my present and it was Mickey Mouse ears for the kids!  Very exciting moment but then came explaining that we weren't packing up right then to leave for Disneyland.  We still had a lot of work to do before we could go but the kids just wanted to go now.

The full jar - it was amazingly heavy, much too heavy to get onto the scale.  

We started this jar sometime in 2005 but we had a lot of change already around to get started with.

Dumping the money out little by little and trying to sort out different types of money as well as things that weren't money.  

Ben is helping to free the money from the mouth of the jar.  We were able to get it out without breaking the jar.

Playing Scrooge McDuck in his money bin.  It was amazing how much that jar held.

We kept the money on that blanket for a day and had the kids help to sort some of it but it was so dirty I became convinced we were all going to get some sort of sickness from touching it so we packed it up and headed to the Coinstar.  It took us forty five minutes with two machines to feed all the money into the machines.  In the end we had just over $3,000 from the jar - the perfect amount for a trip to Disneyland!

It was a very fun way to help the kids work to meet a goal that our family was working towards together.  We are already putting change in the jar again - we'll see what our next dream will be.

3... 2... 1... Blast Off

To Ben's 4th Birthday!  We celebrated big for Ben's birthday this year and had a rocket birthday party here at the house.  He was very excited to invite his friends from school over to his house.  So excited that he actually invited all his friends and their dogs too.  Luckily no one actually brought their dog with them but we did have a house full of friends.  It was a bit of a mad house and I can definitely see why people go to the rule of inviting one friend for each year of your life.  I may have to institute that rule for McKenzie's birthday this year.  Since Ben's actual birthday was on a Saturday we decided to have his party that day and not draw it out over two weekends so he celebrated all day on his birthday and was one tired boy at the end of the day.

We started his big day the usual way with presents, decorations and cake ready and waiting on the table when he came downstairs.  It never fails to thrill them to see things set out just for them.

Here's Ben enjoying his birthday breakfast of pancakes on my new "You Are Special Today" plate that I got for Christmas.  Growing up my Mom had one of these plates and I just loved using on my special days.  

For the party we decorated in hanging plants and rockets and had a rocket cupcake tower.  Matt, won Dad of the year award, for making twenty jet packs for the kids to zoom around in.  Here's Ben's best friend Rein blasting around the house wearing his jet pack.

Our birthday boy, ready to blow out his candles and make a wish.

A complication of the party to show off all our rocket shaped fun.  The kids and I made a giant rocket ship out of cardboard and then painted it.  We had it setup as a beanbag toss game and then the kids could get their picture taken peaking out of the rocket porthole.  We played Pin The Engine on the Rocket and had lots of yummy space snacks to enjoy.

Such a fun day, Ben is so lucky to have so many great friends and family to come help him celebrate his birthday.  He is just the sweetest boy and told Matt and me thank you over and over for the birthday party.  He melts our hearts on a daily basis.  We are so proud he's our son.