Summer Tea Party

This summer I hosted a tea party for my girls and some of their friends. I'm pretty sure I had the most fun just watching how cute they all were in their little dresses sipping tea from real tea cups. My girls have requested to have a cake at the next one, so maybe I'll make it a summer tradition.

First lost tooth!

I'll begin by telling you a Walmart story. (I have had probably some of my worst parenting stories occur in this store). Two years ago, when Eli was 2 1/2, I had just finished buying all my groceries and we were about to leave. Eli was holding onto the shopping cart with one hand while walking and he tripped. His face swung into the side of the cart and there was blood EVERYWHERE. He started screaming and I tried to comfort him and see where the blood was coming from. After he calmed down a bit I checked him out and saw that his front tooth had been pushed in a bit. I quickly straightened it. (I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, but I panicked.) We then left the store with a pool of blood by the door. (I probably should have found an employee and told them what happened, but didn't because I had a very hurt boy who I just wanted to get home.) In time his mouth healed, but his tooth began to turn grey. The dentist told me since it was his baby tooth, we didn't have to do anything about it and it would fall out eventually. But, if a bump developed above the tooth it would mean the tooth was infected and would have to be extracted. Well, a couple of days ago Eli told me there was a bump in his mouth and it was just above his damaged tooth. I made an appointment with the dentist for the next day. I wasn't sure how it would go since I had to take my two younger girls with us. The dentist was so good with him, and had his tooth out before he even knew what was happening.  And my girls were little angels. Anja was totally enthralled with what was going on, and Isla was so tired she was almost falling asleep in my arms. After it was all over Eli was very proud of his new space in his mouth. I have to admit I teared up a bit seeing my boy starting to look more grown up.

...A little extra $$ since the dentist had to take it out.

Valentine's Day

There were lots of celebrations at preschool today. We of course celebrated Valentine's Day and also Eli's birthday. I stayed to help out. It was fun to see how my boy interacts at school. I'm so proud of him. All the kids exchanged Valentine's cards. Eli was so excited that he spent the majority of his time at preschool guarding his Valentine's box. With the help of photoshop I created Eli's Valentine's cards.

I made the kids heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and gave them a few Valentine's chocolates.

Eli decided to decorate his pancake with his chocolates.

Anja had them all eaten before I even got her pancake on her plate.

Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies

My kids love baking with me. Today we made Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies. This is my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I started making it soon after I got married (6.5 years ago) and my husband is always disappointed if I try a different recipe. Today I added mini m&m's to make them more interesting for the kids (not that chocolate chip cookies really need to be made any more interesting).

Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies

1 c. all-purpose flour                  1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 t. baking soda                       1 egg

1/4 t. baking powder                  1/2 t. vanilla extract

pinch of salt                                3/4 c. rolled oats

1/2 c. butter                                1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 c. sugar

Mix first 4 ingredients. In another bowl cream butter & sugars. Add egg & vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add flour mixture. Stir in oats and chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 10-12 min.

"big girl" bed

Anja's last sleep in her crib.

 She just turned 2 a couple of days ago and pretty soon her little sister is going to need her crib. I started making this quilt for Anja's bed before the new baby arrived. I finally got around to finishing it last week. I've only made a few small quilts before and have never taken a quilting class, so I kept the quilt pretty basic. I just used ties to hold all the layers together. I was afraid that if I tried sewing through all the layers the fabric would bunch up and I'd ruin the quilt. I actually ended up liking the look of the ties more than I thought I would. I think it goes with the shabby chic look and it was really fast. I had quite a bit of the pink & green dot fabric left over from when I decorated Buzzby's nursery, so I just added to that with fabric I found at the quilting store "Earthly Goods" in Edmonton. I didn't want to change the colours of her nursery so it worked out well that I was able to use leftover fabric. (The headboard is from my bedroom set when I was a kid.)

Now to get her to loose that soother...