A Challenge

Yesterday she painted. I taped together 6 sheets of big white paper and let her go crazy on the back patio. I gave her paint brushes, cups, cookie cutters, and showed her how to splatter the paint. I even suggested she use her hands and feet. She kept telling me over and over what fun it was...it was so awesome watching her do this and have full creativity:D She is taking a 2 hour art class Monday and I can't wait to see what she does there!Here is the finished product:I love that she painted "Mom" at the bottom and when she was done she told me she wanted to be a painter in a museum when she grew up. But ONLY a museum with girl painters, no boy painters. Haaaaaaa ha! This guy...always wanting a snack when he is in the high chair...here he is eating pasta while I was making dinner yesterday. The onesie he is wearing was Aislynn's. I got it in NY when I was about 3 months pregnant, and I found it in a box in Kieran's closet the other day:) It says "You are my sunshine."

The 2 of them together are quite the sight. All of a sudden, their brother-sister relationship is really blossoming. If Aislynn is irritating Kieran (like getting to close to him or taking a toy from him) he lets her know. And if Kieran will try to take something from Aislynn or pull her hair or lunge for her if she isn't looking at him, she will get mad. But the sweeter and more common side of the story is watching them giggle and laugh together. Aislynn is the queen of making Kieran laugh. Sometimes they are giggling away and I don't even get what's funny:) Today they were playing in this little pool (note to self: check dimensions on box before purchasing-this was waaaaaay smaller than I thought it would be!) and Aislynn was throwing water out of that little tea pot, onto the fence, and from Kieran's laugh, you would have thought this was the funniest thing ever:) His big giggles were making Aislynn laugh so hard...it was so so so cute!

The pool was the perfect size for just this guy though... My friend Candi challenged me to take 5 pictures without showing the subject's face, so here goes:

(1)

(2)

Love the splashing!

(3)

This was the perfect challenge to show off cute baby piggies:)

(4)

and to show off chubby, yummy baby hands:)

(5)

And now I have a challenge for my scrappy friends...make a layout based on this ad:

Here is what I came up with:

Just for fun, I thought I would post this for a challenge. I have quite a few ads I have ripped out for layout inspiration that I will post every once in awhile:)

And here is another page I whipped up tonight, it took me maybe 25 minutes? Something else I wanted to mention to my scrappy friends is about Ali Edward's "A Week in the Life" project. That is next week and I really really really would love for some of you to play along with me!!! I already talked to Shaun about it and he is going to help snap pictures and I am planning to basically leave the camera out of the bag for the whole week. I am also going to keep the tripod set up to help get some pictures too. I want to do this every year, the same week. I think it will be cool to zoom in on all the details and see how those things change from year to year. Anyways, I hope you will play along with me:) Read more on Ali's blog-link under my inspiration links to the right:)

A Special Day

All day Aislynn kept asking if it was time for ballet today because it was a special ballet day. They got their costumes today and she could not wait to get home and try it on for Shaun:) Here it is with the ballet skirt: And the tap skirt: I will have to sew the straps a little tighter...maybe I can actually use my sewing machine on something besides paper:P Yesterday we grilled for the first time this year and it was driving Kieran nuts seeing Dad and Sister out there. He kept banging on the glass door and yelling "aaaaaaaaaa," hoping to get their attention:)

Weekend Wrap-Up

I have been wanting to hit up the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings for a couple months now and finally got the chance this weekend. You see, they close at 1 and we are usually lazy in the morning and usually don't venture out until after lunch:) It was smaller than I thought it would be, but still a REALLY cool experience. It is so neat to talk to the people that grow your food. I wish I had brought more cash with me, I could have gotten chicken, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, etc. Aislynn enjoyed all the samples...particularly strawberries and there was one stand with baked goods:) Here is what we got: Whole wheat veggie bread (Kieran really likes this, but A and Shaun aren't fans), cucumber, bell pepper, strawberries (these were soooooooo good and they looked so pretty too-the lady had just picked them the day before!), mixed bag of salad greens (that were picked that morning), a strawberry sweet onion (they plant them where the strawberries were planted-this was really good and actually smelled good), and a chocolate ganache cupcake-which was pretty much devoured after I took this picture:) Everything tasted so fresh and yummy and I can't wait to go back next week!! I just wish there was more stuff:D Afterwards, we took a walk on the beach and I was totally kicking myself for not bringing the camera, but at least I got to just enjoy the moment:)

I was taking pictures of some layouts, and the little guy was making a mess in his room:) He likes pulling everything off the shelves:)

I keep blocks in that red bucket and he dumped them out and was having the most fun banging his hands on it:) He wouldn't even let go when he was crawling around:)

She was reading. It is amazing how good she is reading now. She is paying attention to punctuation, and her sentences sound more smooth. I find her in her room with a big stack of books on her bed and she is reading. Or every time she goes potty or we leave to go somewhere, there is a book. Or when I am doing something in Kieran's room, she grabs a stack of his books to read.

Then she decided to dance. This is another "right now" thing. When there is music (or not), there is dancing. And she totally doesn't care who is watching. I love that:)Kieran some how managed to crawl underneath the crib, which didn't bother him at all..he found a book:)

Soooooooooooooooooo cute:)

And I saved the best picture for last-thanks Candi and then Shel for inspiring this shot:) I totally got lucky, most of them have Aislynn smiling and then a big K-blur. I got lazy on the rounded corners:) Oh and I don't know if I ever said here or not, but Aislynn isn't doing soccer. She decided she didn't want to do it...I think all the boys scared her:) She said she just wants to play with Dad and maybe play on a team when she is 5:)

And here are the latest scrappy creations that have been sitting on my desk:

This was a lift of an old layout of mine, wrapping up my last challenge layout!

That's all for now, hope everyone had a great weekend!!!

32

Shaun turned 32 this past Wednesday. I used it as an excuse to make a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, which was quite yummy:) Aislynn wanted to help blow out the candles, of course:)Shaun and I are not so big on our birthdays, so it was a small thing...went out to dinner with his parents and my sister, but still fun!!! Kieran REALLY wanted a piece of cake...he just has to wait 2 months for his own!Since I got my haircut last week, I have been meaning to take a new picture for my avatar/blog, so here it is:) I really don't like pictures of myself. but my hair looks good:) When I walked in from getting it cut, Aislynn said it looked beautiful and that she wanted hers like that. She also said I look like Mika Bresinkski (or however you spell it???) from Morning Joe, which she snuggles with us when we watch it sometimes:) I have been wanting to get some portrait type shots for A at 4.5, but have just gotten around to it. Here are some of my favorites...btw, this is her new "hair do" that she wants:)

The one below is my most favorite:) Candi-Here is a link to the rounded corners action (thanks Jakki!).

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Happy Easter!

The nice weather we had earlier this week quickly turned into HOT, almost unbearable. Seems like it came too fast, especially with the colder than normal winter we had down here. That didn't stop us from having a good time though;) We dyed eggs Saturday morning... I gave Kieran an egg to hold, but he wasn't too impressed. He tasted it and then just made this face: After dyeing eggs, we went off to an Easter Event around here. I made sure to put sunscreen on the kids, but neglected to put any on myself. I have a sunburn to prove I was outside:( Aislynn wanted to get her face painted, and I think this is where my sunburn occurred because we waited in line over 30 minutes in the sun, but she really wanted to get this done:

We also saw a really tall guy on stilts making balloon animals that also had a long line, which thankfully Aislynn didn't want one, ha! When she saw him, she said "He must have eaten lots of fruits and vegetables and no dessert to grow so tall." Ha ha!

Then we saw the Easter Bunny. Last year, it was just him, so Aislynn said the girl was his wife. Hee hee, I guess it was time for the EB to settle down:)

She made a hat there, and decorated this egg, which will get fired in a kiln and we will pick it up later this week.

This boy was content taking it all in. He got really excited when Aislynn was wearing her silly hat, he kept wanting to reach for it.

I tried to get the "great" picture of the 2 of them...but that didn't happen:) This picture sums it up pretty good...

And this guy just wanted to chew on his basket. He also thinks that the bunny's ears and tail are tasty:)

We went to go to a big Easter Egg Hunt that said it was starting at 1. We got there 10 minutes early, but they had already done it:( Aislynn was super upset, but when we got home, we took turns hiding eggs for each other in the backyard. It was really funny when Aislynn hid the eggs for me because she would put them in plain sight and then tell me where they were:)

The poor girl was so tired...she got up when she heard Kieran wake up around 6 and she ate a ton of candy all day, so she pretty much crashed pretty early.Hee, this one is my favorite:)

I have been playing around A LOT with my blog. I am not totally done, but I think I like this look the best so far. And a BIG thank you to Jakki-that site is awesome and the rounded corners action worked perfectly:)

Hope everyone had a good Easter and a great weekend!

Sunny Days...

Exploring...

Observing... Snow cones after spinning and running as hard as you can...

and soaking up fresh air... sure makes these kids sleep good:)

Okay, maybe not the snow cone;)

Looking forward to the Easter festivities this weekend:D Happy Easter everyone!!!!

P.S. Jakki-how do you round corners in Photoshop? And just tell me when I am annoying you with all these questions:)