We've had a crazy and hectic couple of weeks around here.  I was planning on doing individual posts for each event, but well, you get a photo dump instead.  Here we go...

My birthday started with breakfast in bed.  This was a first for Sam and I think he could get used to living like this...

and we finished celebrating my birthday at Shogun.  Sam did not take his eyes off the hibachi chef for 1 second....

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Poppy's end of the year piano recital...

She played "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and she did such a great job!  We are sooo proud of her...

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Poppy had her first ever soccer game!  She is loving soccer this year...

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Her last day as a 4 year old.  I begged her to not turn 5, but she refused.  She said we can always pretend she's still 4...

This is what I got when I asked her to smile for the camera...

Strawberry ice cream cone cupcakes to take to school for her birthday...


Her birthday lunch was a sprinkle sandwich (which she loved, of course!)...


And then we had Marc's family over for a Korean dinner followed by birthday cake...

She could not believe I put real suckers on her cake.  She barely took a bite of her cake, went straight for the suckers and then told everyone all night "They're real suckers, ya know.  Really, they're real.  You can eat them!"

Sammy enjoyed his sucker too...

and Poppy even played a few songs for everyone at her party...

One of the favorite gifts- the book that goes along with the Arietty movie (which was sooo good, btw)...

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In addition to non-stop partying lately, Marc has been building a treehouse/playset in our backyard.  Everyone is sooo excited about this...

Both Poppy and Sam are quite the helpers...

 

It's going to be so cute when it's done - I can't wait!

Speaking of being so cute, I could just watch these two play together all day.  Today they were pretending Sam was the doctor and Poppy was the doll's mommy...

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 Happy mother's day!  Hope everyone had a wonderful day.  Mine was filled with family time and relaxing...

Stay tuned - Poppy's big birthday party post coming up next...

Fall craftiness

We have been feeling all sorts of crafty over here lately.  Here's a quick recap of what we've been craftin'...

Wax dipped leaves.  We took a quick walk through our 'hood to collect leaves and then we dipped them in melted paraffin wax so that they won't get dried up.  Waxing them was fun (Poppy especially loved doing that) but stringing them up was a pain.  

Next up is our monster garland.  I did most of the cutting and Poppy did the gluing and we both love the way it turned out!  Idea from here.

 We made our famous caramel chocolate apples.  I love that Poppy can really help make these now, and she loves being able to tell everyone that she made them.  We give these to all of her teachers and we bring them as treats to any Halloween parties we go to.  Recipe for the best caramel can be found here.

 I got out the acrylic paints and Poppy and I went to town on a few small pumpkins.  Super fun!

And then for tonight's dinner, we had Jack-o-lantern pie (aka chicken pot pie).  Kinda gross, kinda cute, right?  Poppy loved it.  (Well she loved the way it looked, but she didn't love having to eat the veggies that were in it, of course.)  And I'm so bummed that I forgot to snap a pic of the mummy dogs I made for lunch yesterday!

Tie-dye!

First, let me tell you about the audiobooks.  I picked a few up for Poppy last week at the library.  They're the ones that come with a picture book.  I uploaded the cd's to an old ipod and gave it to Poppy along with an old-school set of headphones.  This girl is hooked.  She absolutely loves being able to follow along with the books that she can't quite read yet.  The first couple of days, we literally had to limit the time she could listen to them because she wanted to listen all day long!  Now it's been a week and the novelty is slowly wearing off, but she still loves them.  I went online and requested a few more books - they definitely come in handy when we are in the car, or when I'm too busy to sit down and read with her myself.  

 And check out the super awesome tie-dye shirt Poppy is wearing.  We made it at our super awesome tie-dye party we had a few weeks ago...

We had the family over and everyone made their own shirts.  The kids had a blast doing it, and the shirts turned out unbelievably cute.  I've been seeing them on all of the cousins lately and I just love them!

 We even had tie-dye cupcakes!

The hardest part was that we had to wait 24 hours until we could unwrap the shirts and see what they look like.  But we'll all wear them to the next big family party and I'll snap a pic of the family cuteness.

strawberries

Saturday morning, we were up bright and early to hit up the strawberry fields...

Sam was happy as a clam to sit back and watch everyone do the hard work.

 And Poppy was happy as a clam to be able to eat her weight in strawberries.

And then Sam began to get a little restless in the backpack, so I plunked him down in the strawberry patch.  He knew exactly what to do.  He went straight for the red, ripe strawberries...

...and did not stop eating them until he was pretty much covered from head to toe in strawberry juice.  And then somebody was tired from all this hard work, and ready for a nap...

We had a great time.  We were able to meet up with a bunch of Poppy's cousins and it was so fun to see how excited all the kids were to dive into the strawberries.  As soon as we got home, the strawberries were washed and we made dozens of jars of jam, strawberry ice cream, strawberry daiquiris,  a strawberry cream puff cake, and we froze a bunch of them for smoothies.  Poppy just couldn't help herself from eating as many fresh strawberries as she could get her hands on.  She honestly looks forward to strawberry season all year long, and so far, this year did not disappoint.

more Easter celebrations

Perogie making on Saturday morning...

The ladies of the fam.  We worked hard and made hundreds of perogies that morning.  We've been making perogies for years and I think we get a little better at it each year.  They turned out really good this year!

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This morning, Poppy and I made "tomb rolls".  We just used frozen dinner rolls, thawed them and then smooshed them in the palm of our hands.  Then you wrap the dough around a marshmallow, seal it and then brush it with butter and cinnamon sugar.  When you bake them, the marshmallow dissolves into the roll and creates a hollow cavity inside the roll.  Find the full recipe here.

 They were fun to make, yummy to eat and they were a big hit with the kids (and adults)!  These will definitely be a new Easter tradition for us.

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Then we went to grandma's for a delicious brunch with family.  After heading home for some quick naps, it was off to Uma & Upa's for a traditional Polish dinner and an easter egg hunt with the cousins...

{Melynda found the first egg!}

{searching in the garden}

 {an attempt at a group shot of the cousins}

{chasing Tucker}

All in all it was a great holiday spent with family, filled with lots of traditions and yummy food!

{My sweet little pork chop.}

For being such a fussy little baby, Sam has really turned out to be such a good boy.  He is an absolute dream in the sleep department.  He's all about his little blankie.  As soon as he feels it in his hand, he sticks his thumb in his mouth, rubs his blankie over his face and it's lights out.  Without a peep, he sleeps at least 12 hours each night and takes 2 nice long naps every day.  And when I open his door to get him once he's woken up, his face just lights up with the biggest smile as soon as he sees me.  Makes my day, every single time.  He's a piggie in the eating department.  He can be picky about certain veggies, but for the most part, he eats like a champ.  And as long as you have an endless supply of cheerios, he'll sit contentedly at the table until we are all finished eating too.  And whenever Poppy is around him, there is sure to be a huge smile on his face.  He just loves to stare at her and watch every move she makes.  And she loves to play with him and help us take care of him, too.

{These two crack me up.}

As promised, here are pics of the absolutely beautiful bookshelf my dad made for Poppy's room.  She lives on this thing.  All day long, she asks me if I want to go read a book to her on her "library bench".

Isn't this what every little girl always wants in their bedroom?  I know I always did.  

Poppy and I have been trying to make it feel a little more like "spring" around here, so we decided to make these bird's nest cookies.  Didn't they turn out cute?  And they were super fun (and easy) to make with Poppy.

And with that, I'm signing off.  The warm sunshine of Florida is waiting for us.  I'll see you next week!

Saturday dinner

I had every intention of taking pictures of the finished product, which was absolutely delicious, but we all had a really light lunch that day and were starving by the time we got these raviolis on the table.

We've busted out the pasta maker a few times over the past few months.  It always surprises me how easy it really is to use.  Any yummy.  And Poppy loves being able to help out.  She eagerly scoops up any and all scraps and calls them her play-doh and makes her own "pasta".