Melty Crayons

Our latest art project turned out pretty cool:

Science and Art

In an effort to make learning a little more interesting, we've recently done a few science experiments. First, we made our own volcano. We got the idea from my special edition of Family Fun magazine called "Create and Learn".

The kids loved the volcano so we did it several times and made a variety of colors.

Then we made slime. You might remember the stuff called Gak. Well this is essentially what we made. Thanks to my newest obsession, a website called Pinterest, I found this recipe.

Caleb chose green, his favorite color, and we mixed up a batch of slime. Later, I made some purple slime for Laura Anne. It entertained them for a while!

I've also been encouraging their inner artists lately. Our favorite type of art currently is water paints. Caleb could seriously paint for a few hours straight. He paints page after page of colorful splotches (which I'm sure in his brain are detailed pictures).

I love having a kitchen filled with little people's artwork.

Since there are so many, I'm thinking of covering some with contact paper so the kids can use them as placemats.

I love making learning fun. And seriously, Pinterest is the best idea ever. I don't know how I lived before it. :)

Thoughts And Toes

Stellan is 15 months old today. He has 4 new teeth coming in, 3 of which are molars.

Laura Anne has one more soccer game left. We will all be sad to see this soccer season go, but we will look forward to future ones, if that is what she wants to do!

The kids were watching a movie from the comfort of Caleb's Cars tent last week. This was my view:

We've been busy with homeschool experiments and crafts. More pictures to come!

Ummm

I feel like I should introduce myself. Hi, my name is Brianna and I'm the author of this poor, neglected blog!


The past few months have been the busiest of my life. We have homeschooling, soccer, church, family time, Bible studies. All this and the house still needs to be cleaned, clothes need to be washed and children need to be fed and bathed. It doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging! I've been contemplating the idea of just letting it go, closing the blogging chapter of my life, but I'm not quite ready to do that! So the posts may come a little less often, but for now I'm still here.

That being said, let's move along with some updates. Laura Anne is playing Upward soccer right now. She really enjoys it! Part of her bedtime prayers every night include praying for her to "keep getting better at soccer". I'm thankful for Upward and for the ability to have her try out an extracurricular activity.

Homeschooling is going really well so far. We had kind of a rocky beginning but we're all getting the hang of it now. She's ahead of the game, but we're still going through her kindergarten books just to make sure we cover everything. Plus, I'm teaching some to Caleb too as we go along.

Speaking of Caleb, as of this week we have FINALLY made some progress in the potty training department!!! Wahooo!!!! I'll tell you what, I thought for sure we'd be potty training Stellan before long and HE would be the one to teach Caleb!! Ha! But things are finally clicking and we have even had a few outings where Caleb was wearing big boy undies instead of a diaper!

Stellan is 14 months old, walking all over the place, eating big boy food with the family and drinking whole milk from a sippy cup! No more nursing! We're still working on the sleep thing, but this week he has done pretty good sleeping through the night. (In our book, that means not waking up before 5am!) :) He's our early riser, waking up between 6 and 6:30 almost every morning!

The kids and I spent a week in Jacksonville a couple weeks ago. While we were there, I had the privilege of meeting and photographing my newest nephew, AJ!! What a precious little bundle! He was only a week old! He was a good little sleepy boy for our photo session (the second photo session, that is!)

Isn't he just a doll?!

Another important event to note is that my little sister, Sheri, got engaged!!! I am sooooo excited I can hardly stand it!!! Not only will I have the honor of taking some photographs for her and Charles at some point, I will be her matron of honor and get to plan a bridal shower!!!! YAY!!!!

As for me, I'm running again. I never really got back into it after Stellan was born but now I'm running 4-5 days a week and I feel great! I'm still photographing for family and friends and loving it. Chris and I have this idea that we may launch a photography/design business together sometime in the future! He's actually working on a logo design for a friend right this minute. :)

So, friends, if you are reading this, thank you for sticking around. I promise to try to do better at keeping you informed and updated and to provide pictures, of course.

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Party!

I had the most fun planning Stellan's 1st birthday party! I chose the Very Hungry Caterpillar for the theme, and the possibilities seemed endless for food and decorations!

I enlisted the help from some of the youngins to make caterpillar kabobs!
I made these bookmarks for favors:

Ellen made this FABULOUS banner!

I think my favorite touch for the party was picking the menu from the food in the book. Then I put little labels in each dish with a quote from the book such as, "on Thursday he ate through 4 strawberries, but he was still hungry":

The yummy food!

Smash cake! Fact: this "1" candle was Caleb's. We never lit it for Caleb's party because he was sick and didn't want any cake. :( But hey, it worked for Stellan's party so we finally got to use it!

The birthday boy just woke up from a nap and is sporting his birthday caterpillar outfit that Grammy made him! So cute!!!

Favor jars:

Another glimpse of the food table. The food was my favorite part! ha!

The caterpillar cake:

Mmmm, he was all about some cake!

Present time! I was surrounded by children. :)

Lots of family and friends were able to join us for the party. Hanging out with Pops. :)

It was a GREAT party and we are so blessed to have so many wonderful family and friends!! We love you! And happy 1st birthday, Stellan!!!!

Blog Hop Time!

I'm dying to share one of these before and after pictures! I just learned (as in, last night) how to soften and smoothe skin in Photoshop! I had a yummy little 3-month-old to photograph yesterday and he was my first little guinea pig!

Before:

After: Hooray for this new trick!!! :D

August?!

Oh dear. Dear, dear, dear. How in the world is it August already?! I did not post anything in July!! I do apologize. July was a hectic and crazy month for us! Actually, I think it's safe to say that every month is hectic and crazy. But July was especially so. Here are a few pictures to hold you over until I can post Stellan's birthday pictures!

Stellan loves him some spaghetti!

The two older kids thought it was quite hilarious to share their popsicles with Stellan.

Obviously, it was a little on the tart side, but he kept asking for more. :)

Caleb was just his cute little self....most of the time.

One day, Laura Anne wanted to wear her "wedding dress" as she calls it. When she was done wearing it, she hid in it.

Yes, our little babe is ONE and pictures from his awesome Very Hungry Caterpillar themed party will follow! Thanks for coming back to see pictures even though I've been slacking!