A Teddy Bear Party

We celebrated Whitney's birthday this week.  It is hard to believe that she is four years old.  Does that make her out of the toddler years and into the young child?  I don't really know the cut-off.  But she is pretty proud at being four.  Here are some pictures from her teddy bear party.

Playing with balloons while waiting for the kids to arrive.  She kept asking if it was eleven o'clock yet so her friends would come over.

We played lots of teddy bear games.  I started off with a teddy bear treasure hunt, but no pictures of that.  Oh well.  Then the kids played pin the nose on the teddy bear.  The tie blindfold didn't work well; we will have to think of something better next time.

The teddy bear bowling was a hit.  I put pictures of teddy bears on empty soda bottles and the kids had fun "bowling", which was throwing the ball at the pins.

We had a teddy bear relay in our backyard.  Here we lined up the kids.  Each kid brought a teddy bear and they would run across the yard with their teddy bear, give it a drink, and come back.

It took two tries, but the kids seemed to kind of understand what they were suppose to do.  Whitney and Rachel both running at the same time for opposite teams.

We used a big sheet for teddy bear parachute.  The kids really seemed to like this game of trying to keep all the bears in the parachute.

A happy Whitney decorating her cupcake.  We let all the kids decorate their own cupcakes and I think there was more frosting and candy on some of those than the cake part.

Whitney at the beginning of opening her presents.

By the end, all the kids were huddled around watching her.  She got some really fun presents.

We gave out popsicles right at the end of the party.  Whitney prefers popsicles over ice cream.

And Whitney holding her new baby doll from Grandma and Grandpa Keeler and holding her goody bag.  We gave out little treats and prizes during the party.  So I think it was a success.  Thanks to my mom and sister for helping.

Geocaching (Treasure Hunting)

We did some geocaching while we were down in Pasco for Presidents Day.  We told Whitney that we were treasure hunting.

It was my little brother, Conner's, first time geocaching.  Will looked up three spots that were close to my parents' house to start our search.

Most of the geocaches locations were really close to the road, so I spent most of the time making sure Rachel stayed out of the busy roads.  Whitney asked us if we were pirates because we were looking for treasures; I told her that we were pretending to be pirates and she was pretty excited about that.

The girls tired of looking for geocaches after not very long and just started digging in the dirt.  It is hard to tell, but Whitney drew a ship in the dirt.

Unfortunately, we didn't find any of the three geocaches, but Conner did find some paw prints in the dirt.  It was probably just a small animal but Whitney liked to think they were tiger feet.

Conner got a pet gecko for Christmas and he is pretty proud of it.  We got to watch him eating some crickets, that was pretty cool.  He was a fast little gecko when he wasn't just lazing in his little cave toy.

And to celebrate the Super Bowl (which we watched even though the 49ers and the Patriots didn't make it, but we aren't bitter), Will holds Megan in the football hold.

Being a flying baby gave Megan some crazy hair, but she doesn't seem to mind.  Look at how cute she is.

Make Overs

After several years of not really wearing any make-up, I decided to try it again.  My sister Kaitlin gave us some of the make-up she never wears, so I thought I would try some.  I have only worn it a couple o times and didn't get any pictures of me with make-up, but I did relent and let the girls give themselves makeovers.  The results were pretty entertaining.

The beginning of the party.

Whitney was quite happy with all the bright red lipsticks.  I think it mostly stayed on her lips.

And showing off her pink eye shadow.

Me attempting to stop Rachel from using quite so much lip stuff.

All the lip gunk went to the chin.  I don't know if the silver chin look is in yet.  Rachel would take it by the fingerfuls and just rub it wherever she wanted on her face.

And this is from make-over day the second.  I decided that little girls can only put on make-up on Saturday mornings.  This has led to some groaning, but I refuse to have to wash it off all the time.  Whitney put everything on all by herself, can you tell?

Megan didn't get a make over.  But she did get some stylish glasses that were in the bag from Kaitlin.  She seems content enough with those.  Thanks Kaitlin for the fun times.

A Happy Valentines Day!!

We had a good Valentines here in Umatilla.  It was nice to have it on a Friday when Will's work day is shorter so we could spend more time together. 

We secretly made snickerdoodle cookies for Will.  Whitney helped me make the dough.

I have never made shaped cookies besides sugar cookies, but I think the snickerdoodle hearts turned out pretty tasty.  Then we hid the cookies so Will wouldn't be able to find them and we even aired out the house so the smell wouldn't be so noticeable when he came home from work.

I made coffee cake for our Valentines breakfast.  Will cut it into a heart shape.

We gave Whitney and Rachel some Valentine goodies also - little Hello Kitty chocolate hearts.

And they received Valentine cards from Grandma and Grandpa Keeler.  Thank you guys for sending them; they arrived right on Valentines Day and were a perfect surprise.

We went to Will's work and heart attacked his door.  Each girl colored one of the hearts for their dad.

It was suppose to be a surprise and we were going to take off before Will noticed we were there, but it didn't work that way.  Oh well.  I think he still liked the hearts and the cookies.

Will sent me some beautiful flowers.  We were able to send the kids over to a babysitter that evening and go out to dinner just the two of us.  So it was a fun day.  The kids were pretty hyped up on chocolate, but I guess that is okay for the special day.

D is for Dirt

We have started alphabet days again and we had an especially fun letter D.  Here are some pictures of the kids.  I am doing it with another lady in our ward who also has three little girls who are almost the exact age of our little girls.

I let the kids dig in the dirt for dinosaur eggs (which were really rocks that Whitney and I had painted previously).  All the kids had a blast doing this activity.

I wish it had been warmer so we could just go outside to dig, but oh well. The dirt was easily swept up and taken care of after the activity.

We also talked about ducks.  So I filled a container with some water and we sang the duck song and had the kids take their ducks in and out of the water.  After the song, we just let the kids splash for a little while and they enjoyed that (until one little girl got a little too wet and started trying to take off her clothes).

These are our D's.  I always make sure there is something that we can hang on the wall as a reminder.  The Big D is for dog and the little d is for duck.  The kids do pretty good with the gluing and Whitney and Rachel are always proud of the things they make.

Then for snack we had dirt cups.  The kids mostly just ate the gummy worms and ignored most of the pudding.  But I discovered that pudding can freeze and become popsicles.  So I didn't feel bad wasting a bunch of pudding.  Anyway, it was a fun letter.  We do each letter twice a week to help the kids retain them.  I think Whitney is getting pretty good at recognizing all the letters and remembering what sounds they make.

Here is just a cute Megan picture.  She is five months old now and is starting to reach for everything and knocking things over.  I like this shirt that says 'Smile if you think I'm cute.'  She is definitely cute and can always make me smile.

And Megan wearing her pretty church dress.  She was a happy girl.