of the kids enjoying their new back yard. 

I had to stop giggling and discuss with her how to talk to her brother when she is upset, but the foot stomping was priceless!

Here is the evidence of Emmaline's five-year birthday!  First let's have a look at the birthday girl who looks like she already had a party in her sleep:

(I'm sure she is going to LOVE this picture when she's a teenager!)

(She wasn't quite awake, yet, I think.)

She received a doll from her Nona and some doll clothes and other little trinkets from us.
And the cupcakes are supposed to look like Hello Kitty. (I have never claimed to be the world's greatest cake decorator.  Let's just leave it at that.)

We have assigned Thursday as our official craft day, and today was our first day making a craft.

I found this wonderful book at an also wonderful used book store (Mr. K's).
Given the fact that while I can create almost anything as long as I am given direction, I am not a creatively imaginative person when it comes to crafts for kids.  This book is my new saving grace!

We created the first craft out of the book today.  Can you guess what it's going to be?


I'll give you two hints....


Here they are finished...




They're little trees!  I thought this was so cute and ingenious...some pipe cleaner and buttons, that's all, and you've got trees!  You're supposed to attach safety pins in the middle so the kids can pin them to their shirts and such, however, my children aren't quite at the "I can trust you with safety pins" stage, so they just get to enjoy them as is.

As the parents of three children 4 years old and younger, David and I didn't anticipate doing too much yesterday.  Add to that the fact that our two boys decided to be absolutely miserable yesterday and you get a recipe for staying home.  So we didn't do much of anything except this...

The trickle of blood you may have noticed on poor Viggo's noggin is a result of brotherly testosterone levels, I'm hoping.  After taking pictures of Emmaline and Ian my camera battery died so I walked inside to charge it.  A minute later I return to the back door only to hear two little boys wailing at the top of their lungs.  David then related the story to me of how Ian had decided he would throw a rock, and its trajectory just happened to coincide with the location of Viggo's forehead.  Viggo was therefore crying out of pain and Ian was bawling at the discipline that had been meted out to him.  Fun times, fuuunnnnn times!

She loves her leopard print hat.  I'm not quite sure why she loves holding her hands up like she's some kind of ghoul.

We finally painted the awful wood paneling in the boys' room and turned the room into a playroom for the kids.  I have gotten fed up with both of their bedrooms being a disaster, so all the kids are now sleeping in one room and playing in the other.  I gate off their bedroom during the day to keep them from destroying it.  So far it is working out pretty well!

This morning David decided to distract Emmaline from her pestering for roasted marshmallows by asking her addition questions.  He asked her, "Emmie, what's one plus two?".  I reminded her of the way I had shown her for solving simple addition questions: hold up the amount of fingers for the first number on one hand, and the appropriate number of fingers for the other; then bring them together and count.  She did so, counted, then told her Daddy, "Free!!(Three)".  Impressed by her counting skills, David asked her, "What's two plus two?".  She held up two fingers on each hand brought her hands together and said, "It's W!!!!".  And there you have it folks: the newest mathematical breakthrough is two plus two makes W.

Last night David and I went on an impromptu mini date, during which I made the mistake of consuming caffeine. Caffeine does not hinder me from falling asleep; it wakes me up at very odd hours. This morning it was 2:30, and sleep evaded me from then on.

So, while preparing breakfast for the three kiddos this morning, my yawning incessant, I exclaimed, "Man, I'm pooped!". Emmaline popped her head up from underneath the table (she and Ian had apparently found something of great interest there), and replied, "Yeah, and I'm peed!"

David prepared the world famous "Farina Spaghetti Sauce" last weekend, and Emmaline helped us for the first time. Now David has two Chef de Partie! I was in charge of all the garlic, and Emmaline was asked to take care of the parsley.


Of course, a lot of the parsley went into Emmaline's mouth instead of the bowl. She loves parsley!

Emmaline was playing with one of my crochet hooks she found while cleaning under her bed this morning when she turned to me and said, "Mom, I'm a hooker!"

After recovering from the shock of the statement and turning to see she held a crochet hook in her hand, I chuckled and said, "Go tell your father that!". Which she did.

David almost had a heart attack, then laughed, then told her, "You're a crochet girl, not a hooker, honey. Let's go with Crochet Girl."


And there's our "Crochet Girl" with her crochet hook. Typical photo product with Emmaline. The concept of being still is utterly unknown to her.

This video was taken when my education in Thomas & Friends was sorely lacking. Apparently, Henry is a green engine, too, not just Percy....I've learned a lot since then!

OK, OK, so I know I'm terribly late in posting this, but I have to do it sometime. Here are some photos from Father's Day when we gave David his gifts. Some of the pictures are pretty fuzzy as it was hard to get the kids to sit still, and some of the pictures are going to be saved to embarrass the heck out of our kids when they are older!

Just a minute ago, I had to get onto Emmaline for close to the fiftieth time in about two minutes. Following my reprimand, I said, "You're pushing your luck tonight, Sweetie." To which she replied, "Mm..hmm. I push it a lot." with a big grin on her face. It's moments like these that refresh me when I am worn out. It was good for a laugh.

I didn't think they would, but they actually did catch a fly. After that I encouraged them to find entertainment elsewhere!

This past weekend David took the kids outside while I tended to Viggo. I went outside after laying Viggo down for his nap and found just about the cutest thing I have ever seen.

David had prepared a little spot in his workshop for the kids to play with some tools. He had even fashioned some little hammers for them and a piece of wood with nails for them to hammer. So cute!

Of course, by the time I got out there Emmaline had already lost interest and was wandering around, looking for trouble.

We have often told the kids when putting them down for a nap that we are, "Putting them out of our misery".

Today while Emmaline was trying to get Ian to move from one side of the couch to the other she said, "Ian, get out of your misery. This is my misery!"

This week has been somewhat exhausting. We started it off with Emmaline's birthday on Sunday, Ian got sick Monday night, Emmaline was sick Wednesday night, and I was ill all day Thursday. Thankfully, the bug we got seems to be the type that worked its way out of our systems pretty quickly. However, I have been doing a lot of laundry and keeping late hours at night. After finally feeling better from yesterday, I pretty much decided to laze about the house today. I have gotten a few things done today like one load of laundry and a load of dishes put into the dishwasher. Not much to claim, but at least it is something.

On another note, I have accomplished a few other things this week, including a loverly apron for Emmaline!

I had recently purchased some aprons at Ross; once Emmaline saw me wearing one, she had to have one on too. Needless to say, my aprons were filthy within their first day of use. So, I decided to make some for her.

I used a McCall's Pattern for this apron. Very cute set of aprons.

I've decided to only make the two on the side. I have one more to make with different fabrics in the same style as the one I've finished, and I got a pretty green fabric for the one above it. We'll see how they turn out!

I've also been attempting to bake gluten-free products for my family. Since my kiddos seem particularly sensitive to gluten and certain starches, I have to be mindful of how much of those particular items they consume during the day. So far I've made an attempt at Irish Soda Bread

which tasted more like corn bread than soda bread, still have to tweak this one, and some biscuits

which I think turned out pretty well, all things considered. Paired with the sausage gravy I made, I could barely tell a difference. I'm sure it will take me a while to get used to the slightly different taste and consistency of the different flours I am using, but I hope the effort will be well worth it.