Matthew is 1!

While we celebrated Matthew's birthday this weekend camping, his actual birthday was Monday.  I snapped the obligatory picture of him with his designated animal: a horse.  I took a picture of Sarah and Jenna in the same dresses when they turned 1.  I did not put him in the dress. It was hard enough to get him to stay still long enough for the picture (and get all the other kids/cat out of the picture!).

Several times this summer we have driven by lemonade stands. 

I always stop. 

 I'm a sucker for mildly warm watered down lemonade that kids are selling by the side of the road.  Jenna said she wanted to have a stand selling something like cookies.  I thought that was a great idea and showed some entrepreneurial spirit.

So we made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies (Jenna read all the ingredients and did a great job figuring out how to double - except for fractions of course). Then we set up the cookie stand for about 2 hours. 50cents for 1 or 3 for a dollar.  Jenna made $5.50.  The neighbor girl came by and bought a dollars worth of cookies so I let her be in the picture :).

Star Wars is a pretty big deal at our house.  So Matthew's shirt, which reads "Judge me by my size do you? Size matters not".  Is practically the most wonderful shirt ever made.  He may not think so as you can tell from his grumpy expression in this picture.

I also realized I never got a picture of the 3rd seat Erik installed in the Explorer.  He is an amazing handyman as you can tell from this picture!  Really - how cool is it to install a third seat!  We had discussed buying an Expedition when our Taurus dies for extra room but now we have it.  Thanks honey!

We happened to be at the zoo when they were doing a puppet show and the kids loved it. 

This week has been a good week.  I've eaten ice cream every day this week.  Summer = lots of ice cream. Yipee! 

75 points today on Quiddler

Buggies, Beards, and Baked goods

This weekend we had a fun-filled camping trip to Amish Country.  We went a few years ago to Amish Country campsites with the Masts and we stayed at the same place this year.  I love their free firewood - it's all bits and pieces of Amish furniture and some have really interesting shapes.  Sarah found one that looked like a unicorn horn and she went around dolling out unicorn power to everyone.

On Friday we went to Rolling Ridge Ranch. Here we rode on a rickety wagon with a lively Amish driver who pointed out all the animals to us. We also each got a bucket of feed for the animals.  Mine was gone within 10 minutes since one of the animals grabbed it out of my hands!  The kids absolutely loved this trip.  The animals came right up to the wagon and Sarah especially loved to feed them out of her hand.  Sarah has always had a love of animals though.  The kids even got to drive the wagon!  See the picture of Jenna steering the horses.

We also went to Lehman's and Heini's and Amanda came too!  We spent a lot of money at both places and stuffed ourselves with cheese. Erik bought 7 different kinds of cheese.  We have a lot of cheese-eating in our future. 

We love the atmosphere of Amish country too.  There are so many buggies, beards, and baked goods.  You just can't go wrong.

On this camping trip we also celebrated Matthew's first birthday.  I made a caterpillar cake out of cupcakes for all the kids.  There are 6 kids between us and the Masts so we needed a lot of cupcakes.  Luckily I had just enough with 1 to spare.

On Saturday we went to my parents house to celebrate Matthew's birthday with them. I made a "1" cake for him to eat.  He dug right in!  I remember when Jenna turned 1 she was so tentative and didn't want to make a mess.  Matthew had no such qualms.  I had to give him a bath afterwards.  Yuck!

Of course we got to sit by the campfire and make smores.  Yum!  Jen brought coconut marshmallows.  Roasting coconut marshmallows and putting dark chocolate and graham crackers on them was divine!

The only downside of our trip was that I forgot my prayer journal.  Too bad because I need it.

66 points on Quiddler and I made the word "nth"!

Hubby is back!

Erik came home tonight from his yearly Man Trip.  He went kayaking in Michigan, something he has never done before.  Unfortunately he didn't put sunblock on his legs and now half of his legs are red. You can see a nice line where his shorts ended!

The guys traditionally do something adventurous and exciting - we sit in the hot tub on the Girls trip.  Erik always has such a fun time and I like to plan a special dinner for him when he comes back. 

I made bleu cheese and bacon hamburgers with garlic grape tomatoes and a side of baked potatoes.  Then for dessert I tried something complex.  I wanted to make this:

It is a layered chocolate mousse with alternating layers of chocolate and caramel mousse. This required 5 pans/bowls because the number of steps required.  Rather than getting that beautiful layered look. This is what I got:

That is obviously not the look I was going for.  It was tasty but not at all a beautiful layered dessert.

I also thought I would upload some more Disney photos. I love this picture of the girls with Belle. They are looking at her with rapt attention. I wish they paid attention to Mommy that way.

Here is also a picture of Erik taking Matthew behind the waterfall.  In 2009 we played several water games.   We had a blast this year playing water games too.  I used to force Missy to play games with me in the water when all the time I just needed Erik. Too bad I didn't know him back when we were 12.

This year the water was a little warm too.  It was 98 degrees and just too hot to be refereshing.  So I thought we should just go get a few bags of ice and dump them in the water. Erik wasn't sure so he did some calculations and determined it would take 3100 pounds of ice to cool the pool down 10 degrees.

This is why I love him.

He is a nerd and so good looking. 

Not sure why he married me!  Maybe it is my love of water competition too.

Only 29 points on Quiddler today :(

It's a hot world

Monday at 10pm we got home from Florida.  We left our beautiful tropical paradise to come to Ohio.  Even though I love Ohio, the house we stayed at in Florida was gorgeous.  And we went to.... Disney World!

It was Sarah and Erik's first time at Disney world and we all had a blast.  We got autographs from Lady Tremaine (Cindrella's Stepmother), Princess Tiana, Princess Jasmine, Ariel, Cinderella, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty.  The actresses playing those characters really did a great job.  The Cinderella actress told the girls they acted like great sisters and that they could give her sisters some lessons on manners.  How cute :).

We rode several rides including It's a Small World.  Erik has never been to Disney and had always heard about It's a Small World.  He was excited to ride it but after a few minutes looking at all the little dolls with their painted faces singing the same song over and over, we looked at each other and both thought it was a little creepy. As a child I thought it was awesome though.

Our Disney trip was fun but it was 95 degrees outside and Sarah dropped her ice cream on the ground which resulted in screaming.  Missy labeled it "icecream gate 2011."  We all got a little sunburned too.

Not only did we go to Disney World, but we went to a waterpark with a lazy river, slides, and a big pool.  Everyone had fun at the waterpark. We also ate mozzarella sticks as a snack which the girls thought was fantastic.  We didn't buy any toys at Disney, rather we bought toys at Downtown Disney and ate at the Rainforst cafe.  Again, Sarah was scared at the Rainforest Cafe when there was an indoor "thunderstorm".  Matthew didn't seem to mind.

Since I'm obsessed with cupcake earrings (yes I know I have a problem), I bought 3 pairs of cupcake earrings at Disney!  Now I can wear tons of cupcake earrings :).

Jenna had her last Daisy Scout meeting of the year at a place called the Glass Slipper. It is a quaint little house that hosts birthday and bridal shower teas. Jenna wants her birthday party there but I don't really want to pay that much. Maybe if we win in Vegas.....

97 points today in Quiddler and I got to make the word "quoting"

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

We visited Grandma and Grandpa Cooper over Memorial Day weekend and had a great time.  Grandpa Cooper has a huge train set that the girls love - especially Sarah. Matthew also got so excited my camera couldn't capture the shot. Check out the picture of him flailing - how cute :).

Of course if I was a real photoshop expert I would photoshop his hands in but I'm not that good.  Or really any good at all.

I also snapped a really cute picture of Erik and Matthew playing. That is just too sweet.

Tuesday (yesterday) was Jenna's last day of Kindergarten. She is now officially a first grader.  Kindergarten is okay.  First grade just sounds old.  I can't believe she is so grown up now.  I also don't think I was reading as well as she is now when I finished kindergarten.  Of course it's hard to remember since that was just a few years ago (just a FEW!).

She made a Turtle book and a turtle ceramic in art class.  The turtle book was a result of research.  The teacher gave them books to read about turtles.  They took facts they learned from the books and made their own books.  I was impressed she was doing research already. 

Next she'll be attending conferences with me giving presentations about education or bioinformatics or something like that.

Matthew's First Birthday is coming up and I am having difficulty deciding the kind of cake to make for him (this is obviously very important).  I made a lady bug cake for Jenna and a bumblebee cake for Sarah. Those were easy because we had given them those nicknames.  We don't really have a suitable nickname for Matthew.  So I'm having trouble deciding on a good cake to make. 

Please take my very important poll to determine the cake to make:

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTk1NjY4MDczNQ/web

Or if you want to text (because who doesn't want to text to vote for my awesome poll!) text a number to 37607

Make a live audience poll at Poll Everywhere

72 points on Quiddler today.