new year's flashback

 

even though i took a rather long blogging hiatus, i often had blogging on my mind.

i would think about day-to-day events and think about how they would make great blog posts. holidays came and went and of course, those are always blog-worthy. i took pictures and videos that i had every intention of using on my blog.

but i didn't.

for today's post, i have visited the vault and have pulled out our new year's 2013 video.

each year on new year's eve, i make rainbow cake (in some form) and at midnight (EST) we sing "happy new year" and blow out the candles on our rainbow cake.

 



this year's rainbow cake was in the form of "cupcakes in a jar." they were cute and SUPER easy. can't beat that!



it's a tradition we started in 2011, so as a bonus, i will include video footage from each year.

new year's 2011

new year's 2012


i always enjoy looking back and watching old videos.

how a year can change things, but some things always stay the same!

father's day 2013

we had a wonderful day celebrating the man of the house on sunday.

tradition states we must go out for donuts in the morning. "donuts for dad!" the kids chant until it's time to go.

this year the big car was in the shop, so we had to take the little car. the little car does not fit six people. so dad stayed home with a grumpy boy and four of us headed to the donut shop down the road.

either donuts for dad is not a novel idea or the donut shop was under-staffed on this particular day... there were hardly any donuts to choose from! like, zero sprinkle donut choices. that is shocking to me! thankfully dad's favorite kind was in-stock. the boys didn't seem to mind that there weren't sprinkle donuts, probably because the only donuts that were left were the ginormous kind or the bars that could be filled with goo. they were pretty happy about that!

i have no pictures of getting donuts or eating donuts, which may or may not be a good thing! natalie was beside herself in the donut shop... "CHOCOLATE!!!" it was pretty cute.

after we came out of our sugar coma, we had spent a little time just hanging out with dad and having fun.

observing insects

the princess in her tower

pulling the rocks out of the rock tumbler

later in the day we had a dinner of chicken and veggie kebobs on the grill with rice. then we played a game of croquet.

 the boys got their games faces on.



playing croquet takes focus and concentration...

 



and a little bit of body contortion!





awww!



there were some tears. there always are.



we gave dad a fire pit and the job of building us a fire :)



then we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.





the day ended with a little basketball for the boys. unfortunately, there is only this shot of zach, but they all had fun playing "horse" together.



it was the perfect kind of day to celebrate dad!

4th of july

as i mentioned earlier this week, the 4th is my mom's birthday. on this day we celebrate our country... and my mom!  we gather together for swimming, bbq, birthday celebrations, and fireworks. it's always so much fun spending the day with our family and friends.














i hope you all had a happy 4th of july, too! do you have any traditions on this special day?

stop the presses... it's 2012?!

i realize it's been 2012 for 16 days. i'm a  little behind in posting. by now you should come to expect that from me!

happy new year everyone!




click here for 2011 video.

2012 has been beautiful. weather wise, anyway. seriously. 65 degree days. do i wear sandals or sneakers with my jeans today? even the plants are confused!

it's been business as usual around here. plan, prep, clean up, work, school, repeat.

i've been working on my 35 things list. just a little bit.trying to be a little more organized. if only pinterest weren't so distracting.

zach is finishing up his learn to skate class. on saturday he jumped. like both feet got off the ice. considering i've broken my arm a few times skating, i'm impressed. and overjoyed for him.

ben had an azaing week at preschool. his teachers have commented on how much his behavior has improved since the beginning of the year. a mama loves to hear good things about her chickadees.

taylor entered our school's math bowl and will be competing with a team in a math competition. he was so anxious to find out if he made the team that he begged to go to school when he was suffering (quite miserably) with the flu. goofy kid! so proud of him though and can't wait to see my little professor shine.

natalie spends most of her time singing and dancing and learning new words and taking care of her stuffies and baby dolls. it amazes me how strong that instinct to nurture is. as a mom of three boys, this is completely new and different.

joe has been busy working on a little project for me. i'm thinking it will make a good little post in the future, so for now mums the word.

i hope 2012 has been treating you well. are you sticking to your resolutions so far? i didn't make any this year.

baking bonanza 2011

i've had thanksgiving on the brain since friday, when i was finally allowed to think about something other than school.

i'm looking forward to so many things. here are a few...

-baking
-mashed potatoes
-chocolate pecan pie
-the start of the christmas season

it's such a fun and happy time of year. don't you agree?

today started with a trip to raley's. i hadn't been in raley's for a while. i was back and forth all over the store. again and again and again. bleh.

i had ben, zach, and nattie cakes with me. i told them i was going to starbucks after raley's and if they behaved i would get them something. that's a win-win situation. peppermint mocha frappuccino to celebrate a successful shopping trip or to cheer me up after an awful one!

when we got out of the car we gathered in a circle, put our hands together, and cheered "we will listen, we will help, we will be sweet!" have you seen anyone rally their team in the grocery store parking lot before? ha!

the trip was mostly successful (minus the zig-zagging). ben jumped the little checkered squares down each aisle, completely oblivious to all other shoppers. it's like a cruel joke from grocery store designers. "let's see how many moms we can drive insane with a checker floor pattern." muhahaha.

however, i was happy to see only friendly faces in raley's today. lots of smiles and patient shoppers. unlike the rude shoppers i encountered in target yesterday, but i won't go there. oops, too late!

so after our starbucks treats, we headed home where i baked all day afternoon long.

i wanted to get an earlier start, but i tend to procrastinate. even though i was looking forward to baking, it can be a challenge to work around rowdy boys and a sleepy girl's nap schedule. but i finally got the ball rolling around 12:30 and i just pulled the final pie out of the oven. my favorite--chocolate pecan. it tastes like sticky sweet chocolatey candy bar goodness. oh my!

my chocolate pecan pie never looks pretty. in fact, it always bubbles over or the crust cracks... somehow the sticky goodness always gets under the crust, so cutting into it and serving pretty slices is impossible. but whatever, because it tastes amazing!

right now the boys are playing outside. in the dark. i remember how much fun that was when i was growing up. they are having the best time and i am enjoying having the windows open and listening to their laughter and smelling the pie aroma in my warm house. nattie is cruising around, alternating between throwing toys around and watching the wiggles. oh yeah, we have another wiggle fan in the house! i broke out a video the other day and the girl is mesmerized when i put them on.

i am so thankful for this break and time with my kids. they were driving me a little bonkers about two hours ago, but now they are asking if they can have a camp-out together. love that. and them! maybe sometimes all you need is some pie to sweeten your perspective?


apple pie with crumb topping. found the recipe on allrecipes.com. it had 4.5 stars and a lot of reviews. i doubled the crumb topping. wouldn't you?


libby's famous pumpkin pie. recipe is on the back of libby's canned pumpkin. i had to drive to my mom's and get a can of evaporated milk from her neighbor and our friend lynn. when i opened my can of evaporated milk, it was orange! gross.


my fave--chocolate pecan. zachary asked if there were beans on the top. then he asked if they were bugs. ha!!

i have one more pie to bake tomorrow and then baking bonanza 2011 will be over. phew!

halloween

i know this is a bit late for a halloween post. i just took down halloween decorations today, too. i guess it's just been like that around here lately. remember that cold/flu i mentioned last week? i kindly passed it along to everyone in my family. with six people under one roof, you know that takes a while to run its course. joe and nat are at the peak of stuffiness right now. 

 **************************************************************
so halloween... it started off with a call from preschool saying ben wasn't quite himself--he was asking to lay down during play time.
uh oh.

i went over to him as soon as i could, which was about 20-30 minutes later. he had just thrown up.
boo.

i called joe to come and get him, since i didn't want to expose nana or natalie to those yucky germs.

joe stayed with ben all day at our house while nana took care of natalie, taylor, and zachary at her house. (it also happened to be parent-teacher conference week, so we had a minimum day.)

after my conferences were over i picked up a pizza and headed home. i dropped the pizza off for joe to put in the oven and went and picked up the big boys and natalie at my mom's house.

we ate pizza and right around this time, ben started to perk up. halloween excitement was definitely in the air.
hooray!



joe took all three boys trick or treating. yep, even sick ben got to visit a few houses. then he came home and helped me and nat answer the door and hand out treats. he made it very clear that nothing was scary to him. my big brave ben.



when the big boys came back, they had lots of fun stories to share. so did ben and i. halloween was a lot of fun. somehow, even with a sick kid, it was the most stress-free halloween we've had yet.

here are some pictures of our tricksters.

































zach was dash from the incredibles, not to be confused with mr. incredible.
many people thought taylor was tron, but he is a non-scary-light-up-guy. (he wanted to be a pistol that shoots tic tacs.)
ben was going to be black spider man (not venom), but on halloween night he decided to be a cowboy.
our tiniest trickster was a flower. as you can see, getting a photo of her was not an easy task!


happy halloween... two weeks late!
 

busy but good

i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend. it was a busy, but good one for the parkers. not only did we celebrate america's 235th birthday, but we celebrated nana's birthday, as well. here are some photos of us being busy!

little girl standing in her crib for the first time

crafting on a friday instead of thursday

tending to the garden


hiding in a pillowcase


baking


seriously goofy

 
just plain serious


frosting on his face after only one bite!


more baking



and more baking

yummy american flag toast!


turning 11 months old



swimming








posing for pictures--love how ben puts his whole heart into saying "cheese"








enjoying fireworks






smiling!

must go get coffee now. the boys are already crying and fighting and whining and yelling at each other. they don't know they are supposed to sleep in after being up so late the night before.

have a great tuesday everyone! don't you love that... it's tuesday already!! i will post last week's treat tomorrow. cookie pie. YUM!!

so it's your turn--what is something fun you did over the weekend?