Playdate!

Dear Mom, since I am almost four now I am perfectly capabable of having play dates.  Please schedule them for me every day.  You can even schedule more than one per day.  I am absolutely loving my new friends and I will do almost anything including various chores that you may request of me in hopes of being able to spend the day with one of my friends.  Thank you, I love you, you are the best. 

Signed,

Your adoring little social butterfly Bria.

This little tootsie had a play date today.  This was the second playdate that she has gone on alone and boy does she love it!  She went to visit her friend Madi today.  She got to go to Madi's house last week for a play date as well.  I love hearing all about the special toys that Madi has and how much fun they had dressing up.  I met Madi's mom Andrea in our new ECFE Preschool program.  When she was dropped off this afternoon, she had on this cute hat and cape.  She told me that they belong to Madi, but she is allowed to borrow them and bring the back the next time that we play.  She wore them all afternoon.

I am thrilled with Bria's sudden desire to branch out and make friends of her own.  Up until now, she has been pretty dependent on us.  She never really showed an interest in having her own little friends.  She loves Avery's friends and will always play with them when they are over, but she has never really had her own friend.  Now, she does.  I am so excited to nuture her new found independence and I look forward to many playdates in the future.

Cookie making, A Success!

 We had a blast the other day making cookies.  I was determined to make this baking experience a joyful one for our entire family.  The kids absolutely love any type of baking, rolling, frosting, crafting, and sprinkling so making frosted sprinkle cookies was right up their alley.  Bria and Bennett helped me mix and stir.

Chadd was called upon to roll out our dough while I got dinner ready.

Once the dough was rolled out, we gave the kids cookie cutters to make their shapes.

Bria loved waiting until the was no available dough to cut a full cookie so that she could roll the little dough ball over and over again.

We made a lot of colored frosting!

Avery joined in to help create and bake.

Bria is pouring out some of the sprinkles to be sure not to over sprinkle her cookies.

The end product: Bria's

Avery's

Bennett's.

Gingerbread House

I love making Gingerbread houses.  I realized this year however, that I love making them so much that I cannot be patient enough with my kids to allow them to even have an ounce of fun while making one.  I hate that!  I didn't realize that I was so completely anal that a project which was supposed to be fun for the kids turned into an all out scream fest in which the kids just stared at me unsure of how to proceed.  What.A.Grinch!

I vow to buy little houses for the kids next year so that they can each make their own.  There will be no yelling or anxiety at all.  All was not horrible though and I truly believe that Avery and Bria had fun despite my tantrum. 

We started making the house on Friday night only to realize that once we put the roof panels on we had to wait 3 hours for it to "cure."  The kids were really good about it though and I told them we would do it Saturday morning.  Much to our delight/horror we woke up to a blizzard and all activities were canceled so it was the perfect time to make our gingerbread house.

Within two minutes, Bennett had been yelled at and sent to sit on the couch with daddy.  How can I put this mildly: he is a wrecker.  The kid is creative in ways I could never have imagined.  Again...realizing that I need to relax and let it go next time which I will but man was it frustrating.

The girls each took turns making things.  Avery did the door.  Bria did the windows.  I did the roof(and it ticked me off so royally that I almost threw the darn thing away).  The girls did do a good job and they decorated the whole house with candies.  Bennett was allowed back over while I tried to frost the roof.  I had to use so much corn starch to get it to not be sticky to my fingers that it looked like it was dusted with a fresh layer of powder.  The girls thought it was quite funny.  Thankfully Bennett didn't touch a thing, he was content to just keep eating candy. 

All in all, it turned out pretty decent.  You live and you learn.  At least the girls had fun :)