Mikayla's Blog

Here's my sweet big girl with her baby sister.  Mikayla is growing too fast.  I feel like I may blink and she'll be gone.  I just noticed that she posted on her blog and thought I'd appeal to whomever might be reading mine...go check out her cute blog and leave her a little comment!!

Baking Playdate

 

This weekend Mailee and Maddie each got to invite a friend over.  

Here is Mailee with her friend Mikayla getting ready to do some baking.

Here's Maddie with her friend Aspen mixing up the dry ingredients.

This is Maddie's new "teeth out" smile.  

No comment.

The ladies sporting aprons and trying to decide who will crack the eggs.

The younger girls agreed that this was a job for the big girls.

 

Aren't these the cutest eggs ever?

A patinet brought them in to Mike.

He has so many sweet patients!

 

These colors make me happy. 

I am thinking about making twirl skirts for the girls out of the scraps from these aprons.

Caleb was assigned the job of "taste tester".

(mainly because the girls didn't want him helping)

He didn't mind his job.

He actually quite liked it.

Can you tell?

Finished product:

white icing 

light pink pearls

red sprinkles

white decorative sugar

hot pink decorative sugar

DELISH!

Caleb and Caitlyn and I went to "play school" today.  Cait is just along for the ride, Caleb is there for his first little introduction to school!  He is having a great time.  Today his friend Josiah came too.  Can you believe it, I have no photo of this event.  I apologize.  I will bring my camera next time:)

Other things going on in Banmanland...

*Mike got me a flight to go see Gretch!  Cait and I will be hanging out in Colorado for an entire 6 days!

*Mikayla has been going skiing with her school on Thursdays.  She is linking it. I never imagined ski lessons could be a part of a school curriculum!?!  I guess that's just the California girl coming out in me!

*Mailee and Maddie have been enjoying their shared room now that Mike got closet organizers in their closets and I put down two gorgeous fluffy hot pink rugs.  We unpacked all of the Pollys and Ponies and they are happy down there for hours!

*Mike has a big Extreme Makeover tomorrow.  I am so proud of him, he really is passionate about true health and helping people understand how to attain it.  The seminars that he does are not just about Chiropractic, they touch on all the toxins in our environment and our lifestyle as well. If you haven't been to one, you should!!

*I have been selling bows long distance, I set up Paypal and it has been great!


Projects on the go...

*planning Maddie's Hello Kitty party
*making hair flowers
*making bows, bows and more bows
*sewing giraffe stuffies
*making Valentine's for the girls' classes
*working on a greade 4 science project
*planning Cait's 1st birthday
*dreaming on Etsy
*sorting through the bins of girl clothes (when am I NOT doing this???)
*organizing the laundry room
* looking into pre school programs
*making royal icing hello kitties
*hulling out my closet now that nothing fits AGAIN
*editing some photos
*contemplating starting a new sewing project....



Wow, posting a photo is much easier.  I hope this didn't bore you to sleep!

9 months and counting...

Cait-Bear turned 9 months this past week...9 MONTHS!!

Sigh.

I can't stand it.

Where is the time going??

My little peanut did some hair bow modeling for me this week...here are some of my favorites...

Oh the sweetness!!

This totally captures Cait....  

She is happy.

She is excited

...and she is CUTE!

(I also think I can see how much she loves me in this one..

...can you feel it too?)

Cait was not too happy with playing dress up in her big sister's room!

I still love the photo.

Look at that pout!

Party Baby

Caiters went to her first friend party this weekend. 

Here she is with her friend Azraia the birthday girl and all their dollies.

Cait was very interested in her friend's bottle...

Awe, aren't they cute?  It is hard to believe our baby is getting big enough to interact with friends and soon we will be singing happy birthday to her!!

Cait's Baby Dedication

Today was Caitlyn's baby dedication at church.  They do it on Saturdays so all the family can come.  There were 7 babies getting dedicated and lots of family.  It was great!

This week has been really rough in Banmaland.  We went 3 nights with no sleep while Cait struggled to get 4 new teeth, then Maddie's stomach bug caught on like wildfire and ran thru the rest of the house.  We are all feeling "better" in terms of the stomach bug but with all the sleepless nights, most of us are exhausted and congested.  You can see it on Cait in this photo.  She is just not herself. 

There we are in the lineup of families, vowing to raise our little lady  to love Jesus.

Family prayer time.  It was a really nice event.

I loved that it was a separate thing and not just put on at the beginning of the church service.  

There we are. 

I forgot to get the entire family.  I'm pretty disappointed about that.  Although this little group of 7 is important, the real treasure is in the huge support system that we have beyond this. 

Anyways, these are the photos I have, so the event has been documented :)

Sink Bath!

Because we "nakify the baby" when she eats, she often gets VERY messy.  This is how she gets clean.  Knowing that my girl will be bathing in the sink helps me to keep my sink clean and free of dishes.  (I said it HELPS, I'm not sayin it's always clean, but this is a good motivator!)

Little Model

Caiters is my little Fig & Ruby hairbow model.  She doesn't seem to mind most of the time.  On Saturday I dressed her up and everything started out really well... Here she is saying hi to the baby in the mirror.

"hi baby!"

She posed happily for a bunch of hairbow photos (which you can check out over at Fig & Ruby Kids)...

Then she did this!!!

And this!  I hope this little strike is due to the 4 teeth she is miserably trying to get and not a sign of the end of my cute free baby model!!

Blankies and Lovies

Not sure if I ever shared Cait's blankie and my new little favorite baby gift...

Here is her big blankie.  It is super soft minky on one side and satin giraffe pink on the other.  I used felt to make the monogram.  I love that finishing touch!  I made a matching one for Gretchen's baby Sophia.  Cait and Soph ended up being born 1 day apart!

I also made each girl a matching taggie blankie.  I have changed the name of this to a "lovie" because that is what it has become!  The lovie has the same giraffe satin on the back.

Cute coordinating ribbons all around the edge.  So many fun ribbons.  I have quite the collection so it was fun to use up a few scraps and also add some of my personal favorites! (This is a horrible picture...hello?  White balance anyone? Geez!)

My favorite feature- a personalized tag!

I made Sopie's to say "you are loved".  This is my best attempt at embroidery:)

I have gotten so many compliments on the lovie and the babies both really love them so I started making them for special baby gifts.  Here is a blue and pink one.  It is minky zebra on one side and hot pink satin on the other.  I kinda dig animal prints!

Pink and grey!

I love the loops because I can hook her toys to the blankie or hook the blankie to the stroller...It is so versatile and a really great size!

I have thought about putting a few up on ETSY.  Hmm...perhaps one day.  I'll add this to the list of things I dream of doing once the kiddies get a little bit older and I have a second to breathe!

Random Happenings In Our House

This is Caleb playing Disney Sing It on the PS3.  He has one song that he chooses every time, it's "get your head in the game" from High School Musical.  He sings "getcha head in the game, getcha head in the game" over and over through the entire song and usually ends up scoring pretty well.  He is hilarious cause he dances through his whole turn too!

Here is Cait peeking around the corner.  She got caught going into Caleb's room...it's not safe for her in his room with all the little pieces and never-ending MESS!  Our little girl loves to crawl around the house exploring all the rooms and looking for random treasures to put in her mouth.

"peek a boo Mommy, I see you too!"

Sometimes we go on walks.  Caleb loves this, Cait doesn't mind unless it's cold.  She had no interest in being bundled up.  It just rubs her the wrong way.  She is NOT a fan!  My happy little content-all-the-time baby turns into a big sucky-poo whenever I put her in her snow gear.  Here is the evidence.  Look, that's what she looks like when she is MAD!  Caleb is saying "MOOOOM!  Get her off of me!!!!"

There's my boy at the top of the hill!  He was quite proud.

Please note: he is wearing two different mitts...both for the right hand.

Caity bear thinks her sucky fingers are oh so tasty.  She wants her sisters to think so too...Here she is offering her other fingers to Mikayla to have a try.  Notice Maddie is holding baby and Mailee is across the table watching.  This is a common occurrence, as if there is nothing else going on...babies are great entertainment!

A Portrait Of A Baby

Little Caitlyn is growing and changing daily.  Her 4 top teeth are inching down and I am sure they will pop through any day.  I wanted to get a few close ups of her with her two little chompers before the rest arrive.

Miss Maddie

Maddie is half way through Kindergarten!  I can not believe it.  In a lot of ways she seems so grown up but she still has her moments of throwing out of control tantrums and that is when I remember that she is only 5.  I miss her around the house during the day.  She is my little helper girl.  She always follows me around and wants to do what I am doing!

Her birthday is in March and she wants a Hello Kitty party.  I try to stay away from the character birthdays but I love Hello Kitty so I am on board!  I welcome all ideas and tips on where to find Hello Kitty anything!!

This photo was taken the same day as the one of Caleb...more practice with the manual function on my camera.  I am really really pleased with this one, I didn't edit it at all and it is just perfect, in my opinion although I am a bit biased cause I really really love the little subject:)