My Leprechauns

So I tried to take a picture of the kiddos this morning but it just wasn't working. :) Once everyone was sitting nicely Ethan decided to lay back far enough that he was laying down! And once the other kids started laughing about it...it was all over! Ethan laid down EVERY time I tried to take a picture. Who knew he could be such a trouble maker.

So, enjoy my attempts. :)

Who knew??

Who knew that St Patricks day was going to be such a day for a kindergartner? Did you? I certainly didn't. Alia was sooooo excited for school today-excited to see everyone in green and excited to see what the leprechaun did in her class! I heard one parent say (as they were picking up their kindergartner), "So much excitement for St. Patrick's day...you'd think it was Christmas!" I chuckled.

Anyways...here are some pictures of Alia's day in school. They did lots of work..these pics are just of the last 30 minutes or so. :)

Here is Mrs. Whitson passing out the "gold" that the leprechaun left in the classroom! Alia is in the way back, on the right side-so excited! :)

Earlier in the week they made leprechaun masks and a looking glass to search for Mr. leprechaun. So silly.

A close up.





When the arrived to the classroom this is what they found!!! The leprechaun had been there and left his footprints!

He also left this note...and at the end of the day they went searching for his pot of gold. (see pic 1)

Minty goodness!

I decided to make some cupcakes for Alia's class tomorrow. I am helping out all morning and it's St. Patrick's Day...so why not? I just got my first issue of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade magazine and I love it!!! She has a recipe in it for Mini Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes. So that was my cupcake of choice. I figured I'd try it. We had some after dinner tonight and they were SO good!!! A mixture of yummy chocolate and fresh mint flavor...topped with shaved Andes mints on top!

My little "big boy"

Ohh...when did my little baby Ethan grow up!?!? He's been looking like quite the big boy lately. I just love him so much. :) And I'm a bit sad that he's growing up so fast. A few updates:

*he LOVES bananas

*he DOES NOT like refried beans-a BIG prob in the Backlund family (teehee)
*some words he can say: shoes, more, up, show (as in a video), mama, dada, go, poop, roar, ball
*he loves it when Elijah rough houses with him-he laughs and laughs

*he likes to imitate whatever his big brother & sister do
*he was connected to grampa jim's leg when we were visiting-too cute!

*he can follow simple instructions, for example "get your shoes and put them away". He'll actually DO it!! and with a smile on his face!

*some of his favorite toys: dinosaurs, cars, balls

*he's having a blast discovering the parks and play structures-the slides are his fav!

I just love this little guy, don't you?

MOPs activity!!

Today was a MOPS day for me...I have MOPS the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month. It is the highlight of my weeks! :) As the creative activities coordinator I am responsible for one "craft" a month. Today was a creative day! We painted glass "celebration" plates. The baby Jesus plate I made this afternoon (after I came home) and the others were samples I made for the MOPS ladies. My favorite is the baby Jesus plate, by far...and my next runner up is the cupcake plate. These were super fun and pretty easy-and they are dishwasher safe! :)

Cupcakes!

This past weekend a good friend of mine had a wonderful baby shower! I was blessed with making the cupcakes for the shower. I had a lot of fun making them and was pretty pleased with how they turned out. I thought they might bring a smile to your face :)

Christmas

I didn't take too many picures of our Christmas festivities...I am realizing I need to be better about taking pictures. You never know when you'll need them.

Anyways...we did our own family Christmas on Christmas eve morning and then after Christmas Eve service at church we headed out to Long Beach to spend the next 5 days with my family! We had a great time visiting aunts, uncles, great-grandma, gramma, grampa, and cousins. Then Jason's parents came to our place and spent the next week! It was so fun to have them!

Gifts

I've been busy making fun gifts for our family and friends around us. Here are a few of them.

Chocolate Walnut Cookie Mix.
I've always wanted to make one of the jar mixes...and it was so much fun! And they are so cute! :) I will for sure do this again. I might just keep some jars in the closet for a quick and easy friend gift.

And then I've been baking biscotti like crazy!! I've make a bunch of batches and the batch I made this morning was "the best batch yet!" according to Jason :) They are Chocolate Chip Bicsotti and have chocolate chips, cranberries and hazelnuts inside! They were so easy, too! They were so easy, and so good that I decided to post the recipe. Thanks to www.bettycrocker.com !

Ingredients:

1 pouch (1lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts (I also used walnuts)

1/2 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Make cookie dough blending cookie mix, butter, egg, flour, nuts, cranberries and 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips until stiff dough forms. Roll half of dough at a time into 8 x 2 1/2 inch rectangle. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet (I used parchment paper). Cool 15 minutes.

2. Cute each rectangle crosswise into 3/4 inch slices. Place slices, cut size down, on cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, turning once, until crisp. (I baked them 6 min on each side) Cool; place biscotti on cooling racks. Cool completely.

3. Microwave chocolate chips on high 30-60 seconds; stir until smooth. Drizzle chocolate over one side of each biscotti. Let stand until chocolate is set. (I've also used chocolate candy melts)

mmm...I'm eatting on right now! :)

Elijah's program

Part of Elijah's Christmas program was a book exchange. Here he is showing us the books he got!

They also decorated Christmas cookies. He likes frosting :)



Here are all the kids. It was super cute to watch...all the girls sang real loud while the boys sort of just sat there. :) Elijah knew the songs...but didn't sing :) He was real proud anyways. :) And so were we.

Here's grammpa trying to swipe Elijah's cookie! Swiper no swiping!

A little video of Alia's school program...for your viewing enjoyment.

Alia's program

Alia had her kindergarten Christmas program on Wednesday. My parents drove up for the kids' Christmas program so it was a fun day.

Alia and Mrs. Whitson, her teacher. Alia loves her teacher, can't you tell? :)

Here are a few of the crafts that Alia made. The program began with some songs...then there were 5 craft stations that they cycled through and made crafts at. Alia was in heaven! She loves to do projects :)

Gingerbread House!!

Last night we made our gingerbread house from the kit that my parents brought us from Costco. They kiddos have been looking forward to creating it for DAYS!!! :) I spent the day baking and putting together gifts so I passed on the icing job to Jason. He did a great job!
Here was the end result.

This is what Ethan spend the night doing. He figured out how to push the button on the dinosaur and was having a great time with it! He is such a boy...loves playing ball, driving cars and playing with dinosaurs! :)

The creating! They worked well together!




Elijah had the job of decorating the tree.

Fireworks Show

Just watch...and pretend you are at the happiest place on earth. :)

Rainy Day Disney

We went to Disneyland a few weeks ago and the forecast was rain. Well, let me tell you, we got rain!!! We spent a 1/2 day there because mommy was DONE! We were all soaked-shoes, pants, jackets, everything. :) But we had a good time!!! And our friends, the Reeds were there at the same time so we got to hang out with them, too. We ate at Super Mex in Fullerton and at Schooner or Later in Long Beach. Thanks for the memories, Mickey!

Because it was stormy...it made for an iffy drive over the grapevine. Here's what we saw out our window as we drove home. We were the last group of cars to get to drive over the grapvine-they closed it as we were on the top!

Super Daddy, Jason! Can you see how wet he is?? :)

The lights were beautiful throughout the park. In case you don't know, this is It's a Small World.




Little Mr Ethan...figuring out what to do next.

O Christmas Tree

Here's our tree! We always get a Noble Fir-that's what I've had since I was little. :)

At some point in the decorating Ethan was relagated to his chair...it was just too hard to decorate the tree when he was just taking the ornaments off! :) Doesn't he look cute an innocent?




The big kids decorating.


Ethan, admiring the lights.

The finished product! Notice the bottom 1/3 is missing the ornaments? :) I was a bit nervous about Ethan taking everything off but he hasn't been too bad. The first day he took a bunch off...then the excitment wore off. And I've realized that as long as he doesn't see people touching the tree, he doesn't touch it. So we've been replacing the ornaments after he goes to bed. Last night we put presents under the tree...and so far so good!

Silly Elijah

Here's my silly big boy. Teehee. He insisted that I take a picture of him.

Alia's playdate

Alia has ben wanting her friend from school to come over to play. So this past Wednesday was the BIG DAY! :) They played in her room, had lunch and played outside. Then I had them make chocolate covered marshmellows with sprinkles! I thought this would be a fun activity for them. And it was!