Rocking out, Bijou style

I spent a few hours working on a drawing this evening.  Fortunately, the girls are really good at entertaining themselves.  A little Grooveshark and free reign over their closets and they are happy campers.  As usual, there was lots of singing, dancing and imaginary concerts.  During a short break from drawing, I caught Bijou just hanging out on the couch like this...

Notice the sweet tattoo (They all had them.  Gotta love birthday party goodie bags), vest and black tutu skirt.   There's nothing like being dressed up by your older sisters.

Just another night in the David household...

Sometimes I feel like my children live in a fantastic musical.  There's an abundance of song, dance and fantasy around here quite often.  Tonight, the girls decided that we needed to have a fancy dinner.  Jena wanted to cook dinner.  She made whole wheat penne pasta and tomato sauce with broccoli and mushrooms.  Ashni wanted to add some gourmet flair, so she was in charge of plating (chopped fresh spinach and smear of sauce).  A pot of peppermint tea and a few dressy outfits later, the girls were eating Italian food with chopsticks!  As if that was not enough, they also decided that they needed to speak in pretend accents for the entire dinner. 

Junior Bloggers

The big girls have started their own blogs.  Feel free to stop by and check them out!

Busy Dancer

Talented Eater

Zion is turning 3!!

It's that time again.  Another birthday has rolled around in the house.  This time three years ago, I was battling a nasty stomach bug and preparing for a 6am c-section.  Those are two events that one does NOT want overlapping.  Fortunately, I made it through.  Tomorrow, Zion Sage turns three years old.  It's been a fun three years.  She's as quirky as she's ever been. 
-she loves to dance with her hand on her hip (thanks Bijou)
-she can color like a pro
-she's pretty adept on a scooter and a two wheeler (with training wheels, of course)
-she loves animals but has a fear that all dogs will, indeed, lick her. 
-she puts all of her clothes on backwards and shoes on the wrong feet (not always, but often enough for me to mention it)
-she eats like a man, but prefers beans and rice to anything else
She's fun little monkey to live with.  I look forward to her little voice each morning.  I decided to celebrate her birthday a day early because I will be at work tomorrow during the day and Taariq will have to work tomorrow night.  I figured I would let her spend the day with me at school today, then take her for ice cream and to play at the book store.  Tomorrow she gets to spend the day with daddy and her older sisters and then we'll make a special dinner when I get home.  Happy Birthday, little monkey.  I'm looking forward to the next year.

Birthday cone!  This year she chose strawberry.  She ate a few bites and then it hit the floor.  Fortunately the owner of the shop is very sweet and replaced it for her.

I love the little elf ear under the crown.  You may (or may not) recognize the crown from Bijou's third birthday.

Replacement ice cream in a cup this time.  We used the cone as a topper.

This is the sweetest picture of Zion and Ashni.  They are so silly together.  This is what they look all the time.

All my girls.

Last but not least, a comparison between last year's birthday ice cream trip and this years birthday ice cream trip.

2012

2011

And I swear I did not have them sit in the same positions.  I think that automatically sit in order of age.

Yeah, I'll admit it...

We LOVE Angry Birds around here.  I mean, we really love it.  I haven't bought any merchandise or anything, but I will play.  A LOT!  And the girls love it too.  I don't mind them playing, but they will veg out in front of the computer forever if I'd let them.  Now I'm not a huge fan of them having tremendous amounts of screen time, so they don't get to play very much.  So, to satisfy their need for destroying questionably stable structures inhabited by pigs, I decided to make them a table top (or floor) version.  Actually, they started building their own Angry Birds games using blocks and dinosaurs and dollhouse people.  So, technically this was their idea.  I just spruced it up for them a little bit.  The pigs are just some little wooden balls that I had in our craft bin and the birds are rubber balls from the dollar store (they came three in a bag).  Total cost for this project?  $1 (plus tax) and about an hour total of painting.   I will post pictures of them playing when the sun comes up.  It's too dark in our house right now for my little point and shoot to get a good picture.  But they are playing happily, I assure you.

And completely off topic, I have been having trouble posting comments to my own blog (probably me doing something wrong), but I always want to respond when you all comment.  Know that I do read and appreciate whenever I get comments!

Little Reminders

I am a big fan of little reminders for the kids to help them remember the things that need to get done each day - particularly the younger kids.  So I thought I would share a couple of the little reminders I have for the girls.  These two just happen to be in their bathroom.  I used to have two that couldn't read (now I just have one), so the reminders have to have pictures.  Here's our potty reminder for Zion.  They are just little drawings that I made in some frames I had in the garage (spray painted red).

This is our reminder for the all of the girls.  Since I've started working, I'm not here to make sure that everyone is taking care of those basic needs in the morning.  This way, they can still see what needs to be done each morning and evening.  Sharpie works really well on mirrors and comes off easily with alcohol.

Some day I will get a really good camera and learn how to take really good pictures and then these pictures won't be blurry, but you get the idea.

2011 Recap

I know it's been 2012 for almost a full week now and I am late with the whole "year in review" post, but I am nothing if not an avid procrastinator. So it brings me great pleasure to bring you (a week late) my favorite moments from 2011.

The first real snow that the kids ever experienced.  It was the greatest thing they'd ever seen.  I spent more time in snow that day than I have in YEARS.

Zion's trip to the ice cream/candy shop.  I just think this is the sweetest picture of all of my ladies.

The little girls' room makeover.  Granted, it has been revamped since this picture, but I still think they're room is pretty awesome (when it's clean)

Our little garden, which looks much nicer in this picture than our actual harvest looked.  We did not get much, but the kids did their best.  We'll try again in the spring.

Jena's final birthday party.  I can hardly believe that she is 10.  There was a grand rainbow-y time had by all.

Ashni's introduction to the decanomial.

Our bed/bookcase.  Still one of my favorite things that I made this year.

There's no particular order to these pictures, and we did a lot more fun stuff this year, but of course we were without computer access.  Anyway, we're looking forward to the upcoming year.  Jena is moving on the 5th grade (her last elementary year!) and Ashni is moving to 4th.  Bijou has requested that she start 1st grade this month.  She's learned to read, add and subtract, so I don't see why not.  I don't know what this year brings for me, but I'm excited to find out.