Ashni's photography

The kid's photos have improved.

"Inside a Glass"

Peter Pan Birthday Party

Tomorrow is Ashni's ninth birthday.  Yep, she nine.  This year she decided to have a Peter Pan themed birthday party.  She's read Peter Pan and is now reading the Peter and the Starcatchers series (which she LOVES), so she is really into Peter Pan right now.  I have to say that planning and executing these parties was much easier when I was at home.   Working full time, homeschooling and party planning do not mix.  I think I crammed three weeks of party prep into my Saturday.  I was up until 4am, but everything got done.  Now, I am exhausted, the presents have been opened and the kids have been sent home with their parents hopped up on sugar and covered in glitter.  I figured, while my kids are busy with other things, I'd share the pictures from today.

The Peter Pan theme was pretty easy.  I just needed to include pirates, Indians and fairies.  No problem, right?  Here was out pirate gear - mustaches and eye patches

Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and shaved coconut.

The spread, complete with pirate ship mini cupcakes, bottles of fairy dust, teepees, fairy houses and pirate treasure.

The bottles of fairy dust where just cheapy bottle of bubbles emptied of their contents, spray painted gold and filled with superfine glitter.  I hate glitter, by the way.  Have i ever mentioned that before?  Notice the mini fairy cakes (idea found on pinterest).

The kids made fairy houses.  They are decorated with things from the back yard and fake flowers from the dollar store.

Pirate treasure, fairy cake and a captured Tinkerbell.  The captured Tink was Ashni's idea.

Shadow cut outs of Peter, Tink, Wendy and Captain Hook.

 

Jena sporting a mustache and eye patch.  This is, by far, the funniest think that I saw all day.

I mentioned that I hate glitter, so the fact that I actually provided glitter to about fifteen kids is completely insane.  In my mind, they would take their fairy dust home and maybe spread a little magic here and there.  What actually happened could be compared to, say, American Gladiators Glitter Edition.  It was full on glitter war in the backyard.  This is a small snippet of the carnage,  The sparkle, oh, the sparkle.  I am pretty sure that I will NEVER get all of the glitter out of my children's hair.  Ever.

And the aftermath.  I kind of like the after shot.  This proves that kids had fun, food was eaten and fairy dust was, indeed, used to its fullest potential.  I would also like to thank updated Picassa for dragging me into the 21st century by taking me back to the 60s with these instagram style photos.

Sunday Dinner

This year I decided to add a couple of things to our weekly school (and just regular old life) routine.  This year, the older girls will get the opportunity to plan and prepare a meal for the family for Sunday dinner.  Now, they cook on a fairly regular basis.  Their meals usually consist of pasta, pizza, stir fry, etc., but this meal has to be something special.  They will have two weeks to plan their Sunday dinner.  The planning includes: finding a recipe and adjusting it to feed six (if it doesn't already), making a shopping list (excluding the things we already have in the kitchen), going to the store to price each item, creating a budget for grocery shopping and making sure we have all of the necessary equipment in our kitchen.  Jena got the opportunity to make her first Sunday dinner tonight.  She was VERY ambitious in her first solo dinner preparation, but I have to say, she completely surpassed all of my expectations.  Our dinner this evening was an onion and leek tart, sauteed asparagus, salmon and for dessert, raspberry (and strawberry) napoleons.  (I know.  Crazy, right?)  She started out this afternoon making pastry cream FROM SCRATCH as well as pastry crust from scratch.  (Her crust was flaky and delicious, by the way).  When I say that she made this dinner solo, I mean SOLO.  My only job was to be assistant in the dessert assembly (I put the berries on as she layered).  I'm pretty proud of her (and she's pretty proud of herself, too). 

The little girls were not very patient when waiting for dinner.  Granted, they did not get to eat until it was past their bedtime, but it was well worth the wait.

The napoleon

And one very happy baby sister.  She cried all while she waited for dinner (she hadn't had a nap and it was past her bedtime), but look how content she is with dessert in her hand.

Pi(e)

I forgot to take a picture of the pie that we made for Einstein's birthday (and pi day).  Fortunately, the hubs was on the ball that day.  It was delicious, by the way.

Spring has sprung?

The weather is warming up here.  Today, it was a sweat producing 85 degrees.  That type of weather calls us all out to the garden (barefoot of course).  I am on spring break this week, so the girls and I have been catching up on some school, some chores and preparing our garden for spring.  This year we are planing green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and spinach.  Hopefully we will be able to grow enough to make at least a couple of meals. 

These boxes will hold spinach, lettuce and mint.

You can't see it, but Zion is holding a stick that Ashni painted last summer.  It has been in our backyard all winter.

 Ashni making rows in the small boxes (despite the fact that I said they didn't need rows).

Did I mention that Zion was wearing pants with a bunny tail?

Bijou's muddy toes (well, muddy toe).

That is hysterical laughter on Bijou's face.  I swear.

I was quite impressed with Jena's strength.  Zion is little, but she weighs a TON.

Pi Day

Ashni is learning about Albert Einstein and will be writing a short essay for school.  But, she has really taking a liking to loveable genius (I think it may be the hair).  When she learned that his birthday is Wednesday, she decided that we needed to have a birthday party.  Not sure what we have planned, but since 3/14 (3.14) is the date, I'm sure there will be pie involved (and we finally got a working oven again, so we can actually BAKE pie). 

Because my girls are nuts... the music is Moby, Natural Blues.