Project 52: week thirty-five

February 9-15, 2014

Sunday Snapshot
:

Sunday night is always pizza night! Many nights it is just a box of pizza, but we also do homemade a lot.  The kids are professional cheese sprinklers! :) We are definitely learning how to incorporate 2 and now 3 children into our kitchen prep.  Declan is always pushing the chair up to help now too. And lately Elliana is strapped to my back in the ergo for dinner prep.

Elliana update:

Oh, this girl.  What a joy! She is a sweetheart and such a lover and a silly girl.  She is also an emotional wreck a lot of the times.  Although, her older siblings can be that way, too! She is finally walking! She will stand up and walk on command and get about 10 steps. She is walking on her own away from furniture, so it's great to see the desire to walk in her now.  She is using a fork so well and her eating has improved beyond words! She is eating fruit now (which she has never liked) and she is obeying us when we tell her to eat her veggies.  She actually eats it and her facial expression is sometimes quite priceless.  She is sleeping well and is down to one nap a day.  She loves being outside and getting into the same things her older siblings do.  She is now actually puckering her lips to kiss (instead of practically licking you!) and it is the sweetest thing.  She is saying more words all the time--but right now her favorite thing to say would be "Co" (for Colt).

We often say how we can't believe how far she has come and how it seems like so long ago we were up every couple hours with her and dreading meal times. But she does still remind us that she has far to go emotionally when she just sits and falls apart for what seems to be no reason.

 

This big guy is 2 months!! He is healthy and growing well!



 

We did a fun painting activity outside this week.  The weather has been so beautiful!!

 

 

 

Valentine's Day was Friday so we did some fun crafts and activities this week. All three bigs enjoyed the conversation hearts

Is he not the cutest?! A little charmer already--looks like he is posing!

Colt is now laughing and smiling at us :)

Of course, Friday was valentine's day. We aren't big on valentine's day here.  And honestly, I was very happy that Brent didn't show up with flowers or anything special on Friday.  I'm sure some girls would think I'm crazy for saying that.  But he surprises me with things often enough and his love is so evident to me day in and day out that I was glad he didn't feel the need to do something for a Halmark holiday.  I am not at all saying it's wrong to celebrate or do something special though!!! In fact, we had a wonderful weekend with not one, but TWO dates on Saturday:)  Kacia was kind enough to watch the three bigs while we went out for breakfast.  And in the evening we put the kids to bed a little early and had a wonderful date night in consisting of getting dressed up, bruchetta, lobster, steaks, asparagus, red potatoes, wedge salad, and of course--chocolate covered strawberries!

A blog that I follow had a free printable for her subscribers that I recommend to you.  Intentional By Grace has 42 questions for spouses to ask on date night.  Of course Brent teased me when I toted along the mason jar with my printed and cut up questions to the restaurant for breakfast, but they were great questions to learn something new or just get an update on where we were currently in our walk with Christ.  We took turns asking and didn't get through them all.  Even when we do, they are the type of questions that can be asked again in a few months so I won't be throwing them away. 

Hired help for sock folding:)  a nickel a pair!





Valentine Week

This week we took a break from rowing a book with Before Five in a Row. I honestly just wanted a break but I also didn't have anything prepped, so it was a great week to do some fun things that were Valentine's day themed.

 

All week we had a sensory bin for the two bigs. They sure love these!

 

 

Toilet paper tube heart stamping:

Elliana did some dotting with a red dot marker instead:)

 Tissue Paper heart crafts:

I love how at this point Declan had had enough and went off to play.

What is valentine's day without some conversation hearts?

Declan sorted (well, really he just ate them), Elliana dropped them in a container with a hole, and Raelynn sorted by color

 

After Raelynn sorted, she counted. Then we started gluing! They each took turns gluing some hearts on.



The finished product!

 I had printables from last year that I dug out (yay--first time being able to reuse our printables!) and put together Raelynn's tot school notebook for the week.  All the printables were from 3 dinosaurs and this link will take you directly to the valentine's day pack.
 I love her printable packs for the holidays and seasons! They often go along with the book series "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a ____" and for Valentine's day it was a rose.

I think for St. Patrick's day I will print off this pack and order There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover.

starting to practice pre-writing by tracing shapes! Her biggest challenge is slowing down enough to stay on the line.

Four little sweethearts.

Eat your heart out.  What a charmer already!!!

Popsicle Painting:
I had seen this on pinterest long ago and thought of this this week.  I didn't bother to look it up again because I figured I remembered it correctly.....

 Silly Mama forgot that acrylic paint isn't really safe for the mouth and we probably shouldn't leave it on their skin (or clothes or table!) for too long....well since we don't live in the polar vortex tundra of the Midwest live in sunny Arizona, and it was 85 degrees this week, they melted fast!  Mama didn't really think this one through because when something looks like a popsicle I can't blame them for trying to lick it! haha

Declan wasn't interested until it started melting. Then he loved it!

"Wow, I can paint my hands!" He loved making handprints

 What better way to end this than with a REAL popsicle?! :)

 

 

 

 

 

Freezer to Crockpot: Chicken Stroganoff

Not a huge beef stroganoff fan, but thought I'd give this a try. Seemed easy enough and sounded like it would taste good! It did taste great and I recommend giving it a try!

Ingredients: 

3-4 chicken breast

1 can cream of mushroom soup

8oz cream cheese

16 oz sour cream

Egg noodles

Directions: 

Mix cream of mushroom soup with chicken. Freeze in freezer bag. (Original recipe says to put chicken in crock pot then top with the soup, so I tried to put the soup on top of chicken in bag)

On day of cooking: spray crock pot and place contents of bag in. Cut the cream cheese in cubes and place on top. Cook low 6-8 hours. (My crock pot is less than 6)

Boil egg noodles. While boiling, add 3/4 of the sour cream container to crock pot. Drain noodles and add to crock pot. Top with sour cream and serve.

** I only added about 1/2 the sour cream and we didn't top with any additional, so just experiment to taste.

We loved it!!

Project 52: week thirty-four

February 2-8

Sunday Snapshot:

This was a much easier photo to get than at JC Penny! :)

The progression of these are hilarious......

Uh oh, Isaiah is crying....

So Adele comforts him with a kiss...

Declan wonders what is going on over there and Elliana isn't too thrilled about this

Adele and Isaiah look picture perfect here! And then there are the Frazey four...about to crush baby Colt

 Mimi, Auntie Dre, Adele, and Isaiah are all still in town this week! Some fun things we did were the zoo, made cloud dough and a gingerbread house, feeding ducks at Freestone Park, and having a sleepover! Adele slept in Raelynn's room in the crib (we have the crib in there ready for Elliana to share a room with Rae) and I dont' know about Adele, but Raelynn thought it was SUPER awesome to have a sleepover! They went right to sleep and we got to over hear their conversation in the morning when they woke.  So cute:)
 

Feeding ducks and swinging at Freestone

 

 

Us 3 big girls went to Paradise Bakery for lunch one day.  We left all the toddlers with Brent and just took the newbies with us.  It was such a special time to get away.  We also went to JC Penny to pick up the photos from our shoot and even got to leisurely browse the clothing department! :)

This was the best photo of the four of our kids

 

brushing their teeth before the sleepover!

at the Phoenix Zoo

making cloud dough

 

It was a bit chilly toward the end of the week so we just went to San Tan mall and played at the playground

 

 

 

 

The girls had a blast with the gingerbread house!

playdough

Mimi reading 'The Clown Arounds' to the girls--this was one of our favorite books growing up, so Mimi ordered one to have at her Arizona house.