MARCH - TOP NINE

1. Piper has been busy being a hand model for Pebbles in my Pocket a lot this month, and she only ever has one request which is to be paid in glitter! So after each mini photo shoot she does she gets to pick a color of glitter from mom's craft room to do a craft with. This girl is the definition of all things glitter!
2. Princess play date! Piper got to have her friend Sadee over for a play date. The two of them decided they wanted to have a tea party and dressed up in dresses that my sister and I wore for Halloween when we were their age. It was absolutely darling!
3. Josh accepted a new job at his work and is now Lead Welding Instructor of the MATC Welding Department! I've convinced Piper to call him "Headmaster" which drives Josh crazy, but is positively the cutest!
4. Amy's Eggstravaganza! I got to spend the night gabbing away with my sweet girlfriends and paint eggs! It was a much needed night out and was full of laughter, creativity and friendship.
5. My same friend Amy put together an awesome St. Patrick's Day party for all of our little kids. I can't even believe how fast the kids are multiplying and growing, but getting together is always fun!
6. Piper is a big girl! I mean really! When I was pregnant my mom gave me a box of clothes that were mine when I was little, a lot of them being stuff she and my grandma had made. I halfheartedly accepted the box and stuck it away with the feeling that Piper would never be big enough to wear them! Well, I forgot about the box and then got a friendly reminder from my mom saying that she was pretty sure Piper is big enough to wear some of the clothes, so I went and pulled it out and to my surprise she does!! Some of the clothes were even to small! I can't even believe how fast she is growing! She gets so many compliments when she wears the crocheted sweaters that my grandma made. Crocheting/Knitting is definitely an art one that is often over looked but is still much appreciated!
7. One Saturday before I had to go into work, we went to Chipotle and grabbed food and had a picnic at the park! Piper had been begging to go for weeks! It was just what our little hooligans needed! They played their little hearts out and both took a well deserved nap afterwards!
8. A trip to the aquarium! Hudson's new word is fish! Although it comes out more like "ishie" he has been saying it all the time ever since we got our two little fish for Dr. Seuss's Birthday, so we decided that maybe he was old enough to actually appreciate the aquarium. He did! Both the kids ran wild and pointed to every single fish in the whole building.
9. In an attempt to make Hudson like going to nursery better, we bought some bubbles for him to play with in the back yard seeing as the nursery leaders always let the children play with bubbles to distract them while the mom's and dad's slip out quietly. We so hoped that he would love them in nursery long enough for us to sneak out, but unfortunately he didn't. He sure loves them in the backyard though and we love watching his shocked face every time he touches one and it pops!

Good Bye March and Hello April!

St. Patrick's Day

Since Easter literally starts in just a few minutes I thought I better play a little catch up and at least post our St. Patrick's Day! (I'm realizing I'm pretty bad at this consistent blogging thing!) We had an awesome St. Patrick's Day this year! We got lucky and got to celebrate the holiday with doing little things all week long, starting with going to a St. Patrick's Day party with friends. That party really fueled Piper's excitement for the holiday this year. She even remembered going on a hunt for a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow that we had done last year with her Joy School friends, and kept asking if that was going to happen again this year. Three year old Piper is so fun! I love that she is remembering things and that she is starting to get so excited for special days!

Piper had her outfit picked out for St. Patrick's Day a week early! I didn't realize it until she pointed it out to me but she has no green shirts! Poor girl! She adapted easily though because she picked out her gold dot shirt and a rainbow necklace to wear "so she would attract Leprechauns!" We even attempted a 4 leaf clover in her hair for preschool! Don't look to closely though because I had no idea what I was doing and we ended up taking it out after school followed by asking one of our dance friends for advice on how to make it better for next year. 

While Piper was at Preschool, I went to work laying out our rainbow. I'm pretty sure I will do this with my kids every year until it stops working because it literally takes 10 minutes to set up which is a dream. Piper was thrilled when we came out of the garage! She started yelling "shes' here, shes' here!" followed by covering her mouth because she needed to be sneaky to catch her! (Our Leprechaun is a girl apparently... named Glitter!) 

Piper was hilarious to watch! I kept waiting for her to just cheat and run around to the ends of all the steamers, but she didn't! She literally "snuck" every single color! She even kept hearing noises stopping to listen! I was dying! At the end of each color she would find a couple gold coins or a lucky clover, which kept her motivated. Blue being her favorite color was saved for last and had her Leprechaun gift at the end! I could have listened to her saying, "Oh man! Glitter is so sneaky, she got away again" forever!

Hudson was not impressed that the Leprechaun left him glitter stickers and immediately dropped them to the ground, but he held true to his little Hudson self and was soooo excited for candy!

Piper was on this Leprechaun kick for awhile, the next day when I had to go to work Piper insisted that she needed to make a Leprechaun trap with grandma! She asked for a box, paper, ribbon, and grabbed a few other things out of my craft room including stealing some rainbows! My favorite part about it was that I know Leprechaun traps and shoe boxes are a thing... but this girl came up with it ALL by herself, with her own layout for exactly how she wanted it. She is my little right brained child and I love it! Glitter however, out smarted Piper since her box turned up empty, but that didn't get our little Leprechaun hunter down because she informed us that next year she is going to use a net! 

Until next year you sneaky little Leprechaun!

SPRING FEVER

According to Merriam Webster, Spring Fever is "a feeling of wanting to go outdoors and do things because spring is coming and the weather is getting warmer". Count that as a ü for all of us in my family! Spring some how has a way of playing with my heart as it gets warmer, we all get excited to spend a miraculous day or even a week outdoors and then the weather turns, and it gets cold again. My family and I are beyond ready for the permanence of warm weather, followed by the consistency of being able to get outdoors and enjoy some well needed sunshine and not freeze our fingers and toes off. With the local forecast telling us that we will once again be having some colder days, we decided to take a little drive to Tibble Fork Reservoir and have what Piper calls a "family adventure", but really it's just an short outing to mentally prepare us for a few more "playing indoor days".

There was still quite a bit of snow up the canyon, but with no winds and the sun shining it was perfect light jacket weather. I don't know why but it always amazes me how different both my kids are. Piper always leads the way! we call her our little "trail leader", and Hudson just slowly follows along, but Piper is terrified of everything that moves of makes a noise and Hudson just jumps right into what ever heads his way. So, of course when we reached the water Hudson loved to throw rocks and make splashes, and Piper decided rocks were for collecting, rather than throwing, but they did both agree that rocks were the highlight of our outing! 

We all left with with muddy shoes, wet clothes and in Piper's case, very full pockets. With a new found, and well overdue sense of peace and readiness, we headed home to start a new week. So, bring it on Mother Nature, we are ready for what ever weather you decided to bring our way this week!

DR. SEUSS'S BIRTHDAY!

In some attempts to be a more fun mom and make ordinary days be a little more entertaining, Josh and I decided to celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday with the kids. His birthday is March 2nd, and to be completely honest I didn't know this was even a day to know until spending the afternoon with a friend and she shared that they celebrate it every year. This gave me two days to come up with something to do in order to make the day special, but I also just wanted to keep it so simple! I got on Silhouette and typed in Dr. Seuss hoping that someone out there had already made something that I could just use, and to my surprise my sweet friend Amy Robison had the three cutest Dr. Seuss die cuts on there! Hallelujah!

Amy had made the Cat and the Hat's Stripe Hat, Thing 1 & Thing 2's Hair along with a Fish Bowl! So dang cute! We started our afternoon by watching an episode of The Cat and the Hat on Netflix while Piper wore her official Cat and the Hat striped hat. Afterwards, they went outside and played in their hats for hours. It was darling. Piper is known for asking grandma or I to color her blue so she can be like a mermaid, so I thought she would love being a "thing" too. Turns out that it was a boys hair do, so she went right back to be in charge with her tall top hat! Hudson however, walked around with blue hair like it was his baby job!

When Josh got home from work we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss, and then told the kids that we had a surprise for them! Josh went into the garage and came out with a fish for each of them! They were both beyond thrilled! I still have a running bet with Josh that the fish die from our children and not from natural causes, but their whole day was made!

Piper then went on a walk around the neighborhood to show off her new pet fish that the Cat and the Hat gave her! She was so proud!

After Piper got back and we had rescued Hudson's bag from being dropped! We made red and 'white' pancakes so every one could build their own Cat and the Hat striped hat. I was a little worried this would be a job that my children: A. wouldn't understand or B. wouldn't eat, especially since we made them red waffles on Valentines Day that they didn't touch... but to my surprise Piper was thrilled! She must be just like her mama and have a love for all things little because she devoured her pancakes!

On top of all that we had also made a short little garland to hand up in the living room consisting of the three die cuts Silhouette had available... the hat and the crazy hair come with strips to make them hats, so I just deleted those and shrunk the shapes to make the garland. I swear a garland can make any day feel special!

We ended the night by reading some more books by Dr. Seuss and then put the kids to bed. It was a beautiful, simple, successfully celebrated day, and I truly am grateful to Dr. Seuss for the adorable stories we get to fill our children's heads with!

FEBRUARY - TOP NINE

February felt like a really bummer month. We were all sick for what felt like everyday of the month. Even Josh got sick, which doesn't happen very often! I found my self wishing the month away, especially because we are all so over these cold, play indoor months! It was nice however, sitting down to do this blog post and being genuinely surprised of how many little moments of complete joy we had this month. There were more moments than I could remember, which made it hard to limit my amount of photos down to a top 9!

1. Hudson and his puppies! This kid can seriously let out the cutest "meow" in the world, but his love for puppies is turning into our new favorite obsession. He now carries two stuffed animal "pu pu's" along with him for the majority of the day.
2. We missed 3 weeks in a row of gymnastic this month! 3! in order to feel like I hadn't completely wasted our money I grudgingly signed up for the make up Saturday class. This one class made up for our completely crappy last 3 Mondays! Piper got to be with her favorite substitute teacher, who really has encouraged Piper's new found love for gymnastics + we ran into the Spencer's! So, Piper got to do gymnastics with Lynlee and I got to watch my sweet Ellie do her gymnastics's class while Hudson had CeCe to play with! It made for a perfect class followed by a lunch/play date!
3. The snow is MELTING!! We are so thrilled and are secretly hoping this doesn't mean we are just going to get dumped on again in a week or so! Hudson has discovered the drops of rain that drip off the side of the house and it keeps him amused for hours! 
4. Like I said earlier, we were sick a lot this month but, no one gets more sick then our little Piper with her ear infections! She had an especially bad one that caused a pretty constant amount of infection coming out of the tubes in her ears! It was awful, and makes her super unconformable. However, the one beautiful thing that comes from her poor sick body is the amount of snuggles we receive from her that make being her mom 100 x over worth it!
5. Hudson is still on a train kick! He got 3 new ones for Valentines Day and I've never seen a kid appreciate a gift more. I literally melt inside when I watch him line up these trains over and over again!
6. Piper got her first Valentine from a BOY! They were homemade cookies which just added that extra touch of love! Jack's mom and I pretty much have their whole marriage planned out, but I think it struck a shock of terror for Josh!
7. Hudson is rocking a new hair cut! Dang Stud!
8. Piper received her first set of BFF necklaces from her sweet friend Sadee! These two our the perfect combo of just plain cute and ridiculously goofy together! Piper has worn her necklace every day since she got it and is just in love!
9. We finally had a beautiful day on Saturday! Like extremely beautiful! We ate both breakfast and lunch outside, the kids played for HOURS! + we got started on some much needed yard work! I live for these days!

UNICORN VALENTINE'S DAY PRINTABLE

I am super late at getting this out there this year, so I am just choosing to think that I am extra early for next year! :) Piper had two requests for her valentines to all her little friends this year and they were.... Unicorns and Kisses! I wanted her Valentines to reflect who she was at this beautiful age of three, so I told her that those sounded perfect and we headed to the store. To our dismay we couldn't find any Unicorn Valentines anywhere! I had one sad little three year old, so I gave in and decided to make them for her.

(Download free Valentines printable here)

(Download free Valentines printable here)

They were delightfully cute and she thought they were absolutely perfect for her with a unicorn and a rainbow. Plus I am the worlds biggest fan of silly little puns, like ugly cry laughing over them kind of fan!

I've decided to share this tag for anyone else who has a unicorn valentine loving child! All we did is print and cut the tag, then cut a slightly bigger pink tag out of card stock. We backed our bag with some more pink card stock, filled it with some festive kisses and stapled it all together. All done! Quick and Simple! Click the links below to download the free printable. There are two different versions of the unicorn with both including 3 magically cheesy sayings. Print out as many as you need!

• You're like a unicorn, pretty & rare!
• Have a Magical day!
• You're one a kind!

Unicorn #1 Free Valentine Printable

Unicorn #2 Free Valentine Printable

MIDWAY - ICE CASTLES

It takes some hard convincing to make my husband skip school or work or all of the above, but we succeeded a few nights ago, and decided to take a family night to Midway to go visit some Ice Castles! None of us had been before, but Piper's excitement to go see where "Elsa lives" could have made anyone excited. (They actually do have a live "Elsa" and "Anna" their on the weekends)

The process used + the amount of work and time they put in to building these castles was truly jaw dropping amazing! It was complete with towers, archways, mazes, tunnels, and even slides for the children. Then on top of all of that, they have multi colored lights frozen inside the ice, so when it got dark the entire castle turned into a beautiful palace pinks, yellows and blues!. It definitely exceeded our expectations. 

A good friend recommended having the kids wear snow pants instead of just warm clothes if we planned on going down the slides. I was happy we did, because the slides were the kids favorite part and nobody left with a wet bum! Second to the slides, my children loved grossing me out by eating the snow! I can't even count how many times I told Piper to stop licking snow off her gloves because of how many people had walked on it, or how many times I caught Hudson licking the castle structures. I just knew we would be that family who had their child's tongue get stuck to a castle! Josh must have thought I was ridiculous, because when I turned around he had broken off an icicle and given it to Hudson! I almost got mad at him until I saw the cutest little Hudson smile! He was so happy! So I calmed down for 30 seconds and let him enjoy his moment. 

After sometime walking through all the tunnels and making sure we had looked at everything, we decided to get one last picture on the ice thrown (which I actually didn't get a picture of, because the seat was so slippery that the kids kept sliding off!) and then we headed home. I'm even happy to announce that my children left with 100% of their tongues and haven't died from some dirty snow disease! The kids slept the whole way home and Josh and I enjoyed the beauty of the snow covered canyon. There really is just something special when you have a reason to enjoy the snow and ice instead of dreading it. We will definitely be going again.