hundreds of icicles. Ice was on everything and a good amount of snow is on the ground. It is amazing how the littlest details can hold so much ice without breaking off.
Definitely thankful for a warm cozy house and keeping electricity!
Kaelyn loves the snow and since she has a February birthday I thought it would be fun to have a winter themed party. Wouldn't you know that it happened to be the first year here in SD that we barely had any snow! So much for sledding and building snowmen outside. Ha, ha! Oh well Kaelyn was just thrilled to have people come visit her, sing Happy Birthday and eat cake! Here are a few shots of her fourth birthday celebration...
Buttercake made by Kaelyn, her grandma Shari and her mama. :) I had this cake idea in my head for a long time and I always thought it would be such a quick one to do. Well the cake was but cutting the letters and mittens out of felt and threading them onto the line of yarn took some time. The good thing was that K really liked it! And as far as the actual cake went, it disappeared that day. So I guess everyone liked it!
Some of the snowmen K enjoyed making with grandma the day before her party.
A nice shot thanks to aunt Amy for distracting her.
This is her usual silly self. Ha, ha!
Singing Happy Birthday.
And you can't have a winter themed party without the hot cocoa & marshmallows!
They have good food there so you can really stay the entire morning and afternoon and not run anywhere else.
Her first stop was to climb into the clouds and she insisted I had to go with her. It was a tight fit but I made it. :)
The second floor had a new setup with interactive paintings by Marc Chagall. Very neat!
There is so much to do at the Children's Museum. A couple of my favorites are the pretend grocery store and cafe. I know I've said it before but if you have young kids and are near the Brookings SD area you must stop by.
Powdered donuts, frosting to make stuff stick, cut circus peanuts for the nose, mini chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth and then later added ear muffs by using m&m's and black frosting.
Kaelyn had lots of fun and stuck with it until they were all done. (Impressive as she usually doesn't sit still for long!) Then after that she helped make her birthday cake! I'll share how that turned out in the next post. :)
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are all able to spend time with one's you love today. It is fun to have a reason to do something a little extra special. :)
And now for the winner of the art print giveaway...
Our family really likes pasta but Kaelyn has never been fond of tomato sauce. She isn't like most kids... she'll skip the pizza and the regular spaghetti because of the sauce. She didn't even like it when she was in my tummy! Ha! The funny thing is she will eat fresh slices of tomato... so when you make pasta at our house you have to be a little creative. We rarely measure ingredients just throw in what we have available. If we really like something, we add more of it. In the pasta above I added olive oil, a bit of coconut oil (added to the pasta when it was warm so it melts), basil, oregano, garlic, pepper, pinches of fresh spinach, small chunks of tomato, small chunks of avocado, parmesan and flax seed. Look around your kitchen for a bit of a variation... lately we've been adding in pieces of crab. It is fun trying new things... and when it is healthy for you it is even better. :)
It is going to be a busy week, but a week that Kaelyn has been excited for for a long time. :) Tomorrow (Monday) we celebrate my dad's birthday, then on Wednesday it's K's b-day so she has a fun outing planned and then Saturday is her actual party with family. I can't believe my baby is already turning 4! Tear. She's happy though so that's all that matters. :)
