Dad's Day

We had a fun Father's Day this year...( I hope Doug would concur with this).
Lilli is not in the picture because she was busy spending part of her summer with my parents.

Lexi took this picture. I'm afraid I am developing a fake smile in my old age...bummer...

This is Owen's first Father's Day. And, Doug's first Father's Day with Owen:)

Ava and Vivien set the table very nice and festive to celebrate their dad. Ava even made this fun place card note.

I had to threaten people with no dessert if they would not smile for the picture...that's probably what the funny smiles are about:)

Nicolette picked out this rope herself to give to her Dad.  She was very proud. I am also happy to report that the rope has already come in handy and been used.

Ava and her Dad.

Vivien also picked out some fun gifts for her Dad.

Lexi got her Dad a shirt.

Doug, Owen and Grandpa.
What a cute group of boys they make!

A Green Day ( no, not that kind of green.)

Owen feeling festive for his first St. Patrick's Day. He even had a green outfit. We had such a fun St. Patrick's Day last year that the girls had me convinced we had to carry on the tradition of celebrating this fun green day.  I will confess it was not as fun as last year...but let's just focus on the positives.

I love this picture even though my camera was on the wrong setting and it looks a bit funky. I decided something fun and festive was make your own pizza night. That is a favorite here at our house. I even put out the bowl of spinach so we could have green pizza. A  big thank you to Patsy for her amazing pizza recipe! We love it. Almost everyone was willing to put at least one piece of spinach on their pizza...uh huh, one piece of spinach, pretty funny.

Doug and I get the big pizza. We are extra hungry.

The girls all get to make their own little pizzas.  Well, Nicolette has to share the big pizza with mom and dad. I am sure that won't last much longer. Before I know it she will be demanding her own mini pizza. 

Vivien's night started off bad. Her new zuzu pet, which she earned for finding my keys..which were lost for a week, but that's another story.  Well, her new zuzu pet met a terrible demise when it was banned to the laundry room shelf for eating up a huge chunk of hair girl's hair.  Of course, when we were at the store and I read the "hair warning" on the toy I new right then and there...big mistake. Yet, I bought the lovely pet anyway and hence the hair disaster. Luckily, I was able to convince Vivi to focus on her pizza, she said she would but, she would not be happy about it!

many pizzas in the oven...yum!

During all the fun pizza business Doug and Owen were busy and focused on filling out our Census information. We're good citizens. It's the right thing to do. Doug is a great citizen. I wish he was our president, he would be a good one. I know things in the country would be running much smoother if he was in charge. That might make things real un-smoothish for me, but I could sacrifice for the country.

Ava made this over the top darling Leprechaun house at school. We used it for our center piece. I am so grateful to get to have all of Ava's creative art around.

A fun green dinner. I actually do love celebrating St. Patrick's Day. It's a low key holiday with no presents to buy.  Do you love all the smiles on this group? Yes, I blackmailed them all with "no dessert if you don't smile for my picture", and presto...big smiles:)

Valentines

I have to admit that my energies for Valentines were not great this year.  I was racking my brain for something fun to do and this is what the girls ended up with.  Everybody got their very own box of the ever coveted cini-mini crunch!  I was expecting lots of squeals of delight, didn't really happen, but that's OK...

 

 We did have a festive Valentine dinner.

  

 Lilli and Ava were both very supportive of my efforts:)

 We once again made family Valentines this year.  It was very fun and some of the girls spent the whole afternoon working on their Valentines.  It was very sweet.

My Valentine flowers, (thank you to the blog designer), they are beautiful flowers, and a ray of sunshine for me:).  Also, this cake seems to be our traditional Valentine's cake...oh it's too yummy!

This is Vivien's Valentine for baby Owen.  So darn sweet:)

That's great and all, but you really need to move on. It's now December. put on a new post

So, thanks to the anonymous commenter...I am finally updating:) I even thought the comment so catchy it is my title. Now, I'm not trying to encourage anon. comments...let's face it they can get annoying;) so, let's not make a habit of it.

Christmas Sunday (Dec. 20,2009)

I love to get a picture of the girls the Sunday before Christmas.  They are all in their new Christmas dresses and it is just plain fun.  Unfortunately, not all of the the girls agree with the plain fun part.  They really did pretty good considering what some of the years past have been.  So, I am glad to have the pictures and glad to have them blogged:)

Lexi complied with picture taking this year.

 Lilli was happy for a photo.

 

 Ava was not thrilled to pose for her picture.

 

 Vivien is always thrilled to pose for any picture!

 

 Nicolette was obviously not in the mood...

 

 I enlisted Doug for help...

 

This was not helpful...

 

Priceless!

July 4 ,2009

We started out the morning of the 4th with these very festive homemade cinnamon rolls. (There are definite perks with staying at Grandma's:)

We celebrated the 4th this year at my mom and dad's. The girls were all a tad disappointed that they had to miss the many festivities at home. I am glad to report they survived missing the parade:)

Nicolette LOVED her cinnamon roll.

Of course I could not let the day pass without some very festive Fourth of July cupcakes.

My "sparkler" cupcakes. (A big shout out to Mike and Karla for there cupcake help) I was running out of time and they were very quick learners and Karla's cupcakes looked better than mine.

Sparkler fun with Aunt Karla and Uncle Mike

Swimming, sparklers, cupcakes...yes, it's a party.

The fun, yet very illegal, slightly stressful fire work show. That's all I'm saying, I don't want to incriminate anyone.
BIG accomplishment for this girl! This is the first year that Lexi has been able to touch a firework. She has always had a pretty serious fear. Yay Lexi! Good job:)

Nicolette enjoying her treats.

Nicolette, Ava, and sparklers. I love sparklers.

A very swam out Vivi enjoying treats.

My festive Lilli. I know it's late but, had to document our festivities!

Dad's Day

We had a fun Father's Day! This picture shows a great example of how excited some people were to honor their dad:)

Doug and Ava after opening his presents.

Lilli bought Doug this shirt all by herself with her own money:)

Lexi was feeling a little silly and has seemed to have gone back to her days of not cooperating for pictures. I feel like we should be over this stage seeing she is almost a teenager any day now. I guess she's just not ready to give it up! ( Lexi has explained to me that she was just imitating her dad's funny smile.)

We had double the pleasure this year for Father's Day. My dad was in town, so we got to share dad's day, not only with our dad, but with both grandpas too:)

Doug and his mom at our yummy dinner.

the dinner was truly delicious. Now, for some reason I only have pictures of the desserts? I guess that's where my priority is these days;)

Grandpa reading Ava's Fathers Day card to him.

Grandpa opening his gift from Ava. It took a little while. Grandpa was bestowed many a treasure from Ava this Fathers Day.

Dad and Nicolette.

This is what we did for sharing time. We had a little dad questionnaire. Most of the kids tried really hard, some did not. Here are Vivi and Lilli's pages they did. I had a place for them to draw a picture at the bottom of the page.

Poppy, Mammy, and the "girls".

Dad with his bunch of little girls. They are definitely a bunch!
All of us girls at this house are grateful for a wonderful dad who sacrifices so many things for us.
We are glad to have a special day to honor our dad. We love you Dad!