Happy Birthday Korrali

Korrali turned 4 in April! She said she didn't care much what her theme was, but she definitely wanted friends, treats, and games that made her think of a movie she liked. Done, child.

She has been really into Frozen, Moana, Monsters Inc, The Croods and a show called Spirit on Netflix about horses. I picked Moana because it's close to my heart.

It was fun for me, and Korrali had a really great day. Win, Win.

Here are some pics

I am enjoying making birthday piñatas, and this kakamora one made me smile. 

We had oodles of island stuff from JD's mission and our time in Hawaii

Mom Q had even more, and I got still more from the dollar store. We fished, we played, we danced, we beat a kakamora until it gave up its sweet reward.. We ate pizza and drank punch (for days after, since we made way too much getting the mixture right), and had some fruits and veggies cuz yeah, I'm that mom. 

These coconut cups were possibly my favorite part

nope, I lied. This was my favorite. She ran around in her Moana skirt and lei for at least an hour, until she decided to match another little guest at her party instead.

Another favorite moment! She loved the Moana and little sister who came to her party, taught hula to the kids, and took pictures with them. Moana was beautiful, graceful, and perfect in every way! The kids loved her.

As a side note, even though it's invisible here, her little dress is from a store in Hawaii called TAJ. I'ts amazing.

The girls were family friends, and we loved having them there.

Bonita made the cake, and we bought a Moana to kill it on the top. Since she is mostly gluten free these days, it's a really rich flourless cake and rice crispy wave.

We loved celebrating her birthday, and we loved the chance to celebrate her! She is enthusiastic and lively about everything she does. Our favorite moments with her come unexpectedly and she often makes us laugh out loud uncontrollably. Her giggle is infectious, and she could make friends with a rock if she chose to. In fact, she told me recently that she wished there was a girl-sized earthworm with whom she could converse and play. She has a soft spot in her heart for the squishy or otherwise outcast creatures (except flying insects and spiders) and will usually run around saving worms after a rainstorm, loves to feed small vermin (though not mice or voles around the house), and adores being outdoors and letting her body do whatever it wants to with gusto. She is growing up and maturing adn it's a pleasure to see her unfold.

Happy Birthday Claire!

I started this a long time ago.. but in January Claire turned one! We presented her with a giant cake. which she was frankly a bit intimidated by at first. Once we stuck her hand in it once, she got the idea. And loved it. Chocolate is her favorite bribe to this day.

I should add that she is the sweetest, charming personality. We adore her and she makes us giggle all the time. She loves to chat up people at church, from the safety of mom's arms. She prefers to be held most of the time, and is a bit of a late bloomer in all gross motor skill ways but we enjoy holding her and making this little bit of babydom last.  Happy Late birthday Claire!

Climbing trees in the snow

It snowed a beautiful, huge flaked spring snow and Korrali wanted to climb the tree. So we did. It was a pretty rad idea.

Princesses

The other day I walked into the laundry room and saw this. It looked like Dorothy and Cinderella thought there's no place like home here! I love our girls and the fun and sweetness and sometimes rough and tumble and dirt they bring into my life.

Happy New Year!

New Year was a fun time this turn of the year for our family. Due to illness of all varieties (dubbed the Quillen Plague by my brother in law) we scrapped our plans for our now traditional chocolate-fountain with family (we were planning on sharing our cheese tradition with the family too) and settled for a quiet evening.

We DID buy cheese, and counted down early with some sparkly juice and then put the girls to bed at a somewhat normal hour.

Korrali enjoyed the fruit, the chocolate (our ode to a chocolate fountain), the bread, and the crackers. I thought for sure she would like at least 1 of the cheeses. We didn't mind having to eat it all ourselves.

After bed time we played a cross-country game of Pandemic. It's pretty much my new favorite game. We have awesome relations who don't mind the time zone difference once in a while to stay up late and play games with us across facetime. I had to steal their picture because we were very lax in our memory recording. Did I mention my sister in law was practically in labor the entire game? She's amazing.

We watched the ball drop on their TV.

Happy New Year!

Also, my cousin-in-law (why yes, I am positive that is the actual name for it!) made these studly Jayne hats. There are actually two, but Korrali wanted to wear one (it's really sized for Claire) and I wanted to let her!

if only this baby agreed to wear hats! she's like a little smurf. so snuggable.

Christmas Season

We had a wonderful Christmas Season - we took part in the #LighttheWorld thing and it lightened our own season significantly. It did mean that some things got left until a little extra late :our christmas cards; which are still coming heh: but we also made some great memories.

We went to the Zoo and saw their lights. It was pretty special.

We did the Santa there, and didn't get super great ones of Claire and Santa for first Santa but it was a really fun experience.

we made a gingerbread stable.

K's gram gram (the name is her invention) helped her make a very adorable house out of graham crackers and an ice cream cone 

Christmas came around and we had decided to open presents Christmas Eve morning. We figured the girls wouldn't mind, and then we could just not worry about the craziness of 8:30 am church on Sunday.. and we could just play all day on Saturday with our new stuff! We loved how it worked out.

Claire got some kitchen food in a reindeer bag

Korrali got this trampoline

Big Foot became a Christmas ornament

Korrali and Claire got this kitchen, and Korrali got 2 adorable aprons and some new dishes.

The girls also received tons of new books, some new clothes (korrali got footie pjs which she has worn every night since, except for the one they were being washed after being thrown up on), and Claire got a drum and music set. The hours and hours of happy play time and sister bonding time as a result of the new Christmas toys have been my best gift of all.

This was our best family photo for Christmas. Well, unless you count our zombie one. Still to come.

Merry Christmas!

Kitchen

I am so excited about a project we made for the girls for Christmas! Backstory: We finally got JD a new desk to fit with his new job tasks, and then "had" to find something to do with his old falling apart one. Ok, I had been itching to try a pinterest diy, and J agreed to help me =D. It did mean we had to finally re-sell the kitchen we had used for years.. it was kind of a wrench, but this was so much fun!

If you look at it upside down you can see the part of the desk that we used.. the shelving part.

K helped me choose the colors. 

Over the summer K helped me paint the top (we used scrap wood from the play house that JD built over the summer), and then I painted the cabinets and fridge door. I found a damaged can of magnetic paint at home depot, so I bought it for cheap and used it to death on the fridge door so it can eventually hold really strong magnets.

I sourced the knobs from a lucky-find washing machine by the dumpster and cleaned them off thoroughly.

Hinges, magnetic closures, and the fridge handle K helped me choose at home depot.

Then I asked JD to help me put it all together! He screwed the legs on, the top on, the fridge door on with hinges, the fridge handle on, an the magnetic closure to the fridge inside, and drilled holes for the knobs to turn.

Once it was cleaned off, I stuck on some contact paper from the Dollar Tree to make it look like a stone counter top. Then I sewed together the stove with fabric, some seat foam, some vinyl, and then made a flap that can open up to replace the LED pushlights under the burners. I glued large buttons to the bottoms of the two stove knobs and added button holes so they could turn as well. It was kind of a beast because I'm not really into following patterns, so I kind of had to make it up as I went along but it turned out very functional.

Then the stove was velcroed to the counter top, and cookies were placed in the cookie jar... and the other new food I made went in different containers under the Christmas tree. The cupboard on the right as you look at it is a dishwasher, and has a little bin for dishes. The other one is an oven and will use a freezer organizer as an oven rack.

It was even more fun watching K stock the kitchen, and it's actually fun to play with her with it, and stock it for her!

Here it is again, full.. 

The girls love it. C learned to pull herself up to her knees on it. It has plenty of storage for all the dishes and aprons and food. My favorite part is that the stove velcroes off, and I have major plans for it as a backdrop for other imaginary realms..perhaps a grocery store or a sweet shoppe, a food cart or restaurant, a dr office.. who knows!