Eric's Maisy Birthday

One of Eric's favorite TV shows is Maisy.  According to the QUBO (the channel Maisy is on), "Maisy is a cute little mouse that lives in a cute little house."

We did some coloring of Maisy and all of her friends and then watched Maisy's birthday episode.

On Maisy's birthday, her friends enjoy some sandwiches and potato chips.

The kids played a freeze game, played with a parachute and painted.  It got a little crazy with the paint but the kids had fun.  Plus, Maisy paints on each of her shows so we had to do some painting.  You can see all the hard work Eric and Sylvia did to decorate for the party.

I decorated Eric's birthday cake to look as much like Maisy's as possible.  He counted his candles after blowing them out.

Maya watched intently as Eric opened the doll camping set she picked out for him.

Saying "thank you" to Macy for the big truck and cars.

Eric giving Hayden a high five to say thank you for the new markers, play doh, sidewalk chalk and paper.

On Maisy's birthday, her friends give her a watch, a trumpet and some crayons so that's what we put in our party gift bags.  I wasn't able to find little trumpets so these party blowers had to do.

Happy 3rd Birthday Erickson!

Eric's 3rd Birthday

We celebrated Eric's 3rd birthday with a few family gatherings.

Bill and Becky's family joined us for dinner a few days before Eric's birthday.  He got a new water bottle and some sidewalk chalk and we all had some yummy cake balls.

Nana and Papa celebrated with us while they were over watching the kids on a Tuesday morning.  Eric loves his new lawnmower from Aunt Ginny.  He also got Richard Scary's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go and Maisy Goes to Preschool from Nana and Papa.  We all enjoyed some cupcakes from the Bread Garden. 

 

Grandma, Grandpa and Great Nana joined us on the 6th for dinner and cake.  Eric got a new gas pump to fill up his lawnmower and cars from Grandma and Grandpa.  His card from Great Nana had $3 in it but we're not sure if he knew what it was.

Sylvia's First Cake

Sylvia helped me do a lot of things to get ready for Eric's birthday last month. She wanted to bake him a pretend cake but I suggested we go ahead and make a real one. I let her come up with the recipe all on her own. She loves being in the kitchen with me and I was impressed that she had such a good idea of how to make a cake. It actually turned out looking like a cake although there was a bit too much baking soda for it to taste yummy. She let Eric help frost it and we all tried a piece. Dan wasn't around at the time so he tried a piece later on. I thought he must have liked it better than I did because he ate his whole piece. He didn't realize that we only expected him to take a bite and said he forced himself to eat the whole piece.  What a great dad.

 

 

Cake
1.5 cups flour
2 eggs
2.5 T baking soda
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 shredded carrot
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Bake at 350 degrees for 33 minutes.

Frosting
1 cup plain yogurt
3 T brown sugar
8 drops blue food coloring

More and More Snow

We sure have had a lot of snow this year.  I finally took the kids sledding somewhere other than the small hill next to our Driveway.  Our friends, the Kacmarynski's, have an even bigger hill in their backyard.  We took advantage of a snowday and got some sledding in.  Sylvia loves the snow more than her brothers.

Eric going for a run with Emily.

Sylvia and Macy heading down the hill.

Drake is looking forward to some spring weather so he can get down and play outside.

Eric watching daddy clear the driveway.

Sylvia (followed by Eric a little later) helped daddy with the shoveling.  She loves being helping and being outside.

The kids built this snowman with daddy a couple of weeks ago.

Nana came over and built another snowman last week.  This will hopefully be our last snowman of the year.

The Pink Song

We took Sylvia's pink picture at Emily's house.  Glad to have friends help me with homework!

 

 

Valentine's Day

We had a fun Valentine's Day here at the Broffitt home. 

 

Daddy made origami cards for the kids and I made heart shaped cinnamon rolls.

 

I found some cute Valentine activities on pinterest that the kids enjoyed.  They sorted their hearts by color and measured how many candy hearts across the paper hearts were.  Eric said, "I won" and gave himself a thumbs up when he finished sorting his hearts.  I love his enthusiasm.

 

Sylvia made this heart ring for me.

 

My beautiful Valentines!

Sylvia's preschool Valentines that she worked super hard on.  She cut them all out and assembled them.  We made a potato stamp for her name so she wouldn't have to write it so many times.  She insisted that her Valentine for Mrs. Fink say, "Owl be your hoot!"

Snowstar

We had the opportunity to take the kids skiing back in February at Snow Star in Andalusia, IL.  My parents invited us along with John and Gretchen's family.  Although gearing up to ski was a lot of work, it was well worth it.  Both Sylvia and Eric had a fun time learning how to ski while John and Gretchen's kids tried out snowboarding.  Sylvia was a little stubborn during the teaching process with mom (which I think made my parents chuckle).  She figured things out pretty quickly and went down the bunny hill over and over again by herself.  They had a conveyor belt type lift that was very easy for the kids to get on and off of by themselves.  Eric spent the day going down between our legs or at the end of our ski pole.  My wonderful husband spent most of the time with Drake so that I could ski with Sylvia and Eric.  I am so thankful for him as I know it was not the easiest task.

 

Ready to start skiing.

This is what Sylvia looked like going down the bunny hill.

Riding up the bunny hill.

Riding the ski lift with mom after going down the Little Dipper.

Feeling a bit tired after a day of skiing.