Sprinkles Of Charm

A Barbie Christmas Movie Night

I'm guilty....guilty of possibly bringing on the Christmas cheer too early. I usually make myself (and my kids) wait until after Thanksgiving but I couldn't resist. I decided to bring it all on this past week - the holiday candles, the Christmas music, the movies, the crafts...it's all out of the bag early this year. I'm trying it out this year to see if there is a chance we'll be tired of it by the time it rolls around. I love this season SO much - maybe stretching it out a few extra weeks can be a blessing. I brings such a feeling of love and warmth to our home - it's worth a try.

Needless to say, my girls love the Barbie movies so we made a night of it with the newest Christmas movie. Walmart had a cute pack with the movie and a free scarf...fun!  We had strawberry milkshakes complete with fun straws and topped with sprinkles and mini-presents from the craft store. These nights are such a fun tradition for us...my girls save all their little treasures and favors from them. Eventually I'd love to make a photo book full of all our movie nights. Cute movie...fun songs!

A post, a post, it's really a post!!

Ugh!  Time flies when the kiddos are finishing school, summer hits and they're home all day with you.  The end of the school year was wonderful and I've officially got a 5th grader, a second grader, a preschooler and a almost 6 month old baby.  We started summer with a great hike in the mountains on Memorial day.  At least we thought it was great until 5 days later we found that a tick had attached itself to Hadley's head!  I have NEVER felt more grossed out than to think my sweet little daughter had been someone's dinner for several days.  He must have started out really tiny because we didn't see him until the 3rd or 4th bath.  Long story short, we're pretty sure she got Lyme's Disease from it and she'll be on antiobiotics for a few weeks.  We're just sure these meds will take care of it she'll be just fine.  Here are the pictures from the hike.  By the way, we got completely rained on.  I look at these pictures and couldn't help but wonder when the little culprit made it's way onto her head!

 

My dad's sister, Marilyn McMeen Brown, and her husband, Bill, came through town and stopped by our home for a little while.  It was wonderful to reconnect with family we haven't seen since my dad passed away.  My aunt is an author and has published several books.  This is Madison's dream so they hit it off sharing stories and practicing the piano together.

 

Our first trip this summer was up to Fairplay, Colorado with our great family friends, the Woelhaffs.  We rented a cabin there for about four days and had a wonderful time.  We mostly rested, ate, played games, hiked a bit, and best of all drove to a foothill, found snow and sledded down a mountain (in June)!!  We love that our girls get along so well with their two boys.  They built an awesome stick fort, threw tomahaks at targets and roasted smores.  The weekend wouldn't have been complete without a fun movie night, Seven Brides for Seven for Seven Brothers, one of my favorites.  This is our second year "camping" with these guys and we plan to make it a tradition.  Ashley and I prefer this method of "camping" over the previous year.

 

Also, our hubbies got up early Saturday and climbed Democrat Mountain (a fourteener).  You'll have to check Wayne's blog for pictures (see blog list to the right).

Finally, some cute pictures of bathtime!

 

Movie Nights and Visitors

We're in Spring Break right now and cooped with up serious head colds and body aches.  Ughh - trying to get better so my kiddos can have an enjoyable Spring Break.  They pretty much played on the Wii for about 8 hours yesterday.  Bring on the Orange Juice and Rest!!

We had a great Camp Rock movie night.  We were really slow on finally getting to see this one.  My girls really love High School Musical so we had high hopes for this too.  I would give it 3 our of 4 stars - it was entertaining but definetely not up to the same level as the HSM movies.  It was a super fun evening though.  Nolan set up the camping tent in the basement with plenty of blankets and pillows.  I gave the girls mini camping lanterns leftover from the Valentines Dance.  We also had great "ROCK" candy and Smores.

   

A few weekends ago my sweet sister, Tangie, and her daughter, Samantha, came up to visit us and to meet Sawyer.  It was a short visit but we had so much fun.  We shopped, cooked, ate out, had a movie night and the girls got to make  "BABY CHICK HOUSES" under the direction of their Auntie Tangie.  There's nothing like spending time with a sister - I SO wish we lived closer sometimes:)

The movie choice was the new Barbie "THUMBELINA".  My girls really love the Barbie movies - they're pretty cute and entertaining.  This one was about saving the flower fields where the Twilerbees live so we went with a flower/Spring theme.  The cupcakes turned out especially beautiful (and deelish)!

     

My sister's brilliant idea to make baby chick houses in Easter Egg boxes.  The girls had little refrigerators, TV's, gardens, food and baths for their 6 fuzzy little baby chicks (each one named and stored in a plastic Easter egg).  Darling idea - all supplies bought at Hobby Lobby.

   

The girls also worked for 2 days on a play for the adults.  It involved American Girls as the characters, tickets for sale, a concession stand and intermission acts.  Well done and darling to see the girls work so hard on something together.

   

Sawyer and Princess Movie Night

Sawyer is getting huge.  He weighed in at almost 15 pounds at his 2 month appointment.  Yup, 90th percentile in everything.  I love that chubby, squishy guy.  He's smiling a ton and starting to coo.  It melts my heart everytime.

     

When Nolan was gone on a campout a few weekends ago the girls and I had a Princess Movie Night.  It was a made for TV movie that I rented.  It was actually pretty cute for the girls.  They were entertained and enjoyed princess style smoothies and tiaras.

 

Whirlwind...

Oh- I'm still alive!  I've been hibernating for 6 weeks with Sawyer and loved every minute of it.  I definetely feel ready to jump back into things and go full force ahead.  I've been working on our Stake Valentines Dance for a few months now and pulled it off on Saturday night.  I can't wait to post pictures and write all about it but I really wanted to catch up on some other fun things first.  The girls have been great big sisters to their new brother and have done so well adjusting to our new little family member.  I know Hadley has been the little one for so long and she suddenly seems HUGE.  It's true that these years fly by and I'm trying to do fun things with the girls and enjoy every minute of it.

So - here's some pictures of some fun movie nights and other adventures going on at our house for the past month.

CHRISSA - An American Girl Movie

This is a cute movie that a friend bought for the girls when Sawyer was born.  They invited a friend over for pizza, the movie and to visit the Polson Beauty Salon.  They all got scarves to match the girls in the movie who join together after being bullied by the "snob" at their school.  The movie has a pretty good message and the girls had a great time!

           

STOCK SHOW

Every year Grandpa Polson invites everyone to the National Western Stock Show for a great time at the rodeo.  Nolan and the girls went and enjoyed some bull riding and muttin bustin!

   

ARIEL 2

The girls have been wanting this movie for years and I've had a hard time finding it.  I heard it was going back into the Disney vault soon and finally found it!  We ate Flounder for dinner (fish and chips), the girls enjoyed bubbles (underwater bubbles) and they loved the popcorn with Swedish fish.  Swedish fish are suddenly a new favorite of mine, mmmmm!

     

FANCY NANCY

The girls came downstairs one day and had dressed Hadley up as Fancy Nancy.  I think it's a pretty close liking to the real thing - except Hadley is much cuter of coarse!

   

SWEETEST OF ALL...SAWYER

What team? WILDCATS!!

 

We had the best time last night taking the girls to see High School Musical 3!  Nolan wasn't supposed to get back in town until late last night but he called yesterday and was able to catch an earlier flight home.  So, we decided to surprise the girls after school and take them to see HSM3.  They were beyond excited and got out their HSM microphones and warmed up their voices.  I bought the tickets online ahead of time and Nolan was going to meet us there coming home from the airport.  The girls helped me pick up the house and their rooms, they put on their best Wildcat red and we found some snacks and drinks to stow in my purse.  We headed down to the Orchard theaters about 10 minutes south of us (it would not have been as fun goingto our getto theaters in town).  We snapped some pictures, played outside, sat by the fire and grabbed a bite to eat.  We got in line about an hour early to make sure we could get a great seat.  The girls had each packed a bag with activities and books to entertain themselves in line.  The time went by really fast, especially watching all the excited tweens squealing with excitement.  Daddy FINALLY came and met us in line - the girls were SO excited to see him (Hadley did the run andtackle dad hug so they were rolling around on the movie theater floor with plenty of onlookers.  Dad doesn't seem to notice or care how silly he looks when it comes to having fun with his girls!)  We got great seats and dad got some great popcorn and icees.  The movie was so darling (as expected) - there were more songs than the precious movies and the girls absolutely loved it.  Squeaky clean movies like that are far and few between and our family truly enjoyed every minute of it.  What a great family night!!

     

Secret Sleuths

We had a great and busy weekend with the girls.  We had a fun movie night, soccer games, an art show and a violin recital.  Here goes the recap:

NANCY DREW movie night was one of my very favorite so far.  I had taken Madison on a mommy/daughter date to see this in the theater and we thought it was really fun and cute.  The girls had a ball with the Sleuthing Kits I made them complete with compass, magnifying glass, notebook/pencil, disguise glasses and mini-flashlights.  I got such a kick out of how much fun they had with these during the movie and ALL weekend.  For the treats - it HAD to be sugar cookies this time.  Nolan's all time favorite homemade treat is fresh, HUGE, sugar cookies with butter cream frosting.  I finally had to work these into a movie night - I just did Nancy Drew cut-out silhouettes for toppers.  They turned out cute and were super easy.

One of Madison's art pieces from school made it into the district Art Show at the mall - so we had to go see that.  We snapped a picture of her with her art just as they were taking down the display (whew).  Madison LOVES art and is so creative with her ideas, colors and drawings.  I'm really amazed at the darling things she comes home with.

Bella played in a beautiful Concert In The Park.  Her violin study is coming along so well.  She works extremely hard at becoming better and doing the things her teachers ask.  Our practices can be difficult at times and we may both wonder if we're making any progress.  But when I see her play I just BEAM - every minute of hard work and determination is worth it!  I believe both of us are learning SO much more than just how to play the violin.

And Hadley, as usual, was just plain silly all weekend.

Water Horse-ing Around

Another movie night - WATER HORSE!  I wasn't sure about this movie, but the girls REALLY wanted to see it.  It was scary in spots but overall it was pretty fun.  I made fish necklaces that were quite a hit and a fun blue dessert with floating fish, beachy sand, unhatched eggs and creatures coming up from the water.  I only made 4 because the thought of eating blue jello with gummy creatures in it made me sick just thinking about it.  The kids and Nolan loved it though!   I truely LOVE this new tradition - we bond as a family and have such a good time.  I look forward to making an album of all our movie nights in a few years!  Here are some cute pics of the family.

Enchanted Movie Night

Who knew Nolan went to High School with Amy Adams - Giselle in the Enchanted movie?  She was two years younger than him - but he remembers her.  Small world - isn't it?  It was fun to pull out his yearbook and check her out...

All famous people aside - we just LOVE this movie!!!  I think it is one of my all time favorites.  I bought the soundtrack as well.  We will be cleaning the house to "A Happy Little Working Song".  I mean she sings about scrubbing toilets and doing dishes and it's darling - that hasn't happened since "Whistle While you Work".

So - the girls had Giselle crowns and we had mini-chocolate pies with pink topping and little doves.  Honestly - my favorite part of the movie is the park seen where she sings "That's How You Know" and she sends the love doves off with a bouquet for Nancy! I'm cheesy - I'm well aware of this...

So - today the girls had soccer games - it was a soccer mom kind of day.  Tonight we're having our big Easter dinner so I'm getting ready for that.  We're going to Nolan's folks house tomorrow after church for a big egg hunt and dinner -should be fun!

Work and Fun...

For the last 6 months Hadley and Bella have been sleeping in the same room.  They HATE it any other way at this point - so we decided to go ahead and move them in together.  We spent this last weekend painting stripes for the their shabby chic decor.  Nolan was such a trooper and it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  My sis, Molly, gave me some great tips to make it easier and it turned out so adorable!  I've been finishing decorating this week and will post pictures of the finished product when it's all done.  But, here is a work in progress and a finished wall - what do you think?

And of course, we have to have some fun after all the work.  I loved this adorable mom's idea of doing a family movie night with fun props and themed treats.  We LOVE movies anyway and I think this tradition is going to be so fun for the girls.  We had our first official family movie night - the girls were in absolute heaven.  We watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.  The girls had hats (like the little boy in the movie who collects them) and magic twirling wands.  The brownies and ice cream were complete with toy toppers and sprinkles.  Can't wait to plan the next one (I'm going straight to the store and buying Enchanted on Tuesday - so that will be our next adventure)!  Here are the girls having a ball...