Powdered Sugar

Did you know you can make powdered sugar? I was out an needed some for a dessert I was planning to make and didn't have time to go to the store and thought that I'd heard that you can make it by blending up some normal white sugar. So I looked it up and found that by adding 1 cup of sugar and 1 T of corn starch (I think, it's been awhile since I made it) that you can make powdered sugar very easily. And I thought it tasted just the same. It does make a mess to make though.

Garden

My garden didn't do very well this year. I blame it on bad weather and maybe the fact that I didn't give it fertilizer very often. But I did get a few raspberries, tomatoes, and peppers. My tomatoes and peppers just grew and ripened in the past month, when I though all hope was lost. The peppers actually didn't get fully ripe, but we still use them. But didn't my tomato turn out well? We got a couple good ones.

Playing House

My boys were playing house today. (Yes, my boys play house... That's what happens when you mostly play with girls. I do think this was the first time they actually used dolls though.) They were in their room and I peeked in and heard Jordan yelling at his baby saying "You naughty-head!" over and over again. I don't know what the poor baby did to deserve that. Then the boys climbed up on the top of the bunk bed and dropped the babies off and then went down to rescue them. They add a little boyishness to house playing I guess.

1 Year Old!

It's this little lady's birthday today. She's 1.

Was she really this small once?

The birthday girl!

This is her uh-oh face.

And another uh-oh face

Things she does...
Makes a ghost sound
Says uh-oh kind of. Sometimes she just says oh and sometimes she says both and sometimes she just makes an oh face.
Walks most of the time
Follows us around
Climbs on the dishwasher door
Rips things
Climbs on anything she can
Eats anything off the floor
Tries to destroy books
Cries when I do her hair
Doesn't take good naps. She seems to think an hour a half a day is enough for a 1 year. I don't agree. We'll see who wins. I'm willing to compromise with 2 hours
Wakes up early. Also not supposed happen in my house
Smiles cute smiles, especially when I try to take a picture of her. Lately, she's been opening her mouth really wide sometimes too
Loves yogurt
Kind of gives kisses
Love being held and now holds her arms up when she wants up
Is super cute.

Happy Birthday Kenzie Girl!

Mackenzie's Birthday Party

We had Kenzie's Birthday party on Sunday. My parents and the Crabtrees were there.

Kenzie wore her cute birthday outfit.

We took pictures while we waited for the guests to arrive.

This little boy was super excited all day and kept wanted to "celebrate" (decorate) the house.

Kenzie wasn't very into opening her presents. Even though she ripped this one right away she didn't care to keep ripping it, which is weird because she loves ripping things.

She got this cute stroller, but doesn't like pushing it around as much as I thought she would.

Daddy helped her open some of her presents.

And her brothers and cousins helped her open the rest.

They were all excited to see what was in this one. It kept making noise in the wrapping paper.

While the kids (and parents/grandparents) were looking at the doggy toy, Jordan opened this present.

Kenzie also got a baby and a bottle. She prefers sucking on the bottle herself rather than feeding it to the baby.

Then it was time for the cake.

Mackenzie was excited to get in her high chair and have pictures taken of her.

She was a looking a little confused when we were all looking at her and singing. But she focused on the cupcake as soon as it was starting to be brought to her.

Even though we've been working on blowing for the last month or so and she can do it, she wouldn't blow out the candle. I guess we should have practiced her blowing it out. I was a little disappointed. Instead she tried to grab it and grandpa blew it out I think.

She was really excited when Doug was giving her the cupcake. She kicked her legs in anticipation.

She picked it up, tried a little of it and then squished it with her hands.

But decided she didn't like it so much when she saw that messiness wasn't coming off her hands very easily.

Seattle Children's Museum and the Fair

Last Friday Doug and I took the kids and Cousin Alli to the Seattle Children's Museum. We have a membership to it, but haven't used it yet. We got it a few months ago for a really good deal from a deal of the day site (like groupon... but I think it was actually different site, but I'm not sure which...) It turned out to be really fun for the kids. We there for about 3 or 4 hours.

While walking there from out parking spot we passed this cool fountain. This kids liked watching it. On out way back there was actually a boy in the water playing and them some college aged boys starting sliding down the cement hill into it and trying to catch a frisbee on their way down. It was pretty entertaining...

Kenzie through a hippo's mouth.

Alli getting eaten by a hippo.

One of the rooms was full of stuff from story books. So Alli is sitting in Mama Bear's chair. Doesn't it really look like she's sitting on a chair in a book?

Jordan cooking

and cooking some more

Jordan, Alli, and Jack in the fire truck.

There was a grocery store. Jordan pretended to be the baker and Alli bought some bread from him.

Jackson doing his shopping.

There was also a stage for the kids to play one. The danced around on it.

Jackson did some break dancing.

Kenzie playing the drums.

Jordan playing the drums.

Alli giving rides on the bicycle.

Alli, Jack, Jordan in the story time room.

I just love little Kenzie in this picture. She's so cute!

We also went to the Puyallup Fair last week. I forgot to bring my camera and was pretty sad that I did that. But we survived and somehow still had fun. We looked at the animals and did the rides. Jordan was scared when we saw the cows. As soon as we walked in the first cow barn he covered his eyes and kept them covered until we left. He did that in the other cow barns too and started to in the other barns too until he saw they were smaller animals. He didn't want to walk in them at all though. Jackson didn't care much about the animals. He just wanted to ride the rides. We went in the morning and the little kid rides didn't open until an hour after we were there so we had to keep looking at animals until then. Jackson loved the rides. Jordan loved some of them. The second ride he went on was pretty fast (for a kids ride) and he was scared. He would try to smile at us as he went around, but I could tell he was scared. He was also scared of a jet ride. But he liked all the ones that went slowly around in a circle. He said his favorite rides were "the boat ride and the other boat ride." Jackson loved them all. He just wanted to keep riding them. The rides and food and games were supposed to be $2 the day we went. We were excited to see what foods they had for $2 and it turned out that they didn't have much so we were disappointed. We could have bought the boys a peanut butter sandwich for $2 though... But overall we had a fun time. I wish we had more time to see all the other stuff that was there. But we had to get Jack to preschool and Doug needed to work so we came home.

New Bed

We bought Jackson a new bed a week and a half ago. It's actually for Jackson and Jordan eventually since it's a bunk bed. Jackson was really excited for it. He even wanted to take a nap in it. I think these pictures are actually from bed time though...

See the excitement?

The problem with the bed is that we bought it from craigslist and when Doug picked it up, it had already been taken apart. The lady said we had all the pieces we need to put it together, but when we tried, we noticed the pegs were missing. Doug called the lady and left a message, but she never called back. So I emailed her and she wrote me back saying she looked but couldn't find them. So Doug made some new pegs. But then when he tried to put it together the second time he found that we're also missing the parts that make the screws tight so they don't fall out. And so we need to buy some of those now too. So if you're going to buy a bunk bed on craigslist, make sure you have all the parts before you leave. We did get a really good deal though... So I still think it was worth it.