Brooke is 5!

My little girl is 5! I love that girl so much and I am so grateful to have in her in my life. Here are some things about Brookie!

Favorite color: Light blue
Favorite book: Magic Tree House Books
Favorite movie: Tangled
Favorite Food: Maccarroni and cheese with peas
Favorite treat: Chocolate Peppermint marshmallow cookies
Favorite thing to do: Read and play video games
What do you want to do when you grow up: An author, a swimmer, and a mom

Say No to Dirgs

On the drive to school this morning:
Brooke: Mom, we don't have any dirgs do we?
Me: What are dirgs?
Brooke: I don't know, but we don't have any do we?
Me: Where did you learn about dirgs?
Brooke: Well, sometimes in books and places it says "Say no to dirgs"
Me: Ohh, you mean drugs, Say no to Drugs!
Brooke: Momma, what are drugs?

It was a really funny conversation, but it kind of broke my heart. I hate those moments when I feel her innocence and childhood slipping away a little. When she starts learning about things that I'm just not ready for her to know about. I love that girl so much I wish I could keep her away from all the craziness of this world.

Bookworm Birthday Party

I know you're wondering what in the world a bookworm birthday party is. We're nerdy, what can we say? We saw some book party ideas in the family fun magazine and decided to try it out. Brooke was really excited about it and it seemed fitting for our little bookworm so this is what we did:

Invites
I printed off the invites and library cards from familyfun.com. Super Easy!

Book Bags

I bought the plain book bags from Hobby Lobby and then had the kids decorate them with Sharpies.

Library



I gave each child their own library card. Each time they checked out a book their card would be stamped by the librarian. When they had 5 stamps they received a special prize. They loved taking turns as the librarians and looking through all of the books we had.

Hide the Book
We just played hot and cold with a small board book.

Bookworm Cake





Pinata


The plan was just to make a book looking pinata from a cereal box, but then I asked Brooke what book she wanted the pinata to be (I don't know why I did that). So I ended up drawing a picture of the cover of the 1st Magic Tree House book, Dinosaurs Before Dark. It was kind of a sad artistic attempt, but when I was drawing it, Brooke leaned over to me and said "Wow mom you should be an artist". So that made me less embarrased over my lack of art skills and they were just hitting it to smitherines anyways so I guess it didn't need to be amazing!
I think all the kids had a great time. Brooke for sure loved it and with all the reading it was one of the quietest 5th birthday parties I've ever been to, which is an endorsement from me :).

Sometimes I Wish We Lived on a Farm

Sometimes I wish we lived on a farm, but then I remember I don't like getting up before the sun, I am kind of terrified of animals, and I don't really work that hard. So I guess we'll have to be content with riding horses. This great lady from church lets us come and ride her pony and the kids have so much fun. Owen, kept saying "Yeehaw" when he was riding, it was so cute. Brooke even trotted for a little bit, they did great. They have so much fun, hopefully we can go more this summer.

Valuing Motherhood

With Mother's Day just past, I've been thinking a lot about motherhood. How grateful I am for the great mothers in my life, especially my mom and mother-in-law, but most expecially how grateful I am to be a mother. When Reid and I talked about starting a family (6 years ago, wow thats gone fast), in a way it just felt like the next logical step, we'd been married a couple years, we were finishing up school, it seemed like the thing to do. So I got pregnant and we had Brooke and it was amazing and I was so happy to be a mom. But it wasn't until later when it was so hard to have a successful second pregnancy and now when it is hard to have a successful third pregnancy, that I've started to understand the great privilege of being a mother. It isn't just something you do because everyone else is, or so you can check it off your list, or get it done. Being a mother is an amazing privilege I am so grateful to have these funny little people in my life. I am so thankful to be a mother, I know that it is the most important thing I will do.

Pink Lemonade Cheesecake

As most of you know I love me some cheesecake. So for mother's day this year, Reid made me my all time favorite, Pink Lemonade Cheesecake. Isn't it beautiful? When we were first married Reid didn't get the whole garnish thing, and as much as I tried to convince him that pretty food tastes better, I think he garnished the cheesecake because he knew I would appreciate it and I did. It was beautiful! But most importantly it was delicious! Here's the recipe if you're interested:

Pink Lemonade Cheesecake
Graham Cracker Crust1 1/4 Cups graham cracker crums
3 TBLSP sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
In a small bowl stir together crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Stir till well combined. Press crumb mixture evenly onto the bottom of a greased 9-in. springform pan. Set aside.
Lemonade Filling
24 oz. Cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
5 tsp cornstarch
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup frozen pink lemonade concentrate thawed
2 tsp vanilla
2 drops Red food coloring
In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sugar, and cornstarch. Beat with an electric mixer till smooth. Add eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in lemonade concentrate, vanilla, and food coloring. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the crust.
Bake at 350 for 15 min. Lower the temp. to 200 and bake for 1 hour and 10 min or till the center no longer looks wet or shiny (this has taken up to an extra hour at our house). Remove the cake from the oven and run a kinfe around the inside edge of the pan. Turn the oven off; return the cake to the oven let it chill, uncovered overnight.
Lemonade Glaze
1/3 cup frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
4 tsp lemon juice
1 Tblsp cornstarch
1 drop red food coloring
Lemon Slices
In a small saucepan stir together lemonade concentrate, lemon juice, cornstarch and food coloring. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 2 minutes more. Pour over cheesecake. Garnish with lemon. Chill till serving time. Enjoy!

Easter Weekend

We had a fun time over Easter. Our kids really got into decorating eggs, even Owen only broke about half of the eggs he dyed :)!





We invited a few of our neighbors over for an Easter Egg Hunt which was great. We live next door to two families, one that has triplet 5 year old girls and one that has twin 5 year old girls, funny huh? Then we also have some neighbors that have 4 boys. So we didn't have to invite too many families in order to get a good turn out. Also, let's just say we didn't mow our lawn so it would be easier to hide the eggs, ok?




My sister Elizabeth also came out for the weekend and we went to Dollywood, had smores, took her to a local restaurant where she was weirded out by the printed Bible veses on the menu (life in the South), watched a lot of movies and had a grand ole time!

High Praise

Last night when we were in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Brooke started looking at their hooded bath towels.

Brooke: Mom, did you make these?
Me: Yeah, honey now brush your teeth.
Brooke: You made them with just a wash cloth and a towel?
Me: Yes, now please brush your teeth.
Brooke: Wow! (Then in a whisper voice to Owen) Did you know our mom was so incredible?

I just had to write that down so that I would always remember that there are moments when my kids think I'm cool stuff. Best Mother's Day present!