No creepers allowed!

If you know what that means, and this flowers look okay, then this party was for you!

Rachel turning 12 years old!

No creepers allowed!

 She decorated all by herself, brown and green all the way

 We've gone from 'the cake is a lie' to, eight bit

But first, I mustache you a question! (that just never gets old)

Infamous silly string fights, NO GRIEFING

hehe...unless you're mom

It quickly devolved into a melee, more Hunger game style

But wait, there's more!

We painted our own wood, TNT, stone, dirt, etc

 And everyone got to draw their own elements

Just cuz I'm really proud

All of the kids love Portal, as much as they love Minecraft...I love how the girls did their costumes!

Chell is the actual character from Portal...she was placed in maze and is forced to complete tests for a company called Aperture Science. She's offered cake if she completes the tests.

 Rachel's schematics

 Emily's handmade gun (with help from an osm dad)

 Love this picture for SO many reasons.

 Managed the Aperture LOGO

Rachel's Birthday

How did it get to be March already? Yikes! I've been meaning to post these for a while, oh, since the end of February lol!
My lil girl turned eleven...how can that be? It seems like just yesterday she was born, my first homebirth. I remember being in the shower, and yelling at the midwife that it wasn't working, it still hurt. The midwife was awesome, just kind of laughed. In hindsight, that was because Rachel Anna(for my mom)Louise(for my Grandmother) was actually crowning at the time! From my chubby ten pounder, we have this:

Firestarter extraordinaire 

 Who is a great friend, and has great friends that we love to spend time with

 Full of blessings, outside of all that she has

Eleven has never seem so grown up

 On my tablecloth, after the party, some few doodles

Quilting night with the grandparents...

Not only do I not have the time or the talent...I don't have the cool thousand dollar sewing machine.

So my parents helped the girls finish their quilting projects for scouts...thank you!

New Pics from the new camera...

Rachel turns 10

One thing I know about my children, is that they are unique and individual people. Rachel and I were talking about her party, and more than anything she wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year. We decorated with paper lanterns, paper fish, and some new year signs from super cao...we had red envelopes with chinese paper money for everyone, and the girls made take out boxes in a rainbow of colors.

 So we had a cake with a dragon, and 12 cupcakes each with a different zodiac sign on it.

Everyone got a set of melamine chopsticks, and here you see Rachel's friend eating her jello with them lol!

We made masks and folded origami, and also made springrolls for a snack. That was really popular with the kids, we actually went through more springrolls than we did cake.

Here's one of my favorite cuties. Also one of the few who would let me take her picture. 

Nathan was very blase about the entire ordeal. He has a little bruise on his cheek from pulling a chair over on himself.  I laugh at this picture mostly because of his hair though. Very Little Rascals of him, yes?

And these are what I made her for her birthday...a little zombie and a grim reaper (sans scythe, I haven't gotten around to that) She's just requested a beanie hat for the zombie, so I'd better go and take care of that. She seems to like them, she's carried them around since her party.

Rachel Stream of Conscious Photos

She's just growing up so quickly, again, slightly blurry from the iPhone, but I think her eyes are gorgeous anyway. Even with the silly faces!