Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to the world’s best Daddy!

We love you soooo much!

Adelyn is 3 years, 3 weeks old and Colton is 1 year old.

Be vewwy quiet. We’w hunting wabbits.

Well, the special treasures that the Easter wabbits left behind…

Let’s start with the Easter Egg hunt we went to last weekend! Just like last year, we went to an egg hunt put on by the Pinetree Church of Christ.

Look! A family shot!

Colton was the best looking boy there (next to Daddy, of course). Doesn’t he look handsome in his sweater vest?

Momma and Addy with our dear friends, Rachel and Hannah Clare.

Look how much the girls have grown in the past year! {{Hannah Clare and Adelyn, Easter 2011}}

Adelyn collected 9 eggs this year!

Colton says “Just wait until next year…”.

This morning, we partook in another egg hunt after the Easter bunny stopped by our house. Colton made sure he was dressed properly before getting started.

{{He sure knows how to model!}}

Addy is a master egg hunter now. She was moving so fast, most of the shots are of the back of her head. She found eggs on window sills…

In a stinky shoe…

By the pack ‘n play…

Colton found a few eggs too…

But he was more interested in inspecting Addy’s basket.

She wasn’t crazy about that idea… {{Mid “Nooooo.”}}

But Colton was a sweet lil brother and helped her pick up the spilled eggs. ::wink::

That’s a pretty good haul!

Happy Easter, everyone!

More Easter pics to come. 🙂

Adelyn is 2 years, 10.5 months old and Colton is 9 months, 3 weeks old.

Construction paper! Crayons! GLITTER!!!!

Life lesson:

Elmer’s glue + glitter = FUN

I passed along my knowledge of all-things-glitter-and-glue to Adelyn for Valentine’s Day. Why? Because we made little Valentine’s Day cards for our families and friends! She is a huge fan of “cwafts”, particularly if we can use paint or glue, and this was the first time she’d gotten to play with “sparkles”. Let’s just say the girl was hooked. I mean, it’s glitter.

{{Can I get an ‘Amen’?}}

Believe it or not, she was super careful with the glitter. It’s like she knew she didn’t want to dump the whole container over and waste the precious pieces. And she was also very patient. She understood that we had to go through the following steps:

Step 1. Draw a shape or word on the Valentine in glue.
Step 2. Pour glitter onto glue.
Step 3. Tilt Valentine around so loose glitter sticks to glue.
Step 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as necessary until glue is covered with glitter!

Seriously, look at this concentration.

She was so proud of her Valentine’s!
{{This one says “My Friend”, for her friend Hannah Clare.}}

She took her work very seriously.

Even Colton wanted in on the action, but alas, he’ll have to wait until next year.

We also made a little picture frame for Daddy for Valentine’s Day. It’s amazing what some red paint and a little glue and glitter can do to spruce up a $0.67 wooden frame.

More glitter!

The finished product (with some Valentine’s Day tulips we bought this weekend). Daddy liked it! 🙂

{{Aren’t the tulips lovely? So spring-y}}

Enjoy your Valentine’s Day, all!

Adelyn is 2 years, 8.5 months old and Colton is 7.99 months old.

Christmas 2011-New Years 2012

Let’s close out 2011, shall we? Prepare for another picture-heavy post!

After a great Thanksgiving in Florida with Derek’s parents, we spent Christmas in Austin with my family. It was a full house, but only for a few days, until both my sisters and Derek went back to work. The kids and I stayed in Austin for the week between Christmas and New Years to spend some fun quality time with Grandma and Grandpa.

We enjoyed fires in the fireplaces (luckily the weather was cool enough… a far cry from the 80* Christmas a few years back), decorating gingerbread houses, puzzles, movies, books, walks… even the construction of a see-saw. Let’s dive right in.

Christmas Eve morning, we decided to decorate a gingerbread house.

Ta-Da!! Toothpicks were only used to hold up the delicious candy 🙂

Colton needs a pick-me-up.

Working on a puzzle, nice fire blazing in the background. Mmmm, toasty warm!

Watching The Grinch.

Reading The Night Before Christmas before bed on Christmas Eve.

(PS. Can you spot Henry, our elf?)

And then it was Christmas morning!

Playing with some of the fun gifts Santa brought in their stockings.

Grandpa Joe played “Santa’s helper” and handed out the gifts from under the tree.

Check out the awesome tree stump Grandma and Grandpa made Adelyn! Complete with woodland creatures.

Setting up the table and chairs so the animals can have tea.

Look, Momma got a double stroller!

Christmas morning reading.

Finished the first puzzle, time to start working on a new one.

Going for a family walk. Also testing out the double stroller for the first time.

Colton says it works great.

Playing with Colton’s trucks before Christmas dinner.

Taking some pre-Christmas dinner family photos.

Taking a picture with two young kids doesn’t make for a very good family photo…

This is the best we could get… no one is looking in the same direction! Ha.

Farrell-Zivney family photo 🙂

The rest of the week was fairly quiet, just spent entertaining the kids with horsey rides…

And walks…

And even the construction of a see-saw using leftover wood that Grandma and Grandpa had lying around!

Works great!

And with that, Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

Adelyn is 2 years, 7.99 months old and Colton is 7 months, 5 days old.

In between the holidays

I know I said I would post Christmas pics next, but let’s cover the bit of ground between Thanksgiving and Christmas first.

I showed you how it was beginning to look like Christmas around our house here.

While it was looking like Christmas, it still wasn’t really feeling like Christmas. Actually, it felt more like fall. Comfortably cool weather, beautiful red and orange foliage… you know, fall.

It finally started to get cold…

Hey look, ice!

Perhaps the arrival of the cold weather had something to do with this guy, who journeyed all the way from the North Pole. Readers, meet Henry.

Henry is our Elf on a Shelf, sent all the way down here from Santa himself. Every day, Henry watches over the kids and then at night, he flies back to the North Pole to give his report to Santa (you know, whether or not the kids were “good, for goodness sake”). Every morning we found him in a new place. He managed to get into Addy’s stocking…

and ride a reindeer…

He even hung from a light fixture, got caught in a cage and sat on a wall clock. He’s a silly elf, that Henry.

Anyway, the cold weather and arrival of Henry helped launch us into the Christmas spirit. We decided to make Christmas treats, both for us and for our neighbors.

Making fudge with Daddy.

Addy says “It’s goooooddd.”

The makings of Triple Chocolate Whoopie Pies. Oh yes.

I made one and it was literally >1/3 of the size of Addy’s face. So instead of using two cookies, we cut each cookie in half and put the filling in the middle. Much more reasonable.

We wrapped up the treats for the neighbors…

And then hand delivered them the weekend before Christmas. I think this will be a fun tradition we will continue every Christmas!

Speaking of tradition, we had our 2nd annual Christmas dinner with our neighbors. We have dinner at one house, dessert at the other, and exchange a few small gifts. Such a fun thing to do with our friends 🙂

The Thursday before Christmas (and the day before we headed down to Austin), the underside of our tree was looking pretty full…

so we opened a few gifts from Derek’s side of the family.

Addy tears through presents like it’s her job, so before long we had a pile of awesome gifts.

Some of her favorite gifts were a “sparkle shirt” (shirt with sequins on it), a clock that teaches you how to tell time, and a barbie purse with a pretend cellphone and lipstick. Colton was content watching the whole spectacle from the comfort of Daddy’s lap. You just know that next year he will be all up in the action!

And with that, NOW we move on to Christmas pics. 🙂

Adelyn is 2 years, 7.75 months old and Colton is 7 months, 2 days old.

Thanksgiving 2011. You know, last year?

I have GOT to catch up now. I’m getting in trouble with people because I have been a bad, bad blogger as of late. Good thing I didn’t make “blogging” a resolution for the new year… although I think I will make it one now! Resolution: To blog more than once a month. Yikes.

So, catching up!

Let’s start with Thanksgiving. Happy thanksgiving everyone! We spent 6 days in Florida visiting Gram Z and Pops and we kept ourselves busy – beach trip, fishing, boating, golfing, relaxing, eating. It was great! We enjoyed smoked turkey for daysssss… I think there was even some left when we flew home, if I’m not mistaken. Now that’s a lot of turkey. 🙂

Colton was… a little nervous about meeting “new” people. He was in that stage where anyone other than Momma or Daddy scares him, and you can only hold him if he’s facing outwards, and if he realizes that it’s not one of his parents holding him… well, all bets are off. When we first arrived? This was how Colton reacted:

{{Oh, my sad little angel.}}

Thankfully it didn’t take long for him to get back to his cheerful self.

Now, on to our adventures!

Heading into the jungle to the boat to do a little maintenance.

Time to fish.

Hot tub fun with Pops!

Beach trip!

Boat trip!

Colton’s life vest was a bit snug…

Someone was ready for his nap.

Colton had a great time.

Avoiding her nap.

Last pic before heading to the airport.

Such a fun trip! Next up: Christmas.

Adelyn is 2 years, 7.75 months old and Colton is 6.99 months old.

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it?!  2011 has come and gone… And what a wonderful year it was.  Thank you all for regularly stopping by, sticking with us and enjoying our little slice of internet.

May 2012 be an exciting, outstanding and fabulous year for all! 

Happy New Year!

It’s beginning…

…to look a lot like Christmas!

We’ve been MIA for a while over here. After spending a lovely week in Florida with Gram Z and Pops for Thanksgiving, we’re home and finally decorating the house for Christmas! I’ve been dying to put out our Christmas decorations. This is my favorite time of year. 🙂

First, we went to Lowes and picked out our tree…

Both kids approved.

Then it came time to decorate, which is not exactly an easy feat with a toddler… but we made it through. Best of all, there were no ornament casualties!

{Don’t worry, we straightened the star.}

{Demonstrating how a birdie flaps it’s wings and tweet tweet tweets.}

{The end result!}

We also put up lights on our house and trees, again with lots of toddler “help”…

{Notice what Addy is doing?}

{Wrapping Daddy’s legs while on a ladder may not the best idea…}

And of course, I had to take a picture of my Santa baby. (Ha! See what I did there? Santa baby? Get it? Moving on.)

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Lots of Florida pics to come.

Adelyn is 2 years, 6 months old and Colton is 5 months, 2 weeks old.

Halloween Trial Run

Yesterday was the Fall Festival up at our local high school. We went last year and had fun playing games and eating bbq hamburgers.

Unfortunately this year Adelyn was an epic cranky pants when we got there. She decided she didn’t want to wear her mermaid tail 5 minutes after we’d arrived, although I did manage to convince her to put it back on when we went indoors to see the games. I sure hope she won’t be so cranky on Halloween! One little girl, who was dressed up as a princess, took one look at Addy’s mermaid costume and said “Oooh, I want to be a mermaid too!”, so that made me feel happy. It’s the little things…

Colton was a sweet little trooper and wore his Sebastian the crab costume like a champ, even though Momma forgot the safety pins to fasten the straps on his costume. ::headpalm:: He still looked great though! Some people thought he looked like a lobster, and I’m ok with that. At least they knew he was some sort of red crustacean, right?

And soooo, drum roll please…

Here are Adelyn and Colton’s Halloween costumes!

{{How regal does she look??}}

{{Colton spent most of the evening chewing on his shell. And his claws. Yay teeth!}}

{{The mermaid loves her crab.}}

{{Finally, a family photo! Notice who isn’t wearing her costume?}}

{{Look at my happy crab!!!}}

Adelyn is 2 years, 4.99 months old and Colton is 4 months, 6 days old.

DIY Peacock Costume

Recently I’ve had several inquiries as to how I made Adelyn’s peacock tail last Halloween.

In all honesty, it was pretty easy to do. I winged it and only really worked on it during Addy’s naptime or after she was in bed for the night. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a ton of pics as I was working on it because I wasn’t sure I would actually write up a DIY post… but, as it turns out, I am! I’m just doing it a year late! This is my first DIY post, so hopefully my directions are decently clear.

So, let’s get started. 🙂

Supplies needed:

• wire coat hangers
• electrical tape
• pipe cleaners
• pliers
• fishing line
• feather boas
• hot glue gun and glue
• felt
• sequins
• elastic
• needle
• thread

The frame for the tail was made with wire coat hangers, electrical tape, hot glue and fishing line. That’s it, nothing fancy!

Step 1. Measure and cut coat hangers
Straighten out the coat hangers. Decide how wide you want the tail to be. This will be the bottom bone (marked “1” in the photo below). Cut that length by bending the hanger back and forth with pliers until it weakens and breaks. Next, decide how tall you want the tail to be and, again, “cut” the second straightened coat hanger for the perpendicular support (marked “2”). Repeat the same process for bone “3” (although you can simply fold the hanger into a V shape instead of cutting it into two separate parts… cuts down on the number of bones you have to join.)

Step 2. Assemble coat hangers into frame
To assemble the bones, wind electrical tape around the one spot where you want them to connect (marked “midpoint”). You can even try hot glue-ing the bones together at the midpoint. THEN, wrap pipe cleaner around that same spot to help support it a bit more. {{I also wrapped each limb of the tail in pipe cleaners so that the feather boas would stick to the frame when I hot glued them, although you may find this part unnecessary.}}

Step 3. Add fishing line to help keep frame steady
At the 5 endpoints, bend the coat hanger into a loop and string the fishing line through all 5 loops. Tie the fishing line tightly at the ends. You should end up with a fairly solid frame.

{{Side note: I ran a second line of fishing line about halfway between the midpoint and the end of the bones, although I did this after I had covered the frame in boas, so in hindsight, it probably would have been easier if I had done it at the beginning. It helped make the frame even sturdier.}}

Step 4. Wrap frame with boas
Working one bone at a time, hot glue one end of the boa to the midpoint and wind the boa around the bone, working up and out. Be sure to add spots of glue along the way to ensure that the boa stays fastened to the bone. Hot glue the end of the boa to the end of the bone.

Step 5. Fill in empty spaces with more boas
After covering the frame entirely with the feather boas, you will have empty space between the bones. Here, string more boas from the midpoint out to the fishing line (hot glue them at the midpoint, wrap the other end of the boa around the fishing line and glue it there too).

{{Sorry, no pic :(}}

Step 6. Make the peacock eyes
This step can be completed whenever you have spare moments. Cut out various shapes from the felt colors you’ve chosen (be sure to stack them before you glue them down so you know whether you like the way they look together). If you decide to use sequins for a little extra sparkle, hot glue the sequins around the perimeter of the felt. Then hot glue the pieces on top of one another. Repeat, repeat, repeat until you have enough eyes for the size of your tail.

Step 6. Glue the peacock eyes onto the peacock tail
Arrange the eyes on the tail. Note that when you wear the tail, some of the eyes may be covered up by your back. Hot glue the eyes in place when you are happy with your arrangement.

Step 7. Make the harness
I didn’t take any pictures of this process, but the idea is simple. On the person who will be wearing the costume, measure the distance between their shoulder blades. Take a thick strip of elastic and sew a loop at both ends (arm holes), making sure that the distance between the loops is the same as the measured distance between the person’s shoulder blades. You should end up with something that looks like this: 0____0

Step 8. Connect harness to the tail
Weave the harness through the boas and around bone “2” so that both arm hole loops are on the side with the eyes. After making sure you like where the tail will sit on the costume wearer’s back, use lots of hot glue to fasten it in place.

{{For added reinforcement, I also ended up using a giant safety pin to secure the tail to Addy’s back.}}

Voila! You have made a peacock tail!! If you do end up making a peacock tail yourself, please leave me a comment and/or send me a picture because I’d love to see how it turns out! 🙂

A few shots of Addy’s finished costume:

Adelyn is 2 years, 4.5 months old and Colton is 4 months, 4 days old.