Ella and the Girls

Here's Ella on her birthday with her cousin Anna, who just turned five in April, and Grace, who will be six next month. I was playing around with FotoFlexer online. Very fun site! Adding frames and playing with the colors were really neat - lots of cool things you can do.

Ni Hao Kai-lan Birthday Party

On Friday, we had Ella's 4th birthday party. She decided on a Ni Hao Kai-lan party. We decided on a cupcake cake with Kai-lan on it since it seemed less messy. I also made some homemade cupcakes decorated like the sun from the cartoon with marshmallow clouds. Instead of traditional treat bags, I decided on Chinese takeout boxes with the phrase "Thank you coming to my party!" in Chinese characters. I also did personalized name tags of the secondary characters for the boxes - each of the children's names were in Chinese (the picture of the pink rhino). In the boxes, I had chopsticks, fans for the girls, Chinese candies that I purchased at a local Oriental grocery store, bouncy balls for the boys, and other goodies. I made a Chinese dragon that snaked around the room and I also decorated with Chinese lanterns around the room. For eats we had the regulars - chips, hot dogs, veggie tray, etc. - but Ella's Aunt Sarah made Chinese spring rolls, her Grandma Ruthie made almond cookies, and I made Bing Tang Hulu, which is candied fruit on skewers. They didn't turn out exactly as I planned, but they were still delicious. All of the food items and eating utensils had labels in the native Chinese (you can see this better in the food picture above). Ella wore her authentic Chinese dress and chopsticks in her hair. She was so cute! She received many wonderful and thoughtful gifts from everyone...We are so blessed to have so many fabulous family members! It was such a great day, we can't wait until Grace's birthday next month!

A New Look

For those of you who know me really well, this will come to no surprise that I have changed the look of our blog. I am never happy with the way something looks and am forever changing SOMETHING ; ) This will happen periodically, so don't mind me : )

The Best Sound in the World

Hearing a baby laugh is the best sound in the world! Rarely will Colt stay still enough to be tickled much less be recorded ; )

Dancing Colt

I caught Colt dancing this afternoon with the girls. As most of you know, I'm a HUGE Beatles fan, so seeing him dancing to "Back in the USSR" did my heart a little good : ) Unfortunately, he decided to wing the Wii remote at the wall. Luckily he didn't do any damage : )

Happy Birthday Ella!!

Ella is officially four today!! Eventhough her actual birthday is today, we won't be celebrating with family and a party until Friday evening at Grandma and Grandpa Brown's. Daddy had to be out of town today, so we didn't do anything too terribly exciting - she played with a neighbor friend and we had ballet class to attend. More pictures of Ella and her Ni hao Kai-lan party will come Saturday morning.

Our 10th Anniversary

Yesterday was our 10th anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long! We had a pretty uneventful day, went swimming and out to dinner with the kids. It wasn't Hawaii like we wanted, but it was the next best thing : ) Chris got me a super cute Precious Moments figurine with a couple on it and a big number 10 in a heart. It's kind of a tradition...I got one when we were dating, one when we were engaged, one when we got married, one when our first child was born, and now one for a milestone anniversary. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures to post today.

Ft. Wayne Tincaps Game

Last night we went to a Tincaps game vs. South Bend Silver Hawks. We had a great time!

Since we had Colt with us, we decided to sit on the lawn seats so he could walk around more.

It was soo hot when we got there, but after the sun went down, the weather was fantastic! We got some good pictures of the kids - Ella didn't care for the giant Johnny Appleseed Bobblehead, so I had to get on the pic with her and clearly Colt was too busy looking at the statue to look at the camera : )

Obviously, Colt has no interest in having his picture taken with his parents - too interested in Cracker Jack! Grace and Ella BEGGED for these big, pink #1 fingers. There were fireworks after the game and we were really up close! We were so close, at one point, I was hit in the arm with a big piece of fireworks part. The girls thought it was neat that the remnants of the paper on the fireworks was falling from the sky like snow. It was a really fun time and the kids had a ball (pardon the pun : ) )

Grace, Ella, and I were messing around with an easy online game last night involving popping balloons to "rescue" prizes. One prize was a weird little cowboy man...Grace got the biggest kick out of what he says when you pop his balloon...

A Nice Sunday Evening

I was messing around outside this evening and thought I would take some pictures of the outside decorations on our porch. Unfortunately, the lot our home sits on is way too small for a garden, so the only plants I can have are hanging plants (which I often kill) or house plants. I LOVE Mickey Mouse, so the kids and Chris often get me something "Mickey" or Disney themed for special occasions. The Mickey with the watering can is my wind chimes I received for Mother's Day 2009. The hanging Mickey is my favorite! He's hanging off the purple flower. The other wind chime is from the Mississinewa Frontier Festival that takes place every year (in September) in Marion, IN. They put on a Civil War reenactment and have booths where you can buy old timey things. This is actually from a booth that was run by a favorite Irish band called "Father, Son, and Friends." They were playing music and selling Irish souvenirs. Very cool!

The little family you see here is a knicknack Chris bought on a day out to Shipshewana. We went into a neat little toy store in one of the shops and I saw this and had to have it! I need to get back there so I can get a bigger little boy, Colt is getting bigger! The flag is the decoration on our front door. I got this at the Kendallville Apple Festival a few years ago. I LOVE antique looking flag/patriotic items - my kitchen is full of them!

Thanks, Maria!!

More Holland, MI pictures...

WOW!! Thanks to Cousin Maria for the collaging tip! This is great!!

Daddy's Picnic Table

OOOPS! I accidentally deleted the previous post about Chris's picnic table. We are so proud of him for building this! I think he's decided to just finish it with a clear coat and leave the color as is. His next project: making one adult sized : )

On a Warm Summer Day...

This afternoon while Colt was napping and Chris was in Fremont working the Music Fest, I got to spend some quality "girl time" with the girls. It's nice to be able to relax with them and have a nice swim without having to hold Colt the whole time : )

Grace's Last Tee Ball Game

Grace's last tee ball game was Wednesday. She did really well this year. She was on the Pythons again this year, so she knew most of the kids on the team since she played with them last year. She was a little disappointed, though, at the end of the game because she was supposed to receive a trophy for the year, but the coach broke the news that the trophies weren't in yet. Hopefully we'll be getting them soon!

Day at the Pool

We decided to take the kids to the city pool for the first time this year. This was Colt's first time at this particular type pf pool. We have a swimming pool at home, but it's above ground and doesn't have as many cool toys to play on in the water. After he got used to it, he had a great time. He definitely didn't want to leave!

Ella's Fourth Birthday

This is a picture of Ella's Kai-lan invitation. The eyes and hair were the hardest to make - lots of little cuts with tiny scissors!

Her birthday is fast approaching. She has decided to have a NiHao Kai-lan/Chinese themed party. It's really giving me a run for my money! Ella's grandma Ruthie (Chris's mom) bought her an authentic Chinese dress, fashion chopsticks to put in her hair, and a really pretty silk Chinese fan. We're having the party at Grandma Vicki's (my mom) house since everyone who is coming is from the Lagrange area.

We decided on a Kai-lan cupcake cake, finger foods, and I'm making Chinese Firecracker Candied Fruit Sticks for fun. I hand made all of the invitations myself since I enjoy scrap booking. (I make all the kids' invitations myself) I also decided to hand make a huge paper dragon that I'm going to string on fishing line out on the porch. Each child will also get a Chinese take out box full of Chinese goodies, such as chopsticks, fans, Chinese finger traps, Chinese penny candy, fortune cookies, etc. I also made handmade goodie bag tags in the shapes of Kai-lan's friends with the kids' names on them written in Chinese.


My mom and I found some great paper lanterns and a few Kai-lan decorations at the local Party & Card Outlet Store (they have the best selection!) My biggest exciting find was the Chinese take out boxes - they were kind of hard to find.
I'll post all of the pictures after the party (on July 23rd).

Grace and Ella in the Famous Wooden Shoes

These are of the girls in the famous wooden shoes. Ella said "I am a giant!"

Little Dutch Boy

This is Colt in one of the gift shops in Holland, MI. Oh how I'll miss being able to completely embarrass them when they're older : )

Why is it...

That no matter how many times you tell yourself that you are NOT going into WalMart for ANYTHING else but milk and an egg timer, you STILL walk out with a bill for $50?

Hello!

Hello everyone and welcome to Keeping Up With the Singetons! I know, I know the name isn't very original, but hey what can I say? It's hard to come up with clever titles while chasing three young ones : ) Anyway, I have to give credit to my cousin, Kasidy, for the blogging idea. How she does it all and is preggers with baby number two, I don't know ;) Thanks for thinking of us and visiting our blog, even if it's just for a short time : )

~Andrea, Chris, and Family