Emptying my camera and pictures that make me smile

I just realized it's been over a week since my last post, so I thought I should empty the camera and see what we've been doing lately. :)

First up is the pizza I made for Valentine's Day for us...it's almost a heart. :)

Poor Tirzy, her siblings already gang up on her.

But on the bright side...

...at least it doesn't say 'kick me.' :)

Nora calls pig tails 'bunny ears' and asks for them often.  One day Max was sad that he didn't have 'bunny ears,' so I made some for him. :)  I'd say that his lasted about as long as Nora's...maybe until nap time.

Nora and Tirzah have cute matching shirts and I really wanted to get a picture of them together since Tirzah will be outgrowing hers soon.  Out of many tries, I got a couple decent ones.

I love how Nora is looking at Tirzah.

Smiles!  You can tell from Tirzah's eyes that my favorite assistant Max was supplying the entertainment!

Max, unfortunately, was feeling left out and wanted in the pictures.  This is about how well that worked.

Love Nora in her 'bunny ears!'

God blessed me with a little girl whose hair is pretty easy to work with (since I don't know how to do hair at all!)...I thought it looked cute/funny after the pig tails were taken out.

Max and Nora...

...best buds.

Tirzah frequently gets comments on her bright blue eyes...I have hope that she'll keep them and they won't turn brown!  I always thought that Nora's eyes were bright blue when she was little mostly because of the following picture:

See?  They look pretty blue, don't they?

Here, too.  These are from when Nora was 7 months old.  For some reason, I was thinking she had blue eyes until she was 10 or 11 months old...but when I found the next picture:

They have already turned more gray.  So my whole point is, Tirzah is older than Nora was and still has her brilliant blue eyes...maybe they'll be here to stay!

And don't get me wrong here...I love Max's dark eyes and Nora's pretty gray/hazel eyes...it's just that there are only a few blue eyed people between me and Greg's families, so I always told him I really wanted to have a blue eyed kid that had his dark hair. :)  I'm not really trying to single Tirzah out...I think all of our kids are beautiful! :D  (And how adorable are little Max and Nora in those old pictures!?!?)

 Anyway, another new Tirzah trick...

...standing up in her high chair!  I never strap her in, but one day I turned around and saw her like this.  Little stinker!  She is also standing for longer periods of time, which is always fun to see!

Last Saturday, I had a few girls I went to high school with over for brunch.  (Thanks for coming, girls!)  If you go back and look at this post  and read in the comments section, my friend Julie said she wanted to come play dress up.  I told her we'd definitely have a tiara, but maybe not a dress.  Earlier in the week, Julie had e-mailed me something about Saturday and said, "Don't forget about my princess dress!"  Naturally, I had to come up with something! :D  Thanks to Janelle, we found a very pretty princess dress to surprise Jules with on Saturday morning!  It was pretty funny to see her face when I brought it out!

Londyn thought it was pretty, too!

Saturday night we took my parents and Caleb out to eat at Granite City to celebrate my dad's birthday, which was on Monday.  (Happy birthday, Dad!)

On Sunday, we had Greg's family over for supper.  While the kids were napping, Greg made up a treasure hunt for the kids outside and he and Katy hid the clues.  As I was finishing getting supper ready, Greg, Nate, and Katy took the kids outside to do the hunt!

Max found the clue by the pumpkins,

Elena got the clue out of the mailbox,

Nora found the clue by the sandbox, and there were several other clues that sent them running all over our property.  The last clue led them to...

...the window well where Max's toads live!  I don't have a good picture of it, but Greg sent Max down to retrieve the treasure chest.

Quick!  Open it!  What's inside?

Treasure!  They all thoroughly enjoyed their Ring Pops! :)

I don't have many pictures from this week, but since Monday was my dad's birthday I made him a cake (a root beer cake, to be specific).  He and Mom stopped by on their way home from going out to eat.  The kids and I sang to him, but we didn't make him blow out any candles.  Since it was his birthday, we were nice and just let him eat the cake!

My cute parents

The last pictures I have are from today...Greg and I go to potluck tonight and it's going to be an appetizer meal (I'm excited!) so I had to make two appetizers.  These are the empanadas (the recipe calls them empanadillas...maybe because they are smaller than empanadas?) I made this morning.

I hope they are good!  I tasted the filling and thought it was yummy, so I guess that's a good sign. :)

I'm also making Pig Candy, also known as Brown Sugar Bacon.  Hopefully they all taste as good as they sound! :)  So there you have it...the past couple of weeks at our house, including some pictures to make you smile.