Munchkin Halloween!

I know, I know, I'm a little late for halloween... but I was over watching the Little's one night last week, and I got to admire not only their awesome costumes, but their super cool pumpkin designs!

Little Ann was dressing up as a Vampire Mistress... Little Dan was being an Astronaut, and Miss OKP was wearing a black cat suit, with G being a witch. I don't know what S was being...but who cares, the kids are cutest anyhow! I didn't get any blog approved photos of them in their costumes, but I did get pictures of their Jack'o lanterns!

Little Dan had this spooky faced punkin (as he calls it):

While Little Ann had this more intricate design of a cat in the moonlight:



Very impressive for little kids... it helps that Little Ann knows her way around the computer and could find designs to be printed... but still they are very clever looking creations.

Sad Munchkin Monday :(

The kids don't really understand why I am moving into my apartment, and why I'm not living here. So this morning while we were getting Little Ann ready for Girl Scout Day Camp (which she is loving) we talked about it. I think it would be easier for them if they had someone to replace me so we could say "you are going to have so much fun with (insert name here)! I heard she is planning so many fun adventures for you!!" But unfortunately, they are still hunting.. So it comes down to trying to tell an 8 year old, and 4 year old that I am just moving to a new apartment and starting at a new job.. I have told them that my apartment is close, and that we will go there so that they can see it sometime this week, and I will come and play with them whenever G & S need me to (so long as I don't have anything else going on)... But when it is all said and done, it is simply sad that after a little more than two years of seeing them every single day, and taking care of them for 11+ hours Monday through Friday, I am done. Although I am not crying yet, and this is going to be a very exciting new chapter in my life, I will be crying on Friday, and I will probably show up on Sunday before they leave to board their plane with S to visit their Grandpa, and on Monday (my official last day) when it will be just G and myself with Little Baby... It is going to be sad.

It has been a pretty good two years, with some fabulous adventures, fun, happiness and love, as well as some hardships too (after all they are kids!)... but I am very glad to have had this experience, and it will be sad at our house at the end of the week.

Here's to one last week filled with little laughs, little hugs, and lots of fun!

Happy Munchkin Monday :)

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

Oh, oh, oh!
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite!


Happy Munchkin Monday :D

Obstacle Course!!

So sense we have a new baby in the house, I have been trying to keep the older two out of the house as much as possible.. with all of our wonderful June weather (rainy one moment sunny the next, and then rainy again all day long) it has been difficult. But one afternoon, while we were enjoying a lovely spurt of sunshine, I set up an obstacle course, and the kids rode their trikes and scooters up and down it all day long (even when it started to rain a bit!).
This is the last week before we head to Block Island for 2 weeks.. We have a few play dates scheduled, and I think we'll go to the aquarium one day, and then just hang at the house, and play with sidewalk chalk or go for a bike ride or something on the other days. It should be fun, and then we'll be off to Block Island before we know it! I guess I should go start the kids laundry so they have something to bring with us... and on that note, I should probably do my own laundry too!!

Happy Monday!

The Newest Little

Baby little has arrived, and she was so tiny. With all the bed rest that G was on, she made it to 38 weeks. Miss OKP arrived this past Thursday (6.18.2009) at 4:50AM... They barely made it to the hospital... she came out five minutes after getting to the labor and delivery wing. She is the smallest thing that I have ever seen, and I hope that she receives all the love and care she deserves for a wonderful childhood.

Here is a pic of the new family:

Little Ann is loving having a new baby sisiter, but Little Dan on the other hand isn't so sure.... he is excited to be a big brother, but mostly just because it sounds cool. He hasn't even touched the baby yet, but he will sit by her and read stories together. She likes it when Little Ann and I read... when we stop it wakes her up.. it is very cute :)

Here is one of Miss OKP and myself:

I like it because, even though you can tell that I had been awake for about 18 hours at that point on only 4 hours of sleep, it looks like we are smiling at each other. So sweet!

Welcome to the world Little Baby! We are happy to have you :)
(and even happier to be moving out of the house in a month, and to not hear all the chaos of three Littles well into the night..even though I love you all)

Munchkins Venture to Mystic!

During Spring Break, we had a wonderful week, filled with all kinds of fun, which was a great thing, because it gave me faith that the summer won't be "boring" and it will be so exciting!

We drove up to Mystic, CT, where they have all these great old tall ships, and they have preserved a part of the town how it used to be in "olden day times" --little Ann. They were working on restoring one of the ships while we were there, and it was out of the water, it was huge! We had to climb up 72 stairs to get to the top. Once we were inside, we got to explore the ship and we all got to pretend to drive it too.



Then we wandered around, and explored the area where the crew would have slept, made food, taken care of business, etc. It seemed very cramp, and quite frankly, I'm glad I've never had to live on an old ship.

After we spent the entire day enjoying Mystic, we had a picnic lunch, and then the kids let me stop at the yarn store for a small detour before getting ice cream and heading home. I ended up with 7 balls of Lang Silk Dream in a pale dusty pink, and my first ever hank of sock yarn, purchased with the actual purpose of making socks (who knows when that will actually happen) and I really liked the colorway, so I thought heck, I can give it a shot. I believe it was a Misti Alpaca hand painted sock yarn... I will post pictures soon.

Monsters Munchkin Monday

This past Friday I took the littles to go see Monsters vs. Aliens



It was really cute! I highly recommend it to anyone with kids, or who can use someone elses kids as an excuse to see little kid movies...I love little kid movies, and its a good thing I'm a nanny because there are a lot of great kids movies lately. This movie had a lot of good humor for the kids, and the adults too, I may have laughed more than any of the kids in the theater... oh well...at least I was enjoying myself :)

So basically... it was a good movie, it had great animation, the expressions and details were amazing (as they are in all dreamworks/pixar movies), the plot was cute and easy to follow, nothing really scary happened so it was good for the little guys too... all in all I think its a winner.

Next on the list of Kid Movies to see is Up :)

Other than that.. I woke up Saturday morning, and I was sick...booo. I'm still getting over the last little bit of it, and of course I'm still working..so today we are taking it easy--here's hoping for easy kids today, and hoping to get better by the end of the day too :)

Happy Munchkin Monday..Have a great day!

Taste Test....

So, Little Ann really likes steak when her parents make it... but not when I've tried to make it... hmm.
Anyway, I thought I'd make meatloaf and instead of having it in a loaf, putting it into cup cakes... and calling it Steak Cupcakes (in an effort to get them to try it).

I served them with french fries and peas, and told them that if they wanted dessert later they had to try two bites...

that is the general rule for them... at least while I'm in charge. So they both tried two teeny tiny little bitty nibbles, and decided they didn't like them.... Little Ann ate French Fries, Peas, and Rice Crispies for dinner, and Little Dan had Peas, Yogurt, Apple, and Peanut Butter.

At least they tried! On the menu this week is all stuff that I know they like: Pork chops, mashed potatoes, and peas; Roasted Chicken with Apples; Homemade Chicken Fingers, with Green Beans and Rice Pilaf; Friday is a free night where they can choose something frozen for me to make....and last night we had Pasta, Apple, and Garlic Bread...pretty good week of dinners.

Now I'm off to the grocery store so we will have all the right ingredients!

Patriotic Manicure

So this past weekend I had the house to myself because The Littles went with G & S to Washington DC. This was a birthday trip for Little Ann, she has been learning about the capitol this year in school, and for her birthday in Feb. she wanted to go.... they opted to wait until the weather was a little warmer before making the trip.

Also for miss A's Birthday, I gave her a gift certificate to get a manicure and pedicure... so last weekend, we had a girls afternoon, of lunch, mani's, and Pedi's... oh my!

It was really fun to hang out just the two of us! Paying homage to our country, and wanting to look festive for their trip, she did her nails in red, white and blue... and I did mine in a dark purple to match the outline of my foot tattoo. All in all it was a great girls day... and having the house to myself all weekend long, was extremely wonderful and relaxing boring and lonely.



Happy Munchkin Monday :)

My Laundry Hamper Sprouted Legs!

And started wandering aimlessly around the living room:



(sorry its sideways..I don't know how to change that..)

I love this little guy, and his adorable giggle!

Happy Munchkin Monday :)

I can see clearly now..

The snow is gone!

Today it was really nice outside! odd, sense it was snowing yesterday. But hey, I'm not one to question a sunny day, we all went outside and ran like crazy people for the first time in 2009! (Well the first time both Little Ann, Little Dan, Kati, Zahra, and I all ran outside together.) It was a blast, and afterwards, all the kiddos crashed together on the couch while I cooked up some lunch1 :)


What a great day!

It's Wednesday...

...and I haven't posted all week. I've felt a bit overwhelmed, and had no time as both of the little are out of school. I thought I should at least post something. I'm hoping to upload pictures of the progress on my cardi... we'll see if I get to that. Not only are they out of school, but they are as "bored" and annoying as ever!! Ugh! Silly kids... (oh and of course all of my ideas are bad!)

Oh and to top it off, I don't think I've posted about it, but G is expecting, so we have one more baby on the way....to be here by July 3rd (if all goes well)....Anyhow, so to top off this already crazy week, G has been put on bed rest, so I get to have her lovely company this week :)

Oh the joys!

Hope everyone is having a great week, and maybe I'll even get more time to post later on this week, but for now I'm failing miserably at my goal of 20 posts per month this year...oh well!

More Menu Efforts

I have been continuing to make a menu every week, and execute it with the hopes of getting the kids to try new foods. So far it has been working out pretty well.

Last week we had Tuna Casserole on Monday (both Littles ate a bite or two, and then picked out the pasta and peas to eat).


Tuesday we had Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes, and Peas (it has been a hit both times we've had it, and I think it will become a regular on our menu!).

Wednesday we enjoyed some steamed Chicken, With Rice Pilaf, and Green Beans (Little Ann loved it all, Little Dan has decided to call Green beens Grass, and other than that, he ate and loved it all...this might always have to be on the menu!).


Thursday was Little Ann's birthday, so they enjoyed dinner out at her favorite restaurant, and Friday, we had pizza and brownies with the neighbors to celebrate her birthday again! All in all a pretty good week. Hopefully this week's menu will go over well with the Littles too.

Little Ann had a Birthday!

And she turned 8! Oh what a wonderful age :) She is becoming such a beautiful young lady, so smart (and thinks she's very wise and all knowing too).

Here is the bday card I mad for her:

Stir Fryday

Get it? Stir Fryday, like Friday... tee hee! Okay you get it.


So I have been trying to be better about trying to find meals that the kids will actually eat, that are healthy, and that I can eat too, that way I'm not preparing several meals every night.

In the past week I have made Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and peas (Little Ann like the whole meal! Little Dan liked the peas, and I ended up making him Chicken Nuggets instead). Then I tried to do Roasted Chicken with pasta and apples (They both liked it all)!! Next up was Stir Fry with steak instead of chicken (Little Ann liked the steak, but didn't want too much of it, and she also loved the rice. Little Dan liked the rice and not so much the steak, I gave him so of the left over chicken from the previous day. They both liked the shredded carrots in the stir fry veggies).

So what I'm wondering is if everyone can remember what their favorite meal was when they were kids, and let me know. I have got to get these guys to eat more of a healthful variety of food, or I'm going to go crazy!! Let me know if any of you have any ideas for me. Thanks!

Slithering Snake!

S has a pet snake! *ACK!*

It stays in his office and rarely see's the world outside his cage, but when he does, the Littles are quite amused.

Recently, Niko (the snake) was out of his cage so that when he returned he would have a fresh new home--but in the process he was exploring a Girl Scout Cookie box. Little Dan was pleased to keep an eye on him to make sure that he didn't escape the box, but then that didn't end up working so well when Niko eventually slithered out and tried to hide under the couch... My idea of helping was squealing like the girl that I am, until S came and put the snake back in his place.

Well, I suppose it wasn't that bad because Little Dan was thoroughly amused for about an hour, and then for the next hour proceeded to talk about the snake. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of snakes, they aren't all bad when they can occupy that much time with the littles :)

Happy Munchkin Monday!!

Ask & Ye Shall Receive

The Queen requested that I get to my computer and make a new Munchkin Monday Post, so here it is:

Well a few weeks ago I posted(Leaf Lovin Munchkins)about a fun day playing in the leaves with the kiddo's but I was unable to put up any corresponding photos. I decided that sense it is officially winter now in our part of the globe that I should make one last fall post for the year. So here are some great pictures of the Littles playing forever on a crisp, sunny, autumn day.

We started out with a tiny little pile, which of course was big enough for all of the fun. However after you jump into a crunchy leafy pile of fun enough time, it starts to flatten out. So its time to grab the rakes and make.... a huge pile! This pile was but on the slope of the yard, and at its tallest point, it measured about 3 1/2 feet, and it was sort of oval shaped 5 feet wide at the widest, and 4 feet wide at the narrowest point. This was no joke of a pile. So of course, I thought, "Hey that pile is so big I should be able to jump in it just like the kids!"After deciding it was large enough fro me to actually do so, I showed Little Ann how to snap a photo, and she caught me just as I was landing in the pile, on my butt, leaves crushing beneath me and flying around, as I slammed hard through the pile to the ground and knocked the wind out of myself! It was fun, but painful too, I won't make that mistake again!

After I got up there was sort of a dent. Little Ann thought that it would be really cool to have a leaf fort, so we grabbed our tunnel from the house, plopped it into the center and piled the top with more leaves. The kids had the time of their lives crawling through the tunnel and sitting in the middle of the leaves. There was no lack of laughter at our house that day! Just a great way to toss up some leaves and enjoy the lovely fall weather and scenery :)

Hopefully everyone got a chance to truely enjoy their fall seasons.. on with winter!

Leaf Lovin Munchkins!

Last week Little Ann had a day off of school... and what a better thing to do to pass the time but enlist her help in raking leaves! Only to make perfect piles to jump in though..naturally! So after spending a few minutes with rakes in hand, we had made a very nice pile. The rakes were dropped, and the kids were off!

Little Dan and Little Ann both enjoyed bouncing in the leaves very much! They were funny..after getting a head start from running across the lawn, they would take turns leaping into the piles, and momentarily disappearing in the great leafy abyss. Only to resurface themselves to have more jumps and bounds of fun!

Pictures to come :)

Munchkin Amusement

Every Morning, when Little Ann boards the bus, Little Dan and I go out to see her off. While we are out, we usually end up wandering over to the Neighbors and having a short morning play-date with the younger neighbor kids.

This morning was no different! We went off to visit the neighbors after the bus drove off into the sunrise. Of course the kids run full speed ahead to get into the house, and us adults walk more at a stroll. So when I peaked into the sun-room to see what they were up to, they were all crammed up by the door looking out at a little sleepy squirrel. I don't know if you can see the little fellow in this picture, but it was so cute and all I had on hand was my cell phone, so I had to snap a picture of them checking him out. They were so amused, and asking all kinds of questions about what he was doing there. It was adorable. I love it when the little wheels are in motion in children's brains. It is amazing to watch them take things in.



Happy Munchkin Monday!

Costumes...for the dogs and the kids!

Ok... Here is a group picture of the littles and the neighbors all on the front step in their costumes:

From left to right we have a princess, a mid evil princess, a star-wars character, an airplane and spider man. They all looked pretty cute, and went trick-or-treating together with their rents while I handed out the candy at the door.
When they returned, I went out to get Sami, and then to our favorite bar/restaurant for a Halloween bash. I was a ladybug, and Sami was a Jack-o-lantern. We looked pretty good if I do say so myself! And I won 6th place in the costume contest of about 40 or so people. Not too Shabby :)

(and don't worry, I had little boy short things on under that minuscule skirt so that nothing would show!)

And here is Zahra and her fresh fun new jacket! I think the color of it goes very well with her fur :)



So that is it for the costumes at our house! Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween last weekend, and had plenty of wonderful costumes of your own!