Our Cupcake Is Turning 4

Our Cute Little Cupcake is turning 4 this weekend. Where has the time gone. We had fun little Cupcake Party with a few of her little friends.



The invitations went out to a couple little friends!!!

The table was set, the banners were made (thanks to Lori and her help), the gift bags were ready, the cake was decorated and the hats were waiting for the little girls to wear!

What a cute little Birthday Girl!!!!

The girls made little purse with fun foam!

There were a lot of giggles as they played "Pin The Cherry On The Cupcake!"

The candles were lit, Happy Birthday was sung and then the cake and ice cream was eaten!
We had a fun morning with our Little Cupcake and her friends. It's going to be birthday weekend with more pictures to come!

I Scream,You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream

Alexa is doing a unit right now on ICE CREAM!! Who doesn't love to eat ice cream? We went to Cold Stone Creamery on a nice below zero, blustery day!! The kids sure didn't care how cold it was, they were very excited to eat some ice cream. They thought it was pretty neat that they got to go in the kitchen where it said on the door "Ice Cream Makers Only." They learned about how they make their ice cream. They saw the ins and outs of the kitchen. They got to pick their ice cream with one topping. Alexa picked cotten candy with marshmallows. There were some great combinations. The best had to be Cotton Candy with Reeces PeanutButter cups. It made me kringe just looking at it! The best part was saved for last ..... EATING THE ICE CREAM!

The Things They Say

Emma is our little expressive child. She uses her hands when she talks and tends to roll or bat her eyes or tip her head. She just has that way about her. A couple things she has said lately just had to be written down. The first, Emma and Alexa went to a movie the other weekend with papa and grammy. They went to eat at the Outback as well. A couple days later she told me she really loves eating at the Outfront. The second was the other day when she home from preschool very excited because her teacher and her both wore frognecks that day. I was a little confused about the frognecks thinking it was something fun they did in preschool. She then informed me "no you know mom, frognecks" (while pulling on her shirt neck). I finally got it I said, "Oh you mean turtlenecks!"

What's A Boy To Do With 2 Girls In The House

Shane is all boy but there are times he just wants to play with the girls. There are other times he's not sure what he wants to play with ... his toys or the girls toys. It wasn't working too well to play basketball with his high heals on (notice the neclaces too). He decided to take a break and take care of the baby instead. I have to say he is pretty cute when he's taking care of the babies. I'm sure he'll love it someday that his mom took these pictures.

Alexa The Little Sponge

Alexa is like a little sponge right now. She loves to learn and is always asking me to help her try new things, read new words, spell different words ...... She has a love for learning and is very self motivated. She goes to a preschool that is right up her alley. The teacher does not have the year planned out but instead they develop their units based on what the students are interested in. Their language, music, motor skills, math and art are all centered around that theme. This type of learning is right up Alexa's alley since she is also very creative. She has been interested in learning about the body and dug up all the books I had on the body and took them to preschool. Some of her friends caught the body bug so her teacher has started a unit on the body. She is thrilled. She came home yesterday informing us that her favorite body part was her esophagus. Eric and I looked at each other like wow not your hands, feet, heart or even brain but the esophagus! Here is one of her little projects she did with her body unit.

The Little Red Dot From The Little Blue Pill

I have to go back in time and share a story about our sweet Emma that happened before Christmas. This is one of those stories that will be told numerous times but I have to have it written down somewhere. Emma is our little girls that has a love for life. She is our party girl and lives life to the fullest. She also is one of those kids that is just mischievous, not naughty, just curious. Her curiosity often gets the best of her along with the fact that she just can't help herself. She also loves candy and treats so keep that in mind. Monday, December 10 Emma woke up around 6 am which is not like her and started to throw up. My first thought was oh no not the flu. Eric was going to be out of town for the week and my niece who is 4 was going to be staying with us. I could picture flu going through the gang. It seems like the flu hits when Eric is out of town. Emma was just feeling pretty miserable but no one else got it. On Wednesday morning Emma woke up with 2 rather large pimples on her chin. Very odd I thought to myself. I didn't know a 3 year old could get large pimples with white heads on them. On Thursday morning I opened a new birth control pack and saw a little blue pill missing right in the middle of the pack. Everything started to make sense. I asked my sweet, curious little Emma if she ate one of mommy's pills and she sheepishly responded with a "yes"! The poor thing had to feel miserable with all those hormones in her 3 year old little body. She said she wanted to see what they tasted like. She would tell people she had a big owey from mommy's pill. So lessons learned by Emma - don't eat mommy's pill and even if it looks like candy that doesn't always mean it is. Lessons learned by mom - keep your birth control pills out of the reach of Emma. Most of Emma' s December pictures have a little red dot on her chin from the little blue pill. This isn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last time when Emma's curiosity gets the best of her!

Photo Shoot Mishaps

Happy New Year

I can't believe it is January 9 already!! It seems like we are just starting to get back in the groove after the Holidays. I spent 3 days scrapbooking this weekend and came to the conclusion that I have taken way too many pictures this past year (since I got a new camera). Actually I'm glad I've taken all the pictures I just have to stop trying to scrapbook them all in each of the kids books. But as I mentioned earlier Eric got me a new lens for my camera so it looks like it will be a year of a lot of pictures again. My kids are going to love me. Here are some pictures from our first photo shoot practicing with the new lens. Stay tuned tomorrow I'm going to try to post some of the mishaps or the "mom are we done yet" pictures!

New Addition To The McDonald Family

We have a new addition to the McDonald family! We had 3 babies in 3 years but now that Shane is 2 1/2 we decided that we were ready to expand our family. We weren't ready for another baby and don't feel like we are ready for or have room for a puppy so we decided on a fish. Mom is excited about the quiet, low maintance addition. The kids were very excited to go and pick him out, his bowl, rocks and even the plant. They take turns feeding him, make sure they say good morning and good night and today Alexa was even singing to him. They decided on the name Sammy after some discussions with dad. The original name was Princess but since he's a boy dad talked them into coming up with a boy name!

We'll keep you posted on how Sammy is doing. The girls are a little worried about Shane trying to take Sammy out to play. To tell you the truth I am a little nervous about what Shane might do too!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we had Eric's side over to celebrate Christmas. The day was beautiful. It was one of those perfect, peaceful snows. We had big flakes lightly falling, I only wish I had taken a picture. We started the morning out with a yummy brunch. We had an egg bake and the McDonald's family coffee cake. Every year we also have pineapple dipped in sour cream and brown sugar. The very first Christmas with the McDonalds I wasn't sure about that combo but you'll have to try it for yourself it is pretty yummy! It was nice to spend time as a family as Grammy Sue took off this week for 3 months of some missions and AIDS work in Africa.

The kids once again loved their gifts. They were all pretty easy to please this year. The girls are wearing their aprons they got from aunt Molly and Shane is sportin' his engineer outfit from Grammy Sue. The girls and cousin Callie had fun with their new dot paints. Shane joined in too for awhile but seemed to get more on his body and face than on his paper.

We were all very thankful that baby Zach was home from the hospital and that we could love on him this Christmas. Isn't he a sweetheart! We ended the day with a yummy prime rib dinner and Eric's mom's famous cheese cake!

Christmas Eve

We started celebrating our Christmas as a family on Christmas Eve when Alexa was a baby. We wanted to have a time that we are able to start and continue special traditions with the kids. The last 5 years we have had a yummy dinner of crab legs. We've decided to stay with the seafood dinner theme for our Christmas Eve dinner but didn't do crab legs this year. Eric made a yummy seafood pasta with shrimp and scallops. As you can see Shane isn't enjoying it one bit! We also like to do the little devotional activity "What God wants for Christmas" during the season and end it on Christmas Eve. We also typically like to do a Happy Birthday Jesus Cake. That didn't get baked this year. It seemed like we had so many sweets around and the evening flew by. The kids also had 2 Happy Birthday Jesus parties in church and preschool already this year.

After we ate we headed off to church for our Christmas Eve service. The kids were mesmerized by all the candles and loved being part of the candle lighting. We usually ride around and look at Christmas lights but since we went to a little later service we headed home to open presents instead.

The girls loved their bathrobes and the talking babies have been a hit. You can also see by their reaction (the two of them hugging) that they loved their beauty salon! Shane got into opening presents this year too. Last year he was much more into the paper and boxes. His big surprise and the highlight of his Christmas was his choo, choo!! This is a picture of him waiting for the unveiling. He could hardly contain himself while daddy put it together! Eric surprised me with a new camera lens. Stay tuned for snow pictures. I was able to take pictures of the kids in the snow from the house. You have to love being able to take close up snow pictures from the warmth of the house. I have some camera studying to do now!

Santa Comes For A Visit

Santa came to our house a day early this year. We put in a request since we had all day on Monday to spend as a family. We thought it would be nice to just enjoy the day. Christmas morning we knew would be a little more crazy as we would be getting ready for family to come for the day. Alexa was thrilled with the Ariel doll she requested and as you can see Emma got her baby doll. Santa always seems to get just the right thing. Shane loved all his trucks and trains. Alexa is doing the Santa dance when she saw that he brought them a Hello Kitty CD player for their room and some books on CD. Shane got a small CD player too. They are loving their players and at nap and night love going to sleep with their praise music playing. It is so cute to listen by Shane's door and hear him singing along 2 year old style.