What's On Our Happy List?

A whole bunch of randomness...

which includes these delectable Coldstone ice-cream cupcakes to celebrate Hannah's 10th birthday.

We celebrated with family and are planning an "Amazing Race" themed birthday party (based from our favorite TV show) for her and her friends.

Hannah's TOP TEN favorite things at ten yrs old...

1. chocolate anything...chocolate chip pancakes, nutella, snickers, pudding...

2. rollerblading

3. drawing

4. playing the Wii

5. Necco wafers

6. riding her bike

7. going to the park with friends

8. playing barbies

9. watching Disney's "Good Luck Charlie"

10. playing with sisters

Hannah is a sweetheart! I haven't had a chance yet to toot my horn about her end of year accomplishments.. I'm so proud of her because school work is not always the easiest thing for her but she still gets good grades and even more important she is calm, respectful and kind in the classroom. At the end of the school year she got awarded Honors in Citizenship and recognition for incredible writing workshop stories. Way to be Nanna Bella!

Here is "Miss Chubby" at three months old... We all just melt when she coos and smiles. Here she is a talk'in away...telling stories to her namesake Grandma Bell. I've never had a baby sleep like her in the night. She usually goes about a 6 hour stretch but one night this week she went down at 10:15 and didn't need to eat until almost 8 hours later. She drank 4 oz. and went back to sleep until almost 10:00 a.m. Love this kid!

Toast 'n Toes...breakfast out and pedi's with two of my girlfriends on a Saturday morning. Such fun! Here is proof that I still have swollen feet!!!!.... Ugh!

The cousin sleepover

There are 25 grand kids and almost 9 great grand kids on my side of the family. Even with me being the baby of the family, by quite a few years, there are still plenty cousins my kid's ages. It is such a blessing. My kids adore their cousins! They look forward to cousin get-togethers and sleepovers like nothing else. We hosted the latest one. I sent them off to complete a list of 8 different challenges to not only entertain them (knowing it was going to be a looonngg night) but also to earn their midnight ice cream sundae bar. Some of the tasks included teaming up to drink a Slurpee within 5 minutes, buying a different colored gumball for each person from the candy machine in the mall, soda cracker/whistle contest, singing a song to a store clerk, 1 person had to jump in a pool fully dressed (which they all ended up wanting to do) and so forth....

brain freeze

This is what they earned. If you ever want a sugar rush just make ice-cream sandwiches with pop tarts! They played rock band, indulged in ice cream madness close to midnight, and had their standard pickles and cheese at 3:00 a.m. The older kids ran around the yard about every hour on the hour, watched movies, laughed and talked until 6:00, some even made it to 7:00 AM!!! Pretty darn crazy if you ask me.

Love these guys...

A few weeks back some of the grand kids went exploring in Grandma and Grandpa's basement and found the access way to the dark, creepy crawl space that led to the furnace. For whatever reason the kids never knew, all these years, that this area of the house even existed. They had no idea what is was! One little nephew suggested they throw a rock into the darkness to see if there was a pool of water. haha... As if they'd come across some pirate cove or dark abyss! The night's adventure was a mystery for them that included hinges..hollow sounds behind walls and numbers to break the code! Apparently we have kids with wild imaginations and or they are reading way too much Harry Potter and Nancy Drew. lol. My older brother played into the younger kid's naivety telling of hearing monster noises in the night as he and another brother were growing up sleeping in the basement. LOL The little one's eyes were as big as saucers. They were freak'in and the adults were laughing...

And boy did we ever get a hoot when their snooping unearthed this "treasure". Waiting to see what the contents were in this forgotten suitcase produced quite the reaction. Especially seeing pieces of a mink shawl from a great great grandma. It looked like a dead animal. Needless to say we were ALL wigg'in!

Their reactions were priceless!

Because of their fascination with discovering these items from so long ago they decided it would be cool to make a time capsule of their own to hide, which they did, and placed in the crawl space a week later. Had to take a picture when ten of them braved their way and fit into this tight cobwebbed hide away.

and finally....

Glovables

you mise well be in style while you clean

there lovable, laughable and suppose to make you smile while you do housework....

Got them just in time for the kids summer chores! For some reason Kyleigh didn't find the situation as funny as I did though. LOL