100 days

All throughout the school-year, Ragen will randomly tell me how many days they've been in school. I figured it must be a fun way of learning to count to higher numbers. Sure enough, today was the 100th day of school and they celebrated this accomplishment. He had to turn in a 100 day project which entailed collecting 100 items. It could be anything - legos, pennies, paper clips, etc...Ragen chose crystals. Of course we don't have many crystals laying around so we made a trip to Michaels to get some super fancy crystals. They also celebrated "Zero the Hero", made a puppet and sang a song about him. All the kids came out of school today wearing these crazy 100 day hats and how many stickers do you think is on each hat? That's right...100.

Hope Heart

Saturday night we had the opportunity to be a part of the On Wings of Hope Gala hosted by the Hope Heart Institute and it was a crazy fun time! The rocker chic affair was held at the Sodo Showbox and featured an auction as well as dinner and the band Everclear. They raised over $600,000 for heart research. The event was extra personal because the featured speakers (and co-chairs for the event) were our dear friends Rob & Vanessa Strickland. They lost Rob's son Shawn to a heart defect at age 13. They spoke eloquently about what it was like for Shawn and how important the research is. The committee made sure to pay attention to every small detail which made for an extremely memorable evening. We were honored to be a part of it all!

One of the many details - an airbrush tattoo artist doing the Gala logo tattoos

Keri & Jeremy

Vanessa & Keri

The slide on the screen while Rob & Vanessa spoke about Shawn. They had a firefighter on stage also because Shawn had a full Boston firefighters funeral)

Dee & Jeff Reiff - love her tattoo placement!

Upgrading Bellevue

Bellevue finally has gotten a new "every day" restaurant that is so fabulous. You have got to try it! As much as I love all the fancy new additions to our sleepy little city (I really never thought I'd see the day where we had to pay for parking in Bellevue), we need more quick in and out places to eat. Especially with kids. That's why MOD Pizza on Bellevue Way is so great. They are super fast, super yummy pizzas with tons of topping choices. Best of all, each pizza is only $5.88! They have great salads too. Two thumbs up!

MOD Pizza - Made On Demand

Ski bum!

Ragen has really warmed up to skiing. He was sort of indifferent in the beginning but seems to have found his groove now that they're going faster and taking the chair lift up. It's so fun to watch my little guy! Now the rest of the fam just needs to start skiing again so we can keep up.

Oh, and I hate my voice on video...

A teeny tiny treat

How cute are these? My mom made these tiny treats with Maggie last week and I thought I'd share because it's such a fun activity for the kiddos. So easy too! They reminded me of a post Bakerella had last year that was so creative.

All you need to do...

Use 2 Nilla Wafer cookies as the buns, a mini York peppermint patty for the burger, and colored frosting for the condiments. If you want, you can put them into the microwave for a few seconds to soften up the Nilla Wafers a bit.

So easy & fun!!

Heart Day

I hope everyone had a very loving Valentine's Day! Here are a few highlights from this heart-filled holiday.


I wanted to do a little something for all 4 of the kids' teachers but I figured they probably didn't need another box of chocolates. So I made them each their own simple set of customized notecards. Who can't use more stationery, right?!

Maggie concentrating on perfect frosting to cookie ratios at her class party. I loved how the apples were placed on each kids plate however very few ever were eaten.

Ragen is hard at work decorating his Valentine mailbox. I have to admit - it's going to be really hard for me to relinquish arts & crafts duty for the kids. I told him that he could place the Star Wars stickers all over the mailbox (of course assuming there would be methodical yet random placement throughout) and he was compelled to line them up end to end in a not-so-perfect way. My type-A personality took a hit that day.

Ragen's classroom set up for his party
Ragen's mailbox along side his buddy Zachary's. Zach made R4-D4 who happens to be R2-D2's not so famous friend.
Other mailboxes made by Ragen's friends

One of the games at Ragen's party - grabbing conversation hearts with chopsticks. He was surprisingly talented!
Growing up, my mom decorated the breakfast table every Valentine's day so it's something I've done for the kids each year. I sort of forgot to run to the party store this year so I ended up with only a few decorations. They were thrilled regardless!

Something I didn't get a picture of: Brunch in West Seattle with the Kiefer family on Valentine's morning. As if the sugary treats that morning weren't enough, at one point I looked over at the table and Maggie was drinking the syrup out of the little pitcher. Let's just say that trying to run errands with the kids after a major sugar rush isn't the best idea. I honestly believe that outing might have been one of the 5 worst all time errands trips with kids. UGH!