Don't you just feel the love?

What's cooking?

Caleb and Camille decided to make a dirt cake yesterday. You can't see the cake, but here is Caleb hard at work while Camille watches.


It was pretty chilly outside so Rob thought Chloe should be extra bundled in the stroller. Here she is smiling at Daddy!


This weekend Camille and I made some really yummy cupcakes. They were called Hummingbird cupcakes and were full of bananas, sweet potato and pineapple. The best part was the caramel icing. It was super easy to make and so tasty! Here's the icing recipe:

Melt 1 cup butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 2 cups of packed brown sugar and whisk until smooth. Bring to a boil and let boil 1 minute. Take off heat and let cool 5 minutes. Whisk in 1/2 cup milk. Whisk in 6 cups powdered sugar until smooth. Use immediately as icing will harden as it cools. Makes 4 cups of icing.

The recipe was in the January issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

Caleb was out of school for three days this week (celebrating MLK Day and then two teacher work days) so we had a lot of family fun time. Here's a quick shot of Rob and the kids. We woke Rob up with breakfast in bed and then horsed around for a while before heading off to the living room for another wrestling match.

Here's a picture of our sweet Camille.

So since we've not been blogging much lately, here are some highlights...
Watching the road

Camille the sassy dragon

Cute Chloe

A sweet Caleb expression

Caleb holding a block of ice he found in the yard


Here are some pictures of Chloe from this past weekend. Rob took the big kids to visit his mom so Chloe and I spent three very restful days playing, working on a quilt and baking some fabulous granola.



While they were there, they enjoyed playing in the snow - a whopping inch or two fell.

A Guest from the Zoo

We had a guest today - a monkey escaped from the zoo!

Chloe's two chompers


We put Caleb's hair in spikes the other day. His hair is so thick that despite the quantities of goo we put in there, this 'do only lasted about fifteen minutes.


And sweet Camille decided that our day should start at 5 am. Never mind that Mom was up late doing schoolwork or that kids sneaked into her bed one at a time. By the time Camille woke us all up, all three kids were in bed with me. I won't tell you which ones are bed hogs! Anyway, Camille was lucky to make it to bedtime (which did come early tonight). Here she is around 3:00 in the afternoon, barely able to keep her eyes open then!

In cleaning out our closets, we came up with this old checkers set. I tossed it in the bin to bring to the Salvation Army, but the kids salvaged it. Now it's one of their favorite games. It's pretty funny to watch both Caleb and Camille play, particularly because neither of them is really solid on the rules (go figure!).

Here is Caleb. Note how serious he is in these pictures.


Camille wanted to swing. When she was banished from the baby swing (she got stuck in it the last time around), she scoured the yard for something else to swing on. The choices were pretty pathetic, hence Camille decided to try to swing on the garden hose. It didn't really work. Perhaps I'll take her to the park tomorrow.

And Chloe spends her time outside eating leaves and being cute!

Red and the Camera Hog

Caleb is the one I am having the hardest time snapping photos of - he's in school all day and when he gets home he tends to be tired and grumpy. These pictures are from yesterday. It was so warm here (high 60s) that the first thing he did when he got home was strip off his shirt and shoes. He is wearing shorts, although you can't tell in these pictures. I think it's obvious that he didn't want his picture taken...





Camille, on the other hand, is my camera hog. If she sees the camera, she's more likely than not to jump in front of it, or at least to pose dramatically.

Feasting on Nature's Goodness

Happily making a snack out of some old leaves.




On a serious note, Chloe has decided that at 7 1/2 months, she is old enough to feed herself. She completely refuses to be spoon fed and insists on feeding herself finger foods. Fortunately she is remarkably good at it for such a little baby. And I've learned that if you choose the right foods it's remarkably non-messy. She had corn for lunch and asparagus for dinner. I've learned she will choose peas over corn and just about anything over carrots when given the choice.

Now if she'll just learn to change her diaper, too, there will be much less work for me to do!

Overheard at Our House

So we were all sitting down to eat chinese food for lunch one day and I asked the kids if they knew what animal pork came from.

Camille gets all excited and shouts: "I do! It's a porcupine! Pork. Porcupine. See?"

Needless to say, we all got a big chuckle out of it!

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The next day we went to the grocery store. As we passed through the produce aisle, Camille pointed to a fruit and exclaimed, "Look! There's a porcupineapple!"

Rollins Wrestling Federation

Every night after dinner the kids look forward in participating in the RWF - Rollins Wrestling Federation. Caleb and Camille do their best to take down Daddy (which usually includes a running start from the end of the hallway) and nearly always end up in fits of giggles. Even Chloe likes to get in on the action sometimes.

Caleb caught in Daddy's grip

How did this happen?

Chloe takes on Camille. Watch out...she fights dirty!

Don't be fooled...This hug soon turned aggressive...

No wrestling match is complete without a display of muscles. Camille found something funny - Caleb's muscles perhaps?

Even Chloe flexes for the camera

Cute kids

Christmas in Vermont

Since Rob graduated from school and had some extra vacation time built up, we took a slightly extended trip to Vermont for the holidays. Typically we spend Christmas at home with our little family and then visit my family afterwards for another Christmas celebration. The kids were excited to see that Santa was able to find them even at Nana and Papa's house.

Here they are in front of Nana's tree


We got some great presents this year. The kids got a big set of nice blocks, Rob got a guitar and we got a digital SLR camera. Nice! We're still learning (i.e. trying to get through the manual) but here are some snapshots of the kids.

Caleb who seldom smiles for the camera these days

Camille - with her hair in her face as usual

A very smiley Chloe

Camille's Birthday Recap

Camille turned three a few weeks ago. Since her birthday falls just five days before Christmas, it's hard to keep the two separate. We had a special day at home on her actual birthday. She opened a few presents (including a CD of Barbie princess movie songs that I'm almost embarrassed to admit I like as much as Camille does), played with her brother outside, visited with Rob's grandparents who were on vacation from Florida, and went to eat at her favorite restaurant - Golden Corral.

We had our "big" celebration when we were in Vermont with my family. My aunt made this Barbie cake - Camille was so thrilled! She had been talking about having a Barbie cake for more than a month. She called it her "Genevieve cake" as it looked slightly like the role Barbie plays in The 12 Dancing Princesses.

Smiling with her princess cake.


So excited about this dress. It says "Ballerina Princess" on it!