a peanut for the lil peanut

My dear friend's daughter celebrated her first birthday this weekend.  She is a teeny-tiny little ray of sunshine and because of her petite-ness they all call her "lil peanut".  In loo of her nick-name, they themed her birthday "Circus" and had peanuts, old circus posters, red and white stripes hanging from the ceiling to look like a circus tent, and momma even made her a little black top hat!  She had found a picture of  a knit peanut "doll" and asked if I could make one for a present for lil birthday girl.  Now, we both searched for a pattern, but neither of us could find one.  So, I had to improvise and make it up as I went!  I personally loved how it turned out, super cute and a little whimsy.

To my dear peanut,
I love you so much sweet baby!
And although you are not really mine, I love you like you are.
Life would be less without you and I am so thankful that God has give you to us!
Love,
Me

sauder's village

My friend (see her blog here) had free tickets to use for Sauder's Village, but she needed 4 adults to go to use them!  So, we got a couple of us mommas around and all 6 of our boys and treked out for the morning.  We all had a good time and it was so nice to have the boys play and the moms talk.  What a great day of fellowship and fun!

The boys had a great time playing in the kid's house!

They feared the fake cow at first, but then decided milking it was pretty fun!

Lots of fun animals to see and pet!

Miss Lynn showed the boys where all the frogs were in the pond.  

This may have been their favorite spot!

Train Ride!

He held my hand like this the entire ride

 sigh

 I love my boy!

imagination station 8.16.11

 Jer has been asking to go to the Imagination Station for a couple weeks now.  As much as I love taking him, it is never near as fun (or intimidating) for Jer if he goes with other kids to play with.  So, we recruited Jer's besties to go with us this time and they had a blast!

Working the robot

 flinging things on the turntable

 Even the little one got in on the fun!

 My favorite fire fighters!

 
I just love all these kiddos!  Thanks for coming with us!

drawing

I had to post this.  It's a picture my lil J-man drew last week.  It is of himself and his "girlfriend" Astrid from the "How to Train Your Dragon" movie.  He loves her so much. . . .

That's him on the left side, holding her hand.  Astrid is in the middle.  Now the weird things coming off her torso, towards the bottom, are the leather pieces of her skirt and the spikes (see below).  The two round things at the bottom of Astrid are her feet (I originally thought he had her anatomy wrong, whoops!)