Just wanted to post a few pictures of the fun our kiddos have been having in the sprinkler this summer! We love it! This summer has felt so hot that even I have been in the sprinklers!
Happy 2nd Birthday Selah! July 9, 2011
So, Selah isn’t three yet, so I can’t be THAT behind in posting 😉 But we have a lot going on this summer I want to post about so I need to get going here!!
We had a wonderful time celebrating Selah’s 2nd birthday at the end of May. What a sweet blessing this girlie is to our family! We often sit back in amazement at God’s handiwork…this little one did not come from our genepool but she is in every way a Ross, through and through. We love her so dearly and thank God for her regularly. Here are some pics of her big day…thank you to our dear family for celebrating with us!
A Royal Event… May 29, 2011
I’m trying my best to get caught up on the blog before I post about our Sweet Selah’s 2nd birthday…I think this may be the last one before I do 🙂
Once Maddie caught wind of a Princess and Prince getting married I knew I’d have to plan some way for her to see the Royal wedding. We have a very low-tech t.v. so I knew I couldn’t record it to watch later in the day. So that meant either a) we watch the end of the wedding after she wakes up or b) we wake up super early and catch the whole thing. I chose B. And I am so glad I did!
Maddie just adores anything “princess-y” and fancy so I decided to really get into it. The night before I laid out her Cinderella wedding dress-up dress and paper crown and set her little table with china. I woke her up super-dooper early and brought her downstairs. It took her a little while to wake up but once she did she was totally sucked into the TV! We dined on yogurt parfaits, toast “sandwiches”, and tea. We ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘aaaah-ed’ over the pretty dresses and hats. And maybe we giggled a little when we saw the Prince 🙂 It was such a special memory with my sweet Maddie.
And where were the guys during this event? Once they woke up Ben took AJ to Dunkin’ Donuts for a much manlier breakfast. And our habitual early-riser, Selah, actually slept in til almost 8am that morning!
Try This Now! May 24, 2011
A little while back I had several friends…both in the real world and through blogs…reccommend making Banana “Ice Cream.” We got around to finally making some, and boy–you just gotta try this now!
Banana Ice Cream
1-2 very ripe bananas (peeled, cut up and frozen)
And thats it! You will need a food processor or blender. Take out the frozen bananas, stick them in the food masher-uper of your choice, and in a few moments you’ve got a delicious and healthy treat!
And, if you love to create, this dessert has endless (and not quite as healthy) possibilities! You could add in peanut butter or chocolate syrup. You could add a dollop of whipped cream on top! And a cherry! To make it a bit creamier you could add milk, almond milk or soy milk while blending. To make it a bit sweeter you could add in agave nectar or honey while blending.
My favorite combo so far is banana + agave nectar + vanilla almond milk. SO good!
So, go on out and get some bananas. And if you make it you’ll have to let me know your favorite combo 🙂
Our Easter 2011 May 6, 2011
We had a wonderful Easter this year. As per usual, we had the Easter celebration with both sets of grandparents, as well as my sister and her family, at our home. I love having this holiday at our place and I would love to host more family events—its just so fun to plan. Albeit, our modestly-sized home sometimes makes it a bit “COZY” to have everyone over, but we love it, just the same. Here are some pictures of the morning of and our family celebration.
Our Spring Happenings… April 25, 2011
In an attempt to get “caught up” (haha!) with some blogging, I will do a picture post today with some of the fun things we’ve been up to over here. Hopefully our Easter post will come soon 🙂 Highlights this spring include: Coloring Eggs and Decorating foam Eggs to decorate the house, Writing the letter “Ss” in corn meal ( pretend “Sand”), making homemade playdough for our “Pp” week and creating Rafts for our “Rr” Week. In new Ross family news, one can now find the three kids all laying in Selah’s crib in the mornings. Its so adorable! AJ often needs a boost up in there, but the three are content to laugh and play for a long time in there together. And our Selah just recently got her first satin sleeping cap, which has been recommended to us to help maintain the moisture in her hair and protect her hairstyles a bit better. She looks so stinkin’ cute in that thing!! Hope you are all doing well and enjoying Spring in your homes, too!
Today was a Big Day! February 17, 2011
Item #1: A.J. found the perfect slingshot stick today at the museum walking paths. We have been researching how to make the perfect sling shot with daddy. We’ll keep you posted 🙂
Item #2: Selah is so stinkin’ cute. Okay, I guess that’s not really “Big Day” material because she always has been, but I didn’t want her feeling left out.
Item #3: Maddie read a sentence for the first time! (The real purpose of this post 😉 )Actually, it was a title to a book she brought over to me today. She wanted to know what it was called. We hadn’t read this book in a really long time, but I wanted to see if maybe she could figure out some of the words by sounding them out. And she did! It took quite a bit of time and I realized I never explained what it meant to “blend” sounds together, so I had to quickly try to explain it to her, and she got it! It was quite a moment of success for both Mommy and Maddie! So very proud of my little girly! Tonight again before bedtime A.J. asked if we could read the book together (he was proud of Maddie but I think also feeling a bit left-out) and I told Maddie to chime in whenever she wanted to sound out a word. She did a great job! By the end she recognized/read “Jack” ,”Jill”, “and”, “big”, “dog”, “up”, and “Bill”! And not to be outdone, A.J. chimed in too, though I think he just has a great memory and wasn’t really reading. 😉
It felt like such a privilege to witness this “first” with my girly! At times I don’t take advantage of those “ordinary” moments with my kids as I would like to, so I’m grateful God helped me to slow down and spend that “teachable moment” with my little girl. And I think it made both of us even more excited for what’s to come!!
And then He Turned Four… February 5, 2011
How did this happen? How did my two year old suddenly turn four? It really does feel like it all happened so fast. FOUR years with our Anderson Jay! FOUR! Wow. This Momma really can’t take it in 🙂
We had a wonderful day celebrating our dear A.J. This kid makes us laugh–he had the hardest time deciding what kind of cake he wanted me to make. First it was Cowboy. Then it was a Ninja cake. Then it was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake. Then it was “I’m really sure it will be a Cowboy cake.” Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, he firmly decided on Pirate. I have secretly wanted him to choose a pirate theme for the past 6 months now because I had ideas of pirate cakes. I had no idea for what to do for a cowboy or ninja cake. God was kind 😉 So we went for the Pirate theme. I love trying to plan a special cake for the kids but its always a bit of a nervous time for me. This time, while I had AJ’s cake cooling, cut in half (on purpose :)) on the cooling rack, one half some how flew into the air and landed on the floor! In three big chunks! I was so glad I had just cleaned the floor because there was no way I was throwing that cake away and starting over!!! And actually, when you put lots of icing over chunks of chocolate cake, it really kind of works 🙂
The morning of his birthday AJ requested, what else, but GREEN pancakes and BLUE bacon. Sadly, I didn’t know how to make bacon blue, so he said that was okay, as long as the pancakes were really green. And they were. I should have taken a picture of that. It was sort of hard to get past the color. But AJ loved them.
The birthday child also gets to choose the dinner on their birthday. AJ chose CAKE. Yes, cake for dinner. So we did 🙂
But before dinner we went to Ballocity. It’s this great new kids ball pit/tubes/slides place. We had a blast!
I love birthdays for so many reasons, but most of all, I love having a day that we set aside to thank God for the blessing of that particular person. AJ has been such a blessing in my life. There have been challenges, as all parents can agree to in raising a child, but the joys and the blessings far outweigh any challenge. This boy has a special place in my heart and I love the bond that God has created between us. He is my bestest cuddler. He is so sweet and so loyal. He is 100% passionate, for good or for bad. And he is so creative, bright, clever, witty, and just adorable. We thank God for our Anderson Jay Whitefield Ross and simply cannot imagine our lives without him.
Happy birthday buddy boy! Momma loves you!
Our Christmas! January 21, 2011
This year was by far our favorite Christmas since having children. The kids are at such great ages, are so excited and grateful and just enjoy being with us and their family. I wanted to bottle it up!
Christmas celebrations, in my book, start with the making of Christmas cookies. This has been a long standing tradition in my family that the girls all get together to make cookies. This year was especially fun because Maddie was actually a real help and enjoyed the day and because my grandparents joined us as well. My mom’s house was full of good company, lots of laughs, and loads of cookies.
Next was our annual Gingerbread house project. Oh boy. I bought such a high-maintenance house kit, unbeknown to me. That thing was stressful. But we still had a great time with our sweet kiddos.
Then Christmas Eve…what a treat! We had our service in a beautiful old church building in Shillington. Some hightlights of the service for me was a real organ, singing Silent Night by candlelight and conducting my very first Children’s choir with my dear friend Jenni. I wish I had pictures of that night–I think it will forever be a sweet memory. Oh, and did I mention A.J. actually slept through the entire service?! I have no idea why…he wasnt sick or anything, he just must have been really tired!
This year we had Christmas morning at our house with Ben’s parents and then we all went over to my parents house around lunchtime to celebrate there with a Christmas meal.
We feel truly blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to celebrate God sending Jesus for us, every day, but in this special holiday of Christmas as well. Hope you all had a very blessed Christmas season!
Merry Christmas from the Ross Family! December 22, 2010
For many reasons, we have decided not to do a formal Christmas card this year. So, here is our cyber-greeting 🙂 No, its not the most personal, but know our hearts and minds are thinking of you all, our dear friends and family, this special season. Have a wonderful Christmas, full of love for the Savior, who came as a baby to save His people. Merry Christmas!
A Day in the Life... 