Wordless Wednesday

Paisley’s expression says it all:

Semi-Homemade Lollipops

This weekend I decided to do a little lollipop making with the eldest child. I saw this online quite a while ago & now I can’t remember where I saw it. Anyway, we started off with these items: Jolly Ranchers, parchment paper (wax paper does not work, learn from my mistakes people), lollipop sticks (I got ours at Michaels), & lollipop wrappers (again from Michaels).

First, heat up the ol’ oven to about 200 degrees. We simply laid the Jolly Ranchers out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper like so:

Throw them (gently) into the oven & check on them every few minutes. I think ours took about 8ish minutes. The longer you leave them in the bigger & thinner the lollipop. This picture here is from our first batch. In my opinion they were too thin & large. The next batch was better, but of course I didn’t take a picture of those. That would have been too convenient. When they first come out of the oven, lay the lollipop stick where you want them and roll it gently on the candy to cover the stick on all sides.

I wrapped them all in the lollipop bags & tied them with a little yellow ribbon. So cute! 

McGill Party of 4

Last night was one of my favorite nights as a family of 4 that we have had thus far. After Sunday naps (for Joe & Elle…Paisley wasn’t too keen on napping), Joe mowed the lawn, then we took off for dinner at Steak N Shake. First of all, I haven’t had Steak N Shake for years (we had a gift certificate). Man, was it good, greasy but good.

Now on to my point. It was odd how much we felt like a family. Now, I know we’ve been a family since Joe & I married 6+ years ago but it felt official last night. Until now we were just Joe & Kelli who happened to have a kid that we took care of. But now with 2 it officially feels like a family. I had this weird sort of out of body experience where I was able to look at our us sitting there & see a nice young growing family. It was kinda cool. From the outside looking in, we were a husband and wife with a bubbly 3 year old & an adorable newborn. We filled up an entire booth, for crying out loud!

Anyway, I’m sure you all knew I had a family of my own…but I just really figured it out last night. Hopefully my babbling was understandable.

Correspondence

I was just working on some long overdue thank you notes & Elle decided to work on her correspondence as well. She made a birthday card for her friend Eliot. Sure his birthday isn’t until May, but I couldn’t break her heart. Plus, she wrote his name on the envelope…how cute! Inside all she did was write was “EL EL”. Look how well her letters are coming along

NYC or Bust

Plane tickets are purchased & the hotel is booked. Watch out NYC, Joe & Kelli are heading your way (in a few months). I am so excited! We went to NYC for our honeymoon and actually stayed here. It was AMAZING! We can’t justify spending that kind of money this time around, but this will be a fun place to stay. Spending some time with Joe away from distractions from work, band, kids and life in general sounds so nice. It will be an early 7th anniversary for us. This time I think we’ll be doing the less touristy things. We’ve done the big stuff already, this time we’ll probably spend time in some of the quainter area (quaint probably isn’t a good word to describe NYC, but you know what I mean). Now I just have to patiently wait…patience isn’t my best quality.