Boys, Cars, and a BIG Backyard!

This morning when we left the house, it was 40˚F outside. The next thing I know it, it's a beautiful 70˚F day! Outside we go of course! Kai and Kona love riding around the backyard in their big cars. And they are such good drivers. Seriously. They can steer, reverse, all that good stuff. Haha. Here are some pictures I took on my phone of them today :)

And here's a video of them driving. They are so cute!

I wish everyday could be like this. Sun shining. Perfect weather.

(But I do like a little snow every once in a while. Hehe. Just saying.)

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

Sammy's First Ice Skating Competition

This past Saturday, Sammy participated in her first ever ice skating competition. And guess what... she won two 1st Place medals! How awesome is that?! We were all so proud of her. But no one was as proud and happy as Sammy :)

Here are some pictures of Sammy out on the ice. Isn't she so cute!

She did a routine to "My Girl" by The Temptations.

Sammy sitting atop her ZUCA bag with a bouquet of flowers.

Oh yeah! First Place!

Kiko, Sammy, and Phylicia.

2 Nannies :)

Sammy can't wait for her next ice skating competition. And neither can we. Haha.

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

Kalahari Waterpark Mini Vacation

[All photos taken from the Kalahari Resorts Website]

[I wasn't going to get my camera wet! Hehe.]

This past weekend we visited the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH. It has an indoor and outdoor waterpark. According to the website, it's "America's Largest Indoor Waterpark". Cool. Of course, it being Spring in Ohio, only the indoor waterpark was open. Perfect. We had so much fun. We went there to celebrate Sammy's 6th Birthday. Phylicia was on a trip (which I'm sure she'd love to tell you all about, right Phylicia? haha) so it was only me (Kiko - just one nanny) who went with the family. I didn't take any pictures however because I did not feel like bringing any electronics into the waterpark. Haha. So I sadly have no cute wet baby pictures to show any of you (sorry Phylicia.)

Kalahari is set up so well. There is a nice kids area with small slides and swings, with water only a foot deep. The boys stayed there all day. Up and down. Up and down. There was also a wave pool. Sammy loved that. But what she really loved was the indoor/outdoor hot tub. Yes. Sammy girl LOVES hot tubs. :) You have to be six years old and over to go in. So Sammy luckily just made the cut. Poor Kai Kai, no hot tubbing for him. And of course there were a lot of great grown-up rides. The parents and I took turns going on some with each other. They were really fun.

Besides the waterpark, the resort was so cool. There is a HUGE arcade/game room with over 100 games. The kids loved that! We played this motorcycle game non-stop. Sammy, Kona, and I on one bike. Kai and AJ (their dad) on the other. Race. Race. Race. Kona loved playing Fruit Ninja on a big TV. It was like a little dream for that boy. Sammy kept hitting the jackpot on all those spin the wheel games. We ended up with about two thousand tickets. Which sure did take a while to cash in for prizes. Haha.

There was also mini golf, a jungle gym-ish play area, bowling, and so much more. Yummy treats. Ice cream, cotton candy, Krispy Kremes, caramel apples galore. The restaurants had such yummy food. (Not good for the weight loss competition, but hey, I was on a vacation, right?) We stayed there from Friday to Monday. I even got to leave on Sunday morning to go to church for Easter, and I was able to make it back for lunch. It's only a 75 minute drive from our house. Awesome. All in all I'd say we had a wonderful vacation. The only thing missing was Phylicia. Next time. I'm sure there'll be one :)

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

Nanny Craft: Button Decorations

Hello! I'm here with 2nannies first Nanny Craft! Many more to follow so don't worry! The kids all had a ton of fun with this one and as you can see from the final product they turned out beautifully and sticks really nicely to the window.

Here's What You Need:
Buttons
Contact Paper
Coloring Book pages (Optional)

Here's What You Do:
Cut a chunk of contact paper. Separate it so you have two separate sticky pieces on one sticky piece arrange buttons how you would like them to look. If you would like to create a particular picture, slide a coloring page under one of your "stickys" and use the page as a template to design a picture. My kids chose to freestyle and do their own thing!When you are finished creating your button design, apply the other sticky paper on top of the button sticky! Press firmly to remove air bubbles! I used tape to stick creations to the sliding glass window. You can also hole punch it and hang somewhere with string or ribbon!

Sammy's lovely art!

More button work!

Rainbow Cake: Happy 6th Birthday Sammy!!

Today Sammy turned six years old. She wanted me to make her a rainbow cake. So I googled "rainbow cake" and I found many different ways to do it. I showed Sammy all of the pictures and this is the method she liked best. Thank goodness because it's certainly a lot easier than layering cakes and all that jazz. Here are some photos from my process. I just used white cake mix and A LOT of food coloring. Haha.

I used two boxes of White Cake mix. Then separated them into six bowls, food-colored them (yeah, that's a term!), and just dumped them into the 9X13 pan at random spots. Here's what it looked like. A work of art, I think!

This is what it looked like after baking in the oven. I sliced off the top so the top would be even and flat for decorating. Isn't that a pretty cake inside?! So cool!

Then I used TONS of frosting and A LOT of food coloring to decorate her cake. I used three jars of white confetti funfetti frosting and food coloring to make pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple frosting. I put them in ziplock bags to pipe them on. I've never really decorated a cake before. Haha. But I did my best!

Then Sammy came and drew on two hearts and helped me frost the sides of the cake. And violá... a rainbow cake fit for a six year old! Beautiful!

Happy Birthday Sammy!!

I can't believe you are six years old!

Please leave any questions or comments below. Happy birthdays and rainbow-caking! Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

SUGAR COOKIES

We decorated cookies with the kids yesterday. What fun! :)

Before I show you all the pictures (taken on my phone by the way,) I'll show you the recipe. I found it on Mel's Kitchen Cafe. Great website with a ton of recipes! You should go check it out. I just changed a couple things. I didn't add almond extract (Sammy's allergic) and I didn't add lemon zest (we didn't have any lemons.) So if you want to see the original recipe click here. Here is the recipe that I used.

Sugar Cookies

All You Need Is (LOVE):

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened to cool room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 5 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

What to Do:

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars for 3-4 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Add vanilla extract and mix. Add two cups of flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix. Add remaining flour and mix until flour is incorporated and the dough is soft and smooth.
3. Dust a counter with powdered sugar or flour and roll the dough to desired thickness. 1/4 inch works well. Cut the dough into shapes. Place the cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 7-8 minutes. The cookies will not be brown. Don't over bake them.
4. Cool completely before frosting.

Before I Go:

I didn't cut them into shapes. I just spooned them onto the cookie sheets. I made little cookies with half the dough and one giant cookie with the rest of the dough. The giant cookie took approximately 15 minutes. I kept checking the oven to make sure that it fully cooked and didn't over bake. And it turned out perfectly. The kids laughed at seeing such a big cookie. These cookies are excellent for frosting. They are so soft that they melt in your mouth. They aren't that sweet, so they aren't "stand alone" sugar cookies to me. But they are perfect with frosting on top. We used Confetti Funfetti frosting because Sammy's not allergic to it. It has no milk. I split it up and added food coloring as shown below. Blue, green, and yellow. We had five types of sprinkles. The confetti sprinkles that came with the frosting, along with a set of four different sprinkles (Carnival sprinkles, star mix, sequins, and dinosaurs) I bought at Sur La Table (LOVE that store!) They had so much fun decorating their own cookies. Sammy quickly ate hers. Kai kept adding more sprinkles. Kona just liked decorating it. He didn't actually eat his, haha. Silly boy. Here are some pictures from our adventures in cookie decorating. Sammy (age 5), Kai (age 4), Kona (age 2).

Supplies are ready:

Ready to decorate sugar cookies

Five types of sprinkles

Blue, green and yellow frosting

Let's decorate!

Finished products :)

Sammy

Kai

Kona

Wait... Take a few bites, add more sprinkles...

A little more... Yes! Hooray! SPRINKLES!!!

I made a GIANT cookie!

And a little "mini-me" cookie.

Yum.

Please leave any questions or comments below. Happy cookie-ing! Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

A Picnic!

The other day, I was talking to Kai (the four-year old boy) and he said, "Kiko, do you know what's a picnic?" "What's a picnic, Kai?" I asked. "A picnic is where you get food and a blanket and you put the blanket on a hill and you eat on a hill!" he excitedly answered. So I said, "Well, we need to go on a picnic sometime then, huh?" "Yeah!"

The weather has been so beautiful for the past few days. So when I picked up Kai and Kona from school yesterday, I decided to surprise them with a picnic. Phylicia got home as I was preparing the picnic, so I asked if she'd like to join us. She said yes of course. 2 Nannies! Whoohoo! So Phylicia, Kai, Kona, and I went to a surprise hill for a picnic. Kai was so excited!  I thought I'd share some of the pictures I'd taken on my phone of our somewhat impromptu picnic.

Kai (4) & Kona (2)

2 Nannies & 2 Boys

 Kai posing behind his art

Kai and Kona created this piece of art for our picnic

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥