Halloween

Here is our Trick or Treaters on Halloween! Mimi was the cutest pumpkin since Piper was a few years ago. This year Piper was a witch and Attalie was a skeleton.

Bear Lake

Heath with his Brothers at Bear Lake this year.

Miss Modette and Mom.

Happy Campers

I just realized how dreadfully out of date our family blog is (Halloween in July huh?!) It seems I spend most of my free time posting over at PagingSupermom.com. So if you come here in a few months and this summer campout post is still here, be sure to come over to Paging Supermom and see what I'm up to! ;)

Well I thought I'd share today's post since it's about our family campout a few weeks ago. I'm not a big camper -- it's just so DIRTY. I give you Exhibit A:

As a kid we would go on camping trips that lasted weeks -- of course we stayed at campgrounds with running water, but it still was enough to deter me from this so-called sort of "fun." So it's been a few years since I've let Superdad and the girls talk me into a camping trip. They have camped a few times without me, but this year after a bit of prodding I agreed to go for two nights. We went with my best friend Dana's family, and it was nice to escape the Phoenix heat.

While on the trip Dana and I were wishing we'd thought ahead to making "Fireside Girls" sashes for our kiddos. Any other Phineas & Ferb lovers out there who know what I'm talking about? Our kids love this cartoon and the little girls in it are all part of a troop of Fireside Girls, which clearly must be something similar to Girls Scouts.

Well there we were up in the forest with a slew of kids and nothing but dirt and trees to entertain them (which certainly WAS entertaining them -- see above -- but we moms were interested in another option). In the rush to get out the door I'd packed a basket of basic crafting supplies with paper, tape, scissors, crayons and yarn, but I hadn't had time to plan out any project and nothing was coming to me. So remembering this project I dug around in my suitcase and sacrificed an old green t-shirt to make the girls' sashes.

Then we all had fun working together to create patches for our sashes. We started by making a camp badge for everyone -- it's the one that looked like a pine tree. Then we made a troop number badge -- our troop number was made up with all the kids' ages. While I was wishing I'd thought to pack a stapler, I was surprised at how well regular clear Scotch tape stuck to the knit fabric). I was also surprised that a little "KP" badge (for "kitchen patrol") was enough to motivate all the girls to help with dish duty. No kidding -- it's amazing what kids will do for a little paper patch and some lofty praise!

The kids had lots of ideas for patches. I can only remember a few now: Taking Care of the Baby Badge (pacifier icon) Hide & Go Seek With Daddy Badge Using the Outdoor Potty Badge Star Gazing Badge (star icon) Swimming in the Creek Badge Cliff Jumping Badge

Of course the littlest Fireside Girl Modette got patches just for being cute. Come to think of it, I really should have made her an eating rocks badge!

happy halloween!

LOOK! it's Peter Pan with Wendy and Tinkerbell. OH NO! the evil Captain Hook has captured a super-adorable Mermaid.



Happy Halloween!

piper's first day

Today was Miss Piper's first day of preschool!



The "First Day of Preschool" sign is courtesy of my friend Aimee. You can download the free printable signs from our blog here.






On the car ride over Piper was excited and quite a bit nervous. There is only one other kid in her class that she knows, and that little girl happened to be out of town for the first day, so Piper had to be very brave.

I'm happy to report that when we picked her up from school she was grinning from ear to ear and obviously is going to love preschool!

Off To School

School started today -- Attalie is in first grade!



Here are the girls walking up to the school. Next year Piper will get to stay too!



Attalie has the same teacher for first grade that my little brother Aaron had -- isn't that fun?! See all the pics here.

daddy & modette

On Saturday I was going through our recent family snapshots, trying to find the perfect baby announcement picture, and I came across these photos that I took on Mimi's first Sunday. I completely forgot about taking them, but there were some real treasures.



Daddy had taken the other two girls to church while I stayed behind with the new baby. He came home a bit early to check on us. I love that he was wearing his fuchsia tie (from our family pictures last year) -- he said he wore it in honor of his newest little girl.



Newborns really are fascinating. I love these shots of Daddy inspecting all her tiny features. She has the sweetest little profile.



The tiny toes are so darling, but those miniature toe nails are what really amaze me.



Look at this: we caught a first smile!

meet modette

We'd like to introduce Hirschi No. 5 -- little Modette joined our family last week, weighing in at 7 pounds 2 ounces and 19 inches.



Here is big sister Attalie holding her for the first time.



I love this shot of both girls inspecting their little sister. I think they were counting her toes and admiring those incredibly tiny toe nails. Newborn babies are truly amazing.



Heath happened to be in perfect position to catch this great shot. After holding and kissing her new baby sister for awhile, Piper decided to sneak a taste of the newest "Hirschi" chocolate.



A little bit about her name... when we found out we were having another girl, we were at a loss for a name. We'd already used our favorite girl names for our first two daughters. We had a perfect boy name all ready to go, but another girly moniker? Not a one.

Then one night about halfway through my pregnancy, Heath was somehow struck with the idea of "Modette." A quick Google search confirmed that this was truly a unique name, and I loved it as soon as he suggested it. The next four or five months were filled with debate of whether or not the name was "too weird." We like unique names, but we also both believe that a name must sound like a name (Sorry Gwyneth, but "Apple" is a fruit not a name). We came up with a couple other alternatives, and after the new little one arrived we finally settled on Modette.

A little pronunciation help -- it has a long "o" sound and the last "e" is silent. Modette: like Bernadette or Odette.

piper's birthday!

I'm still going through the more than 1000 photos I took at Piper's birthday party (why in the world do I take so many?? Go through them all seems to take FOREVER). Anyway, I wanted to share a little sneak peek. The full party details will be on pagingsupermom.com in June.



Here's a closer shot of the cake. It was my first time working with fondant for the doll's skirt. I managed to keep the cake hidden from Piper until just before the party. Here reaction was so funny -- she looked at it strangely and then said disdainfully, "Uh, that's a BARBIE, Mom. Can you wipe her off so I can play with her?"

Not quite the giddy, giggly reaction I'd been playing in my mind as I slaved over the cake, but I had to laugh. Aren't four year olds grand?



I love this picture of Piper wearing her dwarf beard (the craft project we did during the party.) If this photo were video you would be hearing Piper singing, "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho! It's off to work we go..."



At the mall last week Attalie found this mirror necklace and thought it would be the perfect birthday gift for Piper -- with the Snow White story's "Magic Mirror" I couldn't have agreed more. The best part was it was just $1.50 so totally within Attalie's budget!



I love this shot of Piper admiring her "Magic Mirror" necklace.



There is the birthday girl getting ready to blow out her candles.



And a close-up of the little dwarf cupcake toppers:

happy st. patrick's day

My mom hosted her annual corned beef & cabbage St. Patty's Day Dinner today. The girls were excited to dress up in green like little leprechauns, and I've been meaning to take some photos with my big belly before Girl No. 3 arrives so we decided to do a little family photo shoot.





The girls *really* wanted to take photos in their red wagon so I'm not sure why they aren't looking happier...



A cute shot of Attalie...



Love this one...



Pretty clover...

martha and me

It's been quite an incredible week. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to fly out to NYC and be a guest on The Martha Stewart Show on Wednesday (Jan. 19) showing Martha how to make the Rapunzel Birthday invitation that I created for Attalie's birthday party. You can watch a clip from the Martha show here.

christmas eve last year

It only took me a year to get these pictures uploaded online! I went looking for a picture from Christmas Eve last year and realized I'd never edited or posted any of them.







So as we're eager with anticipation for Christmas 2010, we can reminisce about last year.