Favorite books

These Mo Willems books are the CUTEST...our girls just giggle and giggle when we read them. Ali is also very into the 1st Harry Potter book and Elizabeth likes "Charlie and Lola" books...I love spending time reading with them!

Daddy does too!!

It's spring...oh wait...it's winter

Early Saturday morning...green grass...our pear tree is blossoming... the girls made bird feeders and put them out....

Saturday afternoon...so much snow was coming down we had inches!

Sunday morning...the snow was heavy enough and the sun was out...perfect snowman building weather!

Sunday afternoon...by now the snow was melting already and just our snowman remained in the front yard! Crazy weekend weather!

Neighbor Birthday Party

One of the little girls in our neighborhood turned 4 and she invited lots of the kids around to "My Gym"...it was the cutest birthday party and our girls had fun!

Spring Break

We tagged along with Daddy when he went out of town over Spring Break! We drove about 4 hours to Branson and got to stay in the hotel with him. It was a fun little get away...we swam in the indoor pool, played on the outside playground, went out for pizza, snuggled in our comfy hotel beds, and explored a children's museum the next day while Daddy worked!

This was a little trial trip to see if we are ready to DRIVE to Colorado this summer...I still don't know...are we crazy for trying a 15-16 hour road trip??

Kites & Gardens

It was our first time flying kites with the girls...picture this: a lovely sunny day with a bit of a breeze, I hold up the kite for the wind to catch it, Ali runs down across all the neighbors yards (no fences!) with her kite trailing behind her, Elizabeth following with her kite behind her. OH it was SO cute and perfect! And then....TWO SECONDS later when they got to the end of the yards they said, "I'm so tired and SO HOT! I want to go INSIDE!" (NOOOO...not INSIDE...we've been inside for the last SIX months...I think I might go crazy if we go INSIDE!!! AHHHh!)

So, later after they have rested INSIDE, Daddy comes home and I tell them to show him how they flew their kites. Only Elizabeth took the bait and went outside again. So, Daddy and Elizabeth got the kite flying...and are laughing and smiling and...TWO SECONDS later the string breaks! Kite flying is over. Ah well...it was a beautiful few seconds!


This summer what I want to be longer than a TWO second memory is a beautiful garden!! Last year my garden was a weed patch. This year I am resolved to make a GORGEOUS one! So, this weekend we started with our pots out front. We planted basil. Oh, I LOVE fresh basil! (Oh but I just thought about this...I planted seeds that I had from last year which now the package says is expired...is that true? Do seeds really expire? Should I buy new ones??? Help me please!)

Happy Leprechaun Day!

Instead of making leprechaun catchers this year, the girls just wrote letters to him. (Elizabeth said she didn't really want to actually CATCH one!!) So, in the morning their were green footprints around and he left a note with Gummi Bears and green candy!!

We had an Irish dinner....corned beef with potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. Chris and I loved it. The girls did NOT!

Friend Dinners

We have been making an effort to have our neighbors over for dinners on weekends. It's nice to connect with people over the weekend when we can't share time with family....so far we have had dinners with 5 families and their kids. We wanted to have just 1 family over at a time instead of having large groups of people like we have in the past....and it's SO nice to have just a few kids at one time! The kids play nicely and it gives us adults some time to talk! So here is a picture of Elizabeth staying busy while we were trying to clean up and start dinner. I had put items on the steps ready to go upstairs and she took them all and was putting them in strategic places around the family room. "Hmm...a bottle of Tylenol looks very nice next to the TV and a hairbrush looks lovely on the floor!!"

Giraffes and Monkeys

Yay! We had a lovely day last weekend and so we went to the zoo! I forgot how nice and FREE our zoo is! Ali loved seeing the giraffes and Elizabeth loved seeing the baby monkeys. I love getting outside and walking around. (On the other hand, being at the zoo sometimes makes me a bit sad because almost every animal description says "Endangered"....and what in the world do we do about that situation for EVERY animal?? Does the zoo ever make you happy and sad at the same time?)

I can't believe our baby is ONE

Yes, Our baby kitty, Ty-Ty, is ONE year old! I can hardly believe this year has gone by so quickly...I remember the day we brought him home from the shelter...(sniff, sniff). Okay, okay so I haven't always been in love our cat Ty but Ali really wanted to wish him a happy birthday! (We knew he was born in March sometime so she made up the date...March 10th it is!) So we made some cupcakes to celebrate. Can you tell this was REALLY for the girls??!! (We gave Ty some Fancy Feast!)

Lillian and Caroline were over playing and they helped us to frost the cupcakes! This vanilla cake recipe is SOO yummy...the girls didn't have to twist my arm too hard to make it! (It's from Williams Sonoma cookbook "Kids Baking".)

Fire Station Field Trip

Look at these cute Daisy Girl Scouts! It was so fun to take them here! The fire fighters did a great job at entertaining the girls and they even took them for a ride in the fire truck!

Odds and Ends

Elizabeth learning to use the mouse...she likes the Starfall website with Ali's help.

Ty sleeping in the sun...so obviously he needed sunglasses...right??!!

The girls dressed in their spring clothes...they can't wait for it to be warmer also!! :)

Playing with shaving cream...fun AND it smells great!

Marchness

Love it when it warms up into the 60's and it feels heavenly...I open the doors and I don't even have to be persuasive to get the girls to go outside. Today it's back in the mid-40's to 50's and I hate being stuck inside again! But soon it will be spring and nice...I can't wait!

I got out some of my teaching things for March...I love talking about leprechauns and making leprechaun catchers and leaving the girls little treats from them! But I have to be careful because last year I said that I corrected something on a poster when I was making it and Ali said, "But you said the leprechauns made us the posters." OOPS!

My new project

I haven't been as inspired recently to keep up with my own scrapbook but I love working on the girls'. I decided a year ago that I wanted to give them each a special scrapbook when they graduate from high school. So of course I had to start working on it 14 plus years ahead of time!! :) I just want to highlight special memories and try to keep it all in ONE book each...so I decided to make holiday pages where I put one picture from each year. And then I have other page spreads like "Grandparent Time", "Family Traditions", and "Favorite Activities". I love putting this together! The biggest problem will be keeping these books a secret from the girls...I am BAD at keeping secrets...let alone for 14 years!! :)

This is the Family Traditions pages where I included all of the activities that we enjoy doing as a family...like pumpkin patches, decorating for Christmas, and Easter egg hunts. I wonder how these activities will change as they get older...will they still go to a pumpkin patch with us when they are teenagers???!! Maybe then I'll have to have pages titled, "Activities I enjoy WITHOUT Mom and Dad!!"

A Daisy Was Here

I really loved planning and leading our last couple girl scout meetings. One was in preparation for "World Thinking Day" where all girl scouts learn about different countries so I brought out some of our things from Japan (when we lived there 10 years ago). It was fun to have the girls try using chopsticks to eat edamame and popcorn! They wrote their names in Japanese characters and made some oragami paper airplanes and fans! It was really fun and we have a great group of little girls!

The meeting last week was learning about being "Friendly and Helpful". The girls made "calling cards" that they can secretly leave around their homes after they have secretly helped out! It was so cute that they were really into secretly being helpful! Ali made her bed one morning and I found a "Daisy was Here" card on her bed and she put away her clean clothes and I found another card! :) Let's see...what else can we get her to do???