My little fisher ladies

This past Sunday we traveled up to my parent's cabin to celebrate Memorial Day.  I worked on Saturday, which was OK because it rained all day.  We started our trip up to Paynesville around 8:30 AM and arrived at the cabin around 10:00AM.  The girls were super excited to go to Grandma's lake.  After playing with Jaci for a while, we all headed out on the dock to fish.  While Grandma, Daddy and I baited up the hooks for the girls, the girls all took turns catching some nice sunnies.  There was a lot of screaming and giggling - I am surprised the fish didn't swim away!  Katie and Allie each caught about 5 fish each.   We then did a bit of swimming on the beach - the water was super cold.  Katie and Allie had a good time playing with Jaci and didn't want to go home.  They ask every day if they can fish again.  We may have future fisher ladies on our hands!

My little Cinderella's

I was quite busy this morning trying to wash down my porch walls to get them ready to paint.  Needless to say, it wasn't long before 4 little hands were helping me with my scrub brush and bucket of water.  I did not get much done after they decided to join me, so I thought it might be a good idea to give them their own bucket and scrub brush.  It worked fine until they decided to wash the front step.  I had to stop my project to supervise them in the front yard.  It is a good thing that I am so patient!

Crazy Cartwheels

What to do on another rainy day?  How about some crazy cartwheels?  We try to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and it is so nice when I can find so much joy in the actions of my little girls.  I am totally blessed.

Slip and Slide

This past Saturday, Ms. Karen and Emily invited us over to their house for an afternoon of fun in their back yard. The girls had an awesome time on Emily's slip and slide, so today when we went to Target, K & A wanted a slip and slide of their own.  I caved in and bought one, along with a sprinkler snake.  This afternoon we had a blast on our own slip and slide! 

This morning Katie said, "Mom I want to go on a picnic today and I want to ride my bike to the green park."  Allie also had a wish of her own.  While at Target, Katie and Allie have spied a Mickey snack and each time they see it they beg me to buy it. I tell them that I will buy it when we go on a picnic.  Allie of course remembered this so while we were at Target today we bought 2 Mickey apple and granola snacks.  We rode our bikes to the park for our picnic, played and then biked home.  Today Allie was much better on her bike then Katie!

Bouncy House

What to do on rainy days?  Well, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for their generous Christmas gift, we can bounce in our bouncy house!  We have found the house provides hours of great jumping fun.  Hopefully there won't be any more rainy days for a while.

Greeny the Caterpillar

Allie found a baby green caterpillar yesterday in the yard. The little baby caterpillar entertained my girls for quite a long time.  I am so proud that both Katie and Allie do not seem to be too squeamish about bugs.  After playing with the caterpillar for a while,and naming it Greeny, Allie decided it needed a home, so she found a big yellow bowl and put the little bug in its new home with a few big green leaves.  When we got home from a park date, we ran down to the swing set to see if it was still in its bowl.  They were a bit sad to find out that it had left, but were happy that maybe Greeny made its way back to its mommy.

Dance Recital

I sometimes wonder if my girls will ever sleep in.  On Saturday, Katie woke up at  4:45AM and Allie woke up at 5:30AM.  I try to be quiet so Todd can sleep for a while, but it sometimes is hard when 75% of the house is awake by 5:30AM!  We snuck downstairs and played for a while but by 6:30AM everyone wanted breakfast. 

For a fun activity we decided to go to the Arboretum and boy what a busy place it was.  Katie and Allie had fun playing in the little houses and running through the shrub mazes.  We came home for lunch and then Katie, Allie and I went to Emily's dance recital at Eastview High School.  Emily was adorable and she put on quite a show! I was so proud of my little girls. The dance recital began at 3PM and did not get over until 5:45PM.  The girls sat in their chairs and did not get fussy until about 5:15PM.  Such good little troopers!  After the recital Karen and  Chuck had everyone over for a celebration.  The girls ate supper and then played hide and seek and chase me in the back yard. It was hard to get them out of there by 7:30PM.  Now the girls want to play dance recital all day long!

Mother's Day

I am so lucky to be a mom!  We had so much fun celebrating Mother's Day this year.  Katie and Allie surprised me (well sort of!) with gifts they had made at school.  They each planted some marigold seeds and made special planter boxes that were decorated with tissue paper and tape.  Their handmade Mother's Day cards included special words inside that read, "I planted these seeds with my little hands.  The seeds will now grow just like my hands.  Now you can watch us grow together." 

After breakfast we visitied my parents in Glencoe and celebrated Mother's Day with my parents and my sister and her family. Grandpa had fun playing some games with the girls.We topped off the day by having supper outside on the deck. 

Kids say funny things

Today Katie and Allie said some really funny things that I thought I would share with all of you. We were talking about babies and me being a little girl. Katie asked me if she was a baby when I was a little girl and I said that she was just a glimmer in my eye at that time. She said, "Mommy was I still a baby in China at that time? "  I think my girls think that all babies are born in China and we travel over there to get them after they are born! I am sure that it is because my sister traveled to China in December to pick up Jia, their new 2 year old daughter. While we were in the car today Allie said, " Mommy, some people are brown and some people are white. My daddy and mommy are white but Olivia's daddy is brown.". Olivia's dad is their soccer coach :)

I think I read over 50 books to the girls today. Here is a picture of Allie reading my Bible to me. She kept repeating the words, " God is great over and over.".

2 Parks

On Thursday we were lucky enough to visit 2 parks in one day. The day started off at a garage sale. I just want to clarify that I am not much of a garage saler but one of my friends was having the sale and I thought it might be fun to pick up a few cheap toys. While we were there, my friend Amy happened to be there with her 2 twin girls, so Amy volunteered to walk all of the kids to the park while I stayed to shop. In the afternoon we met some other friends at a park in Burnsville. It was fun to see our old ECFE friends and to see Kristen, who is having another baby very soon.

There was a bit of a tragedy that happened while we were there. Katie was running and tripped and skinned both knees.

The bad mommy that I am, I had no band aids in the car. There were quite a few tears shed but she was able to pull it together and say good bye to her friends. On the way home we stopped and bought band aids and a first aid kit for the car. I am sure there will be plenty more scuffed knees in the future.

Simple Pleasures

We were so happy to see the sun this morning!  At 8:15 Katie and Allie wanted to go outside.  They are getting to the age where they find their shoes and coats and open the door(scary) to go outside.  Todd has blocked off an area where my garden will be moved and Allie and Katie found that area right away and thought it was a soccer field.  I started watering some of my potted plants and they wanted to water with me.  My mistake is that I only bought one sliver watering can at Target and I should have bought 2.  I guess we will go to Target tomorrow and buy another one!  Hoping that this nice weather lasts all week long!

AnImal Day

The weather over the last 24 hours has been crazy. Last night I awoke to one of the loudest thunderstorms that I have heard in a while. Around 2:30 AM or so a powerful storm passed though Apple Valley leaving about 2&1/2 inches of rain behind. Amazingly the girls slept right though it! We were kind of expecting the weather on Sunday to be a total washout but lucky for us, it was just cloudy. Our church celebrated the last Sunday of Sunday School by having a petting zoo for the kids. The zoo was set up on the church lawn and there were many different miniature animals there, including a donkey, a pony, a turkey, lots of chickens and goats, bunnies, dogs, llamas and some sheep. Katie and Allie pet most of the animals and thought it was pretty cool to be walking around in an animal pen with animals all around them. After church we went to the Minnesota Zoo where we wandered around looking at the grizzly bears, otters, monkeys and fish. We spent a lot of time at the park in the zoo where Katie and Allie climbed up a big 10 foot rope ladder and spun around in a swing that looked a lot like a bee hive. I was pretty happy that we were able to spend some time outside on what was supposed to be a rainy day!

Home Depot

What a rainy day!  Today we went to Home Depot to look at paint colors for our porch. I saw a picture on a magazine cover of a porch that was painted green and I really like it. I think a bright, light color would really make our dark and drab porch look fresh and more modern. As luck would have it, Home Depot was having a kid's project day where all of the kids in the store could sit down and make a project for free. Today K & A built a planter box using glue and nails and then painted and decorated the box using stickers. And to top it off, they each got to pick a tomato plant to take home with them. Super fun and super cool!

This afternoon I became extremely bored. Katie, Allie and I spent some time in the garage planting cucumber, pumpkin and broccoli seeds in little pots. I am getting a bigger garden and I think it will be fun for them to have a section of the garden that will be their own. And we are also hoping that some of the seeds will grow! My girls got extremely brave during one of the downpours and they each took turns running laps in our front yard and splashing in puddles. All of us got very wet! We got over 2 inches of rain.  It was one of those days that when they came in the house after being outside, they each disrobed and had fun running around the house being naked babies. A favorite pastime for them! It is hard to believe that tomorrow is their last Sunday School class for the year. Ms. Cori will always hold a special place in their hearts!

May Day

I have always remembered May Day very fondly as a child, so it was fun to reenact the holiday this year with my girls. On Saturday we made May Day baskets for some of our friends. We cut out flowers from card stock, punched a hole in the middle and put a Tootsie Pop in the hole, which made cute May Day flowers. I called up my dad and told him that we were going to surprise Mom with a May Day surprise, so he had to make sure she would be home when we arrived. Everything worked out as planned and the girls were very excited to surprise Grandma. We stopped at the flower store on the way out to Glencoe. When we arrived and Grandma and Grandpa's house we were able to put the baskets and flowers on the front step and ring their doorbell and hide. Grandma was super surprised when she found her flowers and treats. We had a nice lunch and had some good times out in Glencoe today.

 This afternoon I had Kaitlyn and Allison's conference at New Horizons. Ms. Julie had all good things to say, but her biggest concern is how to tell them apart! They are doing well and are right on track with all of the other kids in their class.  Ms. Julie said they are quiet and tend to gravitate and play with the quieter kids in the classroom.  I am so glad that they behave well and listen to their teacher.  It gives me peace of mind when I am at work and worry so much about my little beauties!