Life is good

Visitors

We've got company this week. Uncle Dan and his girlfriend, Meg, are visiting through Thursday. I'm pretty sure our only plans are to go to the beach, but there are no better plans if you ask me. I think Will is going to take off from work tomorrow and join us. I've got a sitter coming tomorrow evening so the "adults" can go out to dinner. Fun. Fun.

Just peachy...I'm mean beachy.

We went to Sandbridge Beach again this past weekend. Lilly had a blast jumping the waves with Will. So did Sophia, but every time Will did anything with Lilly he had to do the same with Sophia.

Will plays a game with the girls. They wait for a big wave to come to the edge of shoreline and then they turn around and make a bee line for the beach. It's really cute.

Take a look at all the pictures.

Somebody wrote on the wall!

I'll give you one guess which girl it was! Nope, wasn't Sophia. It was Lilly. She found her flower pen and decided to draw all over one of the kitchen walls. And then she looked at me with this adorable face and I couldn't be angry with her anymore.

Playing violin at princess camp

Sophia's princess camp recital photos

Here's a slide show of the pictures I took at the princess camp dance recital. Sophia smiled the entire time and really got into every dance they performed.

I was so proud of her.

She kept waving to Will throughout the show.

Dancing Lilly

She still loves to dance! Here's a video of her shaking her groove thing. (Not a very good video, but you can see her in action a little bit.)

Puzzles

Sophia is a pro at puzzles now. All three of these are 25 piece puzzles. She can put them together with ease.

Videos from Princess Camp

Be prepared, these movies are almost three minutes a piece.

Here's the tap dance:



Here's the ballet dance (Under the Sea):



Here's the cheerleading part:



Here's the gymnastics routine:

Lilly and her Lamby

Here's a picture of Lilly the day she found her Lamby. She was 100% happy.

Child care at church

Ms. Mikey, Sophia and Lilly's surrogate grandmother, took these pictures for me while I was at church decorating for vacation Bible school. She works in the nursery at church and sees them every Sunday.

On the day this picture was taken Ms. Mikey also gave each of the girls a Beany Baby. They carried the bears around with them all day. Sophia's is bright pink with a heart on it's chest. Lilly's is green with a shamrock on it's chest.

Princess camp recital video

I'm still trying to upload some of the videos, but wanted to share at least one. Here's the video of Sophia walking in for the tap dance at princess camp and there is a great close up at the end of the video.

I did it.

Yesterday I stopped the gas pump exactly on $20.00.

I've tried to do it for years, but have always been a penny or two off.

Maybe it means good luck???

Playing guitar at Princess Camp

Day 1 of Princess Camp

Sophia wore her Cinderella dress to the first day of Princess Camp. In the morning she told me she didn't want to go, but when I picked her up she cried that she didn't want to leave.

They played with a parachute yesterday, played guitar, danced and did a cute handprint craft.

They practice a few dance routines and then perform them on Thursday.

Today is "Under the Sea" day so she's wearing her Ariel costume.

She found Lamby

Lilly found her Lamby this afternoon. She found him by accident I think.

I heard her saying I FOUND LAMBY MAMA. I went to see what she was talking about and she was right! There he was shoved into a drawer of the entertainment center cabinet.

Her face had the hugest smile. She hugged Lamby so tight. She insisted on carrying him around all day and she fell asleep tonight without so much as a whimper. Ahhhh, things are back to normal.

Lilly's Lamby

Lilly's Lamby is GONE!!!! We have no idea where it may be...except that it has to be in our house.

She had it Saturday morning before we left for Northern VA. We forgot to bring it with us so she was forced to sleep with Big Daddy's spare Lamby. It worked, but she wasn't very happy about it. She cried herself to sleep.

When we arrived home last night I searched the entire house, but couldn't find her Lamby. I searched again this morning and simply cannot find her.

Lilly loves the tag part of her Lamby, so luckily I was able to find a Taggie Blanket for her to sleep with last night. This morning she decided to carry it downstairs with her so I think it might be an OK substitute for now.

But where the heck is her Lamby???

All of her friends

Sophia lined up all of her stuffed animals on her bed during quiet time. When quiet time was over she proudly showed me her hard work and bragged that she was going to sleep with her friends. She told me she wanted to leave them on the bed until Christmas.

UPDATE (Sunday night): She went to bed with all the animals that night, but when I checked on her around 11pm all the animals were at the foot of her bed and she was back "on her side". At least that's the reason she gave in the morning.

They were speechless

For 20 minutes on Sunday night the girls were absolutely speechless. Will and I just looked at each other - in total disbelief. We took them to see fireworks at Mt. Trashmore and they sat there in awe watching the sky light up and sparkle.

The Beach

We hit the beach again today. The sand sure was hot! Sophia whimpered and complained the entire walk (both ways) because her feet were hurting.

We had a lot of fun. Sophia and Will played in the water and ran up and down the shore line the entire time we were there. Lilly ate a snack and worked up the nerve to join them in the water. Once she got wet, she had a ball. I enjoyed my time basking in the sun.

Damaged Key

Damaged Key...that was the message that appeared on my dash yesterday when I tried to turn the minivan key in the ignition. Of course Chrysler couldn't make a regular key with teeth! No. They had to make a computer chip key that can break! Who ever heard of a car key that is damaged? Unbelievable.

I'm taking it into the shop for repair on Wednesday.

Our stay with Grancy and Big Daddy

We overstayed our original visit by 4 whole days because the transmission died in our minivan. We barely made it to Grancy's house. It's a miracle we didn't break down on the highway. By the time we got to their house our car wouldn't get into gear and seriously wouldn't move.

Grancy and Big Daddy were so accommodating, gracious and really made us feel right at home. And if I can be blunt, we definitely moved in and made ourselves comfortable. The girls had toys and clothes strewn all over the house. I took over half the refrigerator and Will created a home office for himself in the basement.

We got to visit with Christina and Rob every day too. They came over for dinner every night after work except the one night that we went out to dinner with them. It was so nice to catch up. We met their new dog, Jaxster (on the right). He was a sweet puppy, but it took Sadie a few days to really get used to him "invading" her territory. She's always very protective when we're at Grancy's house.

We arrived on a Wednesday night. The girls and I stayed home without a car on Thursday. We made the best of it and found lots of fun activities to pass the time. We played outside with the water hose for a while, played on the playground, made some playdoh, read lots of books, drew with sidewalk chalk, and watched Snow White for the 100th time. Sophia even tried to eat jello with chopsticks.

On Friday Christina came over in the morning. We went to breakfast at a bagel joint then stopped at Kohls so I could get a pair of sunglasses. I also got Sophia and Lilly the most adorable princess folding beach chairs (can't wait to use them at the beach this weekend). Christina bought Lilly a super cute onesie jumper. Sophia told Christina that she didn't want anything. That's a first! After that we hit the neighborhood pool. We stayed for hours! The girls had an incredible time floating and swimming around in their floaty rings. Not surprisingly Lilly was scared at first and needed to feel secure holding onto an adult, but by the end of our stay she was kicking around all by herself.

On Saturday I had lunch with Courtney, my friend from college. Grancy and Christina took the girls to the park. They rode on the carousel, the train and the playground equipment. I know Sophia had a great time because when Grancy asked her what her favorite part was she answered ALL OF IT. I think it was Saturday afternoon when we went to the pool with Rob and Christina.

Sunday (Father's Day) was supposed to be our departure day, but instead I spent the afternoon doing laundry so we could make it through the week. Late in the afternoon I took the girls back to the pool.

We hung out with Courtney and her three kids (Ben, Katie and Gavin) at their pool on Monday. The rest of the week kind of blends together. I took the girls to Chuck E. Cheese one day, but other than that we went to Grancy's pool almost every day. Lucky us!!!

WHEELWEE

WHEELWEE - this is how Lilly says her name now. It's so cute when she says it. She "finds" herself in the mirror and then says WHEELWEE with the cutest grin because she's so proud of herself.