Idelwild Park

Voted #2 in children's amusement parks. My parents and I took the girls there on Friday during our vacation in Mars.

The trek to PA was a bit of a spur of the moment idea. Will and I were initially heading to Fairfax for Claire's baby shower and I decided to continue on to PA for a visit with my family. We stayed for almost a week. After the shower Will went back to Virginia Beach and was by himself for 7 days. The girls and I were gone for a total of 10 days. We're all glad to be back together.

Here are some pictures of our first few days at my parent's house and a few pictures from our trip to Idelwild Park. Sophia rode her first "Rollo Coaster" as they call it. She sat with Poppy and I sat behind them in the very first seat. I think she was terrified, but she really enjoyed it! She got off smiling and was so proud that she rode it. The last ride of the day was the Log Jammer. We went on it together and barely got wet. She remembers getting SOAKED.

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.

YEEYEE

Meet YEEYEE. At least that's what she calls herself.

In the last week Lilly has started singing Baa Baa Black Sheep.

BA BA BACK SCHEEP
HA OO ANIE WOOL
YES SIR YES SIR
THREE BA FOUR

We're home...safe and sound

We arrived home on Friday at 1 AM. We didn't get on the road until 8:45 Thursday night because when Will and I went to pick up the van we found out that our technician had the keys in his pocket. Guess where he was? At home. Ugg. That was a 75 minute delay.

Anyway, we are so grateful to Grancy and Big Daddy for putting up with us for 8 straight days. We had a great time using their neighborhood pool (almost every day) and it's quite nice for the girls to get to know their grandparents. That was, by far, my favorite part and the fancy apricots. yum (look for a blog post about our trip soon)

So now that we're home our crazy summer schedule begins. Last night in the kickball playoffs we won so now we have to play the finals on July 10th. We have a bbq tonight.

On Tuesday Sophia begins her summer dance class at the gym. She's really looking forward to taking another dance class with Haley. It also happens to coincide with a class that I take so I'm thrilled. Sophia also starts swimming class on July 6th. She's doing a week of vacation bible school and she's also doing princess camp again. She's a lucky girl.

Lilly is going to vacation bible school too, but she'll be in the nursery with her church friends. She's also going to have private swimming lessons. Her coach will probably be Will. (smile) She got really comfortable in the pool while we were at Grancy's house. Now we need to get her to blow bubbles. If this strategy doesn't seem to work then I will sign her up for lessons at the rec center.

Will and I have packed weekends too. I mentioned the bbq tonight and we have another one next weekend. The following weekend we have the kickball finals and Sophia has a birthday party. The weekend following we are planning to get together with Will's business partners in Northern VA. The last weekend in July is when my brother and his girlfriend are planning to come down for a visit. The first weekend in August is Claire's baby shower in Northern VA. The second weekend (August 7th) is our 6th anniversary. On August 21st we have a wedding in New York, but I'm not certain we'll be able to go. It's going to be a great summer.

A lemon

We bought a lemon of a car. Our Chyrsler Town & Country minivan, which we've owned for only 19 months, basically broke down last night on our way to Northen VA. Luckily we were off the major highway and on the road to Grancy and Big Daddy's house when our transmission decided to quit working! We barley made it to their house. Will was flooring the gas pedal and the van wouldn't move, but then all of a sudden it would lurch forward and the rpm gage was all the way up to 5. (All the car people that read this blog will understand what I'm talking about.)

We had the stupid thing towed this morning to a dealership so they can fix it under warranty. It only has 25,000 miles on it.

At 23,000 miles, three weeks ago, we had to replace the front brakes. I swear I hear the back brakes squealing now a bit, but I might just be hyper-sensitive.

We also just got a recall notice in the mail to replace the radiator cap. What's next?

Never-ending questions

How come?

Why?

What's this?

What's that?

Sophia is completely curious about everything. I've got to polish up my ability to think on my feet. She wants an answer immediately and I don't want to ever say that I don't know the answer. I want her to think that mom knows everything!

Last day of school

Another year bites the dust. Sophia's last day of preschool is today. It's hard to believe that this year is over. It certainly went faster than last year. She made many strides this year like learning how to write all of her letters, adding numbers together, and dressing herself. She's incredibly smart and she works hard in school. We're so proud of her.

In the fall both girls will be attending school. Sophia will still be going 3 half days and Lilly will be going 2 half days a week. Every single day that we drop Sophia off at school Lilly barges into the classroom and starts to play with all the toys. Mrs. Harden is always so nice to her and makes her feel welcome and I'm the mean one that makes her stop playing and leave the room. She really wants to go to school just like her big sister.

A water week

The girls are going to have a week full of water play. This morning we're headed to the Botanical Sprinkler Garden with Addie. Tomorrow Sophia has to wear a bathing suit to school for a beach party. They are going to play in some sprinklers and have an outside picnic. (She has to bring chips and watermelon)

Tomorrow after school we're going up to Northern VA for a long weekend. On Thursday we're going swimming with my college friend, Courtney, and her 3 kids and on Friday we're either going to Grancy's neighborhood pool or to a waterpark with Christina, Rob's other half.

Not sure what Saturday and Sunday hold, but I bet we could go swimming again at Grancy's pool if we wanted to.

Sophia and Lilly sure are lucky girls. I need to stock up on our sun screen.

A trip to the beach

We went to the beach this afternoon for some fun family time. Will and Sophia spent a lot of time splashing around in the waves and Lilly spent most of her time snacking and hanging out near the blanket. I relaxed a bit in a chair and then had to play in the waves with Sophia for a bit too. We made up a special move - it was holding up a leg as a wave came crashing in. Of course, we were holding onto each other so we could actually balance. It was fun. She's bananas about the ocean. The water was freezing, but eventually we all warmed up to it. Well...maybe just a bit.

We were there for just under two hours, but the sun was so hot it made Lilly crash on the ride home. She didn't even wake up when Will took her out of the car. She went right into her crib, sand and all.

Speaking of Lilly, she's talking up a storm these days. We'll see Grancy and Big Daddy this weekend and I want to find out if they can understand her. I think I may be a bit biased. Each day she seems to acquire tons of new words. She repeats us all the time and commits words to her memory.

Pictures from Hilton Head

Here's a link to all the photos I took while in Hilton Head.

Sophia jumping into the pool

We're back

We're back from our vacation to Hilton Head, SC. It was incredible, but missing one key ingredient: Will. He couldn't make the trip with us because of work. We headed out on a Sunday morning and after 9 hours in the car finally made it to our destination, the Grand Ocean Marriott Resort. We were invited to go on the trip with Haley and Carlie's parents, Mike and Michelle. So our total group consisted of 1 male and 6 females. How Mike survived, I'm not sure. How I survived without Will, I'm not sure either.

Regardless, we had a great time. We alternated days going to the pool and the beach. My favorite day was when we went to the beach in the am and then hit the pool after lunch - the best of both worlds if you ask me. The girls loved playing in the sand at the beach, but they loved the pool even more. After she warmed up to the pool for a few days Sophia became quite a pro at putting her entire head underwater. This is quite an accomplishment for her and we took Will to the pool last night to show him her new skill. She is so proud of herself.

On our first full day we went to the pool in the am and then Aunt Claire came for a visit in the afternoon and went out with us that evening too. We went to hear a guy performing for kids. He played a guitar, sang, told funny stories and encouraged all the kids to get up and dance to the One-eyed, One-horned Flying Purple People Eater song among others. Of course, neither of my girls wanted to get up and dance, but Sophia sat up there for a little bit with Haley and Carlie. Haley actually got picked to sit on his lap and sing a song. It was really cute. He asked her if her mom went "vacation shopping" for her outfit and Haley told him that Sophia went vacation shopping with them even though she didn't. Kids say the most off the wall things.

Throughout the week we did some really fun activities with the girls like celebrating Princess Day (the had a beauty make-up session and had their nails painted), painting ceramic magnets (Sophia picked a horse and a kite. Lilly/Mom picked a seashell), and tie-dyeing t-shirts (fun, but messy. I ruined a white top and my hands were completely blue for two days).

We went to The Salty Dog Cafe, a well-known Hilton Head attraction and had pizza and ice cream. Sophia bragged for days about picking up her whole slice of pizza and eating it that way instead of having it cut up for her. We went into some of the shops and at the end of the night, Sophia's hair had streaks of blue and red in it from Haley's ice cream cone.

I got Lilly an innertube swimming suit for the pool. In theory she should have been able to float on her own and swim around by herself, but she clung to me like she didn't like the water at all. By the end of the week I finally had her wearing that suit and sitting inside a blow up floaty ring and she loved it. I think the extra support made her feel more comfortable.

I will post all the pictures soon.

Nana, Poppy & Aunt Carole visit Va Beach

Nana, Poppy and Aunt Carole came for a visit. They arrived on a Thursday and stayed through Sunday afternoon. It was a great visit. Sophia skipped school on Friday, the girls celebrated their birthdays on Saturday, and Lilly got baptized on Sunday.

The "juice bags" arrived in time to go to Sophia's swim lesson on Thursday evening. Sophia behaved as expected and wouldn't get her face and head wet at the same time, but pretended to. I think she was really proud to show off for Nanna, Poppy and Aunt Carole.

Nana and Poppy got Sophia a motorized motorcycle for her birthday. She gets a kick out of riding it on the road around our block. In our neighborhood the road tends to be more smooth than the sidewalk. She knows what to do when a car comes down the road and steers the motorcycle into the sidewalk to the point of almost wrecking.

On Friday we went to the Botanical Garden and spent some time in the sprinklers.

On Saturday we had the big birthday party. It was so much fun. Grancy arrived from Northern Va before the party began, nobody cancelled at the last minute, and we even had time for some outside fun. What a perfect beginning to a fairy princess party. First on the agenda was a door hanger craft followed by "costume distribution". Sophia got to select her princess costume from the 15 dresses available. She picked Snow White and them she got to distribute the costumes among the guests. It was fun to watch each girl get dressed up like a princess. After that Sophia crowned each princess with her own crown. Immediately following there was a glamour session where each girl got to have eye shadow and lip gloss applied. Then they had a mini etiquette lesson and tea/lunch. Then cake and a few games outside.

At the end of the day we decided to head to the beach. Will and Lilly stayed home. Only 5 minutes into our beach outing was Sophia soaking wet from the waist down. I ended up removing her shorts all together and letting her play in her underwear.

The next day was an early morning because Lilly was baptized at 8:30 AM. Aunt Carole was her sponsor and mine too when I was baptized. Sophia was baptized without any god parents, but Uncle Dan has previously claimed the spot so we're good.

Back to normal on Monday. It's funny how a normal weekend takes forever to pass, but when you have guests it goes by so quickly.

Sophia opening her birthday presents

Neglecting the blog

I haven't meant to neglect the blog for such a long time, but I have so much to write about it's kind of daunting to get started.

As a sneak peek of what's to come, I'll share this link. Birthday Party. Last weekend we had a joint birthday "gala" for the girls. The date fell smack in the middle of their birthdays and since they're both into Princess stuff that's just the type of party they had. It was, in fact, a Princess Tea Party. The link is a slide show of the photos taken by the Princess Party Hostess.

The party was an incredible success and I really have to thank my mom, dad, aunt and mom-in-law for all their help with the cake, food, set up and clean up. Between all that help and having a birthday party Hostess run the show, I really got to enjoy myself (and hold Lilly!). . . and she was not into it at all. There was a point when Sophia wasn't into it either, but she eventually snapped out of it. I've heard great feedback about the party from almost all of the moms.

I still have to publish all of my photos and write about the party and the long weekend that my parents had here. Hopefully I can get that done before I go to Hilton Head with the girls tomorrow for a week. Will and Sadie are staying home. (insert sad face here)

Happy Birthday, Lilly

Today is Lilly's birthday. She's now officially 2. For the last two weeks Sophia has enjoyed telling everyone that she was 4 and that Lilly was only 1.

Now they are 4 and 2. Quite a pair they are. Lilly simply adores Sophia and immediately repeats, follows, or mimics everything she does.

Here are some cool things about Lilly:

* She's learning to "walk" down the stairs. She takes her time and holds onto the railing and goes step by step. She's a big girl now and doesn't want help.

* Her favorite foods are flavored pretzels, any type of dried fruit, hamburgers, watermelon and, still holding strong, pineapple. She's not into bananas, but she'll eat any other fruit. Doesn't like mashed potatoes.


* Favorite toys: The Toddle Coupe car, her new baby doll, shopping cart, and the bubble blower lawn mower (although you have to be pushing the stupid thing in the grass to get it to actually blow the bubbles).

* Favorite activities: reading books on her own, singing, dumping water from one cup to another.

* When I put her to bed at night she asks for PAPI (paci), LAMBY, BANKET (blanket), and BANKET. She's got two blankets. And she likes them put on in a certain order too.

The dentist

Sophia had her second dentist appointment this morning. She was excited to go. Well, at least I should say she was not reluctant to go, but when we sat down in the chair it was a completely different story.

She refused to open her mouth. She refused to even turn her head toward Crystal, the hygienist. Eventually she was in tears and they basically kicked us out and told us to try again soon.

I felt bad for Sophia because she was obviously frightened, but she wouldn't even try it just once to see what the paste tasted like. I wasn't frustrated with her, just her extreme shyness and strong will (seems a bit like an oxymoron). She just simply refused to participate.

On the way to the car I told her that Will would take her next time and she burst into tears. Poor kid, huh?

Ariel

Will and I bought Sophia an Ariel costume, a crown and shoes for her birthday. Oh yeah, we also got her an shimmery Ariel bathing suit which she insists on wearing every time she goes to the pool now.

She wanted to open her presents the moment she woke up on that Friday morning. I went downstairs to grab the presents and we woke up Will so he could see her open her gifts. She beamed when she realized what it was and she told me it was what she always wanted.

Doesn't she look cute? Here are a few more photos.

I added a search feature to the blog

Check it out. On the right side of the page you will see a search box. I dare you to try it. Everything I've tested has been spot on. Very cool!

Happy 4th Birthday, Sophia!

I woke up at 5AM this morning with a jolt. I fogot to wrap Sophia's birthday presents and I promised her she could open them when she wakes up. So, I've been up for a while and I have to say, it's been a great early morning without anyone else in the house awake. I made muffins, checked all my email, paid bills, unloaded the dishwasher and folded some laundry! Normally those 4 tasks alone take me ALL DAY.

I wrapped her presents and I bought donuts for her this morning. They are her absolute favorite breakfast food.

All week Sophia has been sad about growing older. She woke up crying on Tuesday night because she wants to stay 3 forever. I think she's afraid that she has to move out of the house when she's "older". She told me that if anybody comes to the door to marry her to tell them to GO AWAY! We keep telling her all the things that she'll be able to do now that she's 4: ride a bike, swing all by herself, learn to tie her shoes, swim, etc... All fun things, but she's not buying into the fact that 4 might be better than 3!

Believe me, I'd love to have her stay 3 forever and ever and ever and ever.

Balloon Birthday Party

We went to a birthday party for one of Lilly's friends yesterday. Summer, one of Lilly's friends turned 2. She and Lilly are about 3 weeks apart in age. We're actually friends with the entire family because they live on our street, but I can already tell that Summer and Lilly will be good friends regardless.

Sue, Summer's mom, hired "the balloon guy" for the party entertainment. All the kids got to choose what they wanted him to make. Sophia asked for a princess. He turned around and asked her which one. She picked Snow White - and he seriously produced a Snow White complete with a small apple (which broke by the time I took the picture).

Lilly got a lamby. It looks so realistic and she loves it. It's also a bracelet so she can wear it on her wrist. Look at him standing in a bed of grass.

So cute

I got some really cute pictures of the girls today while they were dressed up for church. Will was really working hard behind me to make the girls smile/laugh so I could capture a "candid" moment. Take a look.

Boo berries

BOO BERRIES: What Lilly calls black berries. She is addicted to them right now!

HOLD ME MAMA: (smile)

Spring program @ Beach Manor

Sophia's spring program for school was on Friday. Will "worked from home" that day so he was able to come with me and Lilly to see Little Miss Spunky performing all the songs as loud as she possibly could. You'll see what I'm talking about in these videos below.

The two kids to Sophia's right (Conor and Addie) are in her class. Adrianna was sick and actually had to cancel coming over for a play date after school. Addie still came and the girls had a fun time dressing up like princesses. Lilly followed them around. Addie is very small. She actually seems closer to Lilly's size and I got the impression that Addie was a bit more comfortable around Lilly.

Without further delay. Here are the videos.

B-U-N-N-Y


Have You Ever Seen a Bunny


Bunny Pokey


And this is what she looked like as she paraded down the hall back to her classroom. She was so proud and so were we.

She's progressing nicely in school.

Sophia is impressing us with new talents and skills each week. This week she brought home a school paper where she filled in the beginning and ending letters for some three letter words. She and I have been verbally working on it for a while, but now she can determine what each letter is and then translate it into writing. Mrs. Harden draws an item on the left side of the page and fills in the vowel and Sophia completes the rest of the word.

Dresses, dresses and more dresses

Sophia is obsessed with dresses lately. She seriously wears one every day. She looks adorable in dresses so I don't mind - even if she's wearing one of her fancier ones and she gets it dirty. They can be washed, but she's only a little kid once and deserves to have fun pretending to be whatever she wants to be. Actually, I have a feeling she prefers to wear dresses because they make it easier for her to use the bathroom.

This week she wore this to school and I thought she was so cute I just had to take her picture. She was acting like a ham so I got some really cute ones.

Ironically the day she wears a pure white dress to school, she gets a bloody nose. It dripped all the way down her dress. I'm 90% sure I've one more wash will get out the last of the stains.

Take a look at my big girl. She'll be 4 in six days. WOW.

First trip to the Botanical Garden this year.

We went to the WoW sprinkler garden at the Botanical Gardens on Tuesday with Haley and Carlie. Michelle and I took a class at the gym together early in the AM then we packed up the girls and headed to the Gardens. We brought a picnic lunch, but the girls never eat when they're excited and boy were they ever.

Lilly was a little hesitant at first, but once she got used to the water she was running through the sprinklers and squealing in delight. It was really cute. The big girls didn't really want to play in the water, they much preferred exploring the rest of the garden and getting muddy in the dirt. They were enjoying the little buildings placed strategically throughout. One building was a play house and the other was a "schoolhouse" building with a table, books and stools in it.

I have a feeling we'll be going there a lot this summer. I took a few pictures.

Cooling off in the water

After soccer and quiet time Sophia wanted to play outside on the roller coaster. And since she had her bathing suit on she also wanted to play on her princess slip and slide. We ran out to the garage to find it, but little did she knew that it was gone. I threw it out last year thinking it was a piece of junk and that she wasn't interested in it. A mistake on my part. Luckily we have a giant ball that rolls around and sprays water. She chose that instead.

I blew up the ball and Will hooked up the hose. At first she didn't want to get wet and only rode on the roller coaster, but soon Will created a sort of sprinkler system and forced her to pass through it at the bottom. She was opposed to getting wet at first, but by the time it was time to come into the house for dinner she was completely wet and using the hose to squirt herself directly in the face.

When Lilly woke up from her nap, I changed her into a bathing suit and sent her outside for some water fun. She really didn't like getting wet and chose to play on the deck or the roller coaster. This was her first time riding the coaster and we could tell she had a blast zooming down the hills on the car. In this picture she's running back to the top of the coaster to ride down again.

AGAY DA - Again Dad. (Lilly says this anytime Will does something fun like throw her up in the air, turn her upside down or toss a pillow in her face. She cracks up and begs for more. Today when she was upside down she kept looking at me saying I SEE YOU MAMA.)

Here's a video of Lilly.