Yard Work

Our yard is still a work in progress and still needs a lot of work.  Jim's travel schedule has been a bit over the top lately, so not much has gotten done in the yard.  The girls "helped" Daddy last night while it was so beautiful outside.  They earned a few extra gumballs for their allowance jar.  They were excited!

Bubbles

Sawyer being Sawyer

Goofy girl, as we always say.

Emma Grace turns 2

We celebrated Emma's 2nd birthday over the weekend!  She had so much fun eating yummy food, opening her gifts and playing with her new toys!  Sydney and Sawyer loved hovering over her while she opened her gift.  I kept trying to ask them to step back to give poor Emma some room, but that lasted only a second before they would hover right back to her side!

The beautiful cake.  And super delicious.

Apparently the little kids in this family don't like having attention drawn to them while singing "Happy Birthday."  Emma covered her eyes just like Sawyer did on her last birthday!  Silly girls.

 Reese Rene is 4 months old already!  Sweet little thing.  Resting on Nana Molly

 The pretty birthday girl!

Outside outside and more outside

I can't think of any other titles for these posts.  Just spending as much time outside while the weather is good.  Jared has been spending the last few days with us.  I was running around taking him to meet up with his buddy at the skate park this afternoon after school.  In between, the girls and I spent every waking moment outside.  Our neighbors have a 7 year old daughter, so my girls are in heaven when she gets home from school.  We did sidewalk chalk and rode bikes and scooters with her.

Jared's buddy came to our house after the skate park and the boys continued to scooter in the driveway and around the neighborhood.  Syd and Sawyer loved having the boys over.  They are in absolute awe of the older kids.  They followed them around as much as possible! I know the teenagers aren't big fans, but it is so adorable to watch!

Here are just a few pictures from tonight.

Jared and his buddy doing tricks on the grind rail.

I'm thinking that all of my outside pictures this spring will be the girls wearing their helmets.  Scooter riding has become their sport of choice! Excuse the rash on their faces (around their mouths).  I had both girls at the doctors at the end of last week because of this rash.  Dr called it a contact rash from something they got into.  He asked me what I thought it might be from and I suspected that it was from the Easter Lily flower that they kept putting their faces on to smell!  The rash will go away, no meds needed.  In the meantime, I haven't been taking many photos of them with the marked up faces!  Needless to say, the Easter Lily plant has been placed out of their reach!

Sweaty hair, sidewalk chalk all over the face, dirty hands, all evidence of an awesome day spent outside!

My nephew wonders why his folks won't get him an iPhone!  Luckily Aunt Jody rescued his cell phone from the back of my truck.  I imagine he would have been bummed tomorrow morning if I had run over it!  Silly teenagers!

Hunters in the making

Daddy bought the girls a small bow the other day and then our neighbor gave us one that his son has outgrown.  The girls love to practice with Daddy.  Sydney likes to say that she is just like Merida in the movie, Brave.  So cute.

Mudpies, scooters, bikes and bubbles!

Yeah for nice weather.  We have spent every waking moment (well almost) outside these last few days.  The weekend was so wonderful too!

Sawyer needs a new bike this year.  She was ready for a new one last spring too, but we never did get one.  Skipping the 14 inch and going directly to the 16 since she really likes to ride Sydney's 16 inch bike.  Seems to fit her really well too.  Look how tall she looks on this tiny 12 inch bike!  Crazy.

Somehow I managed to pull the same shirt out of the girls' clothes on the same day!  Really, it's no wonder that I get asked all the time if they are twins.

Izzy dog spends hours outside now that the weather has changed.  She doesn't want to come inside at all except when the kids are eating or when she is thirsty!  My poor old girl is slowing down so much.  She is suddenly very fearful of the wood floors and gets very tentative when walking across them.  I am not sure why this is happening.  I take her for tons of walks so her nails are pretty filed down.

Easter was a blur

Easter was fun, but Easter in the Northeast often means cold and miserable weather!  That pretty much described this Easter.  Rain and cold cold cold.  No Easter egg hunt this year.  So disappointing.  Maybe I will fake an Easter Egg hunt this weekend while the weather is supposed to be nice.  Just to get some pictures!

The girls were so excited that they were up at the crack of dawn, as in, before the sun came up.  Needless to say, Jim and I were crawling to the coffee pot and not focusing too much on pictures of the girls going through the basket from the Easter Bunny.  I did manage to get one picture of the basket before they tore into it!  Now that they area older, baskets are so fun to fill.  Headbands, hair clips, stick on earrings, bubbles, and a bit of candy were a big hit with the girls.

I didn't even bother to buy them an Easter outfit since I knew the weather was going to be awful and because Easter fancy dresses aren't our thing.  I did let them wear one of the new summer dresses but they weren't that amused by my request for a nice picture! Can't you tell!?!?

Night Time Routine

The guest room (aka Bethany and Jared's room) has a couch in it that we use ever night when reading to the girls before bed.  We used that couch in our playroom at our Charlton house.  We wanted to keep it and figured the teenagers would like to have it in their room for hanging out and it really is great for our reading time.  Jim and I take turns reading to them, but often they want Daddy to read since they don't see him during the day and probably because they get tired of listening to me, haha. After an especially exhausting day, I sometimes cuddle under the quilt on the guest bed.  Last night Sawyer decided she was too tired to listen to Sydney read her book, so she tucked herself in just like I do.

A few pictures of her all cozy on the guest bed.  Silly girl.

Sydney is having a wonderful time reading her early reader books.  I got a wonderful report from her teacher the other day when I dropped them off at school.  Also, any chance I get, I buy her new early readers.  I know some of it is memorization and some reading, but she is really amazing to watch.  Either she or I will point to each word and she is reading remarkably well.  I love it!  I also love that there are a ton of early readers out there that are more interesting than the basic phonic book.  She will be ready for full day public kindergarten in the fall!!!