At the park with friends

Today was playgroup and for the first time in weeks we weren't sick!  I decided to brave it and go with all three of the girls.  We needed to get out and see some friends.  While there the girls played nicely with their friends on the playground.  I had a nice time chatting with my friends as well.  About 15 minutes or so before it was time to go a fe of the kids wandered over to the ditches.  No big deal since their is no water in them.  They picked the flowers and went up and down the little hill.  Then a mom caught sight of trouble.  There was some leftover water from the rainstorms we had gotten the other night.  We went to retrieve our kids and wouldn't you know the only two kids who were wet were mine!  Allie was soaked up to the knees of her pants.  Charlotte, well, her overalls were wet all the way up to her waist!  Good gracious girls!  I hauled Charlotte kicking and screaming to the car.  She didn't want to leave she was having so much fun.  I took of the girls pants and covered them with some extra blankets in the car.  We may have gotten dirty and made a seen leaving, but we at least had fun day and got some fresh air in our lungs!

Blowing bubbles

I've been dropping the girls off at babysitters quite a bit lately so I can go to my doctor appointments.  Every time I drop them off with one friend she takes her kids and my girls plus a dog for a walk.  One time she took 7 kids for a walk!  I felt a little sheepish after seeing how awesome she is, and decided I need to do more with the girls outside. 

Our weather has been gloriously cool for this time of the year, so my commitment to go outside more hasn't been too difficult.  Allie has requested that we blow bubbles from her newly acquired Easter bubbles.  I happily comply since I can sit and blow them while Charley and Allie chase them.  I wish I could get some pictures of how excited Charley gets when she see the bubbles, but I'm not talented enough to take pictures and blow bubbles at the same time.

Today Allie requested that she give blowing bubbles a try.  Turns out that she still puts the wand a little too close to her mouth.  She got a good taste of bubbles before handing the wand back to me.

Bubbles are fun, but there are so many other things outside to do.  Allie ran off to play some football...

some hula hoop...

when Allie was done with that Charley thought it would be fun to try out!

you can't see it in the photo but Allie is throwing this ball for Sprinkles to go ahead and chase.  It was hilarious watching them chase after the same ball.  I was quite surprised to see that occasionally Allie could over take Sprinkles and get the ball back.

Meanwhile Charley did what any toddler does...EXPLORE!

 

Besides exploring Charley loves sitting on her red chair.  She gets a very pleased look on her face every time she manages to climb up onto it by herself.

Towards the end of our time outside Allie decided to pick weeds flowers for us all.  She even made sure to pick some for daddy and Lily so they wouldn't be sad they missed out.

I love these brief little outings the girls and are getting to spend together.  I hope the weather can hold out so we can keep doing them.

Alone at the park...

Playgroup is definitely a highlight of our week.  Allie gets all excited when I tell her we are going.  She loves playing at the park, but even more she loves playing with her friends there.  She always asks, "Is so and so going to be there?  And so and so too?!"  I make a special effort to go to play group because I know she enjoys it.

Even though I felt terrible today, and just wanted to take a nap I forced myself to take the girls to the park for playgroup.  It turns out that everyone else was sick or busy today so we spent the whole time by ourselves.  The girls still enjoyed themselves.

Allie insisted that I take this picture of her going down the dark scary tunnel.  Allie doesn't have problems with inclosed slides except for at this park.  She freaks out at going down both of them.  She remembered from the past that she was scared of them, but I encouraged her to be brave and she managed to go down both of them without trouble.  She was very proud of her self.  I love watching as my kids make accomplishments.

Charlotte was being her cute self, modeling her climbing skills and cute chubby cheeks.

She found the slide quickly enough and spent most of her time there.

After being brave, Allie decided it was more fun to play in the dirt.  Side note...Allie insisted that she wear hat today.  Her bucket hat like Charlotte's wouldn't do.  She insisted on this purple hat.  I didn't mind since it covers her face, but I'm seeing Lily glimmers of a fashionista coming out of her lately.  She is beginning to care a lot about what things are "cute".

After awhile of playing we went and got some lunch.  It feels like right now we live at the park since we go on days that aren't playgroup as well.  I don't mind that right now since we are having amazingly cool weather and the girls can actually enjoy being outside.  I'm sure soon enough we won't be playing because it is too hot.  I'm definitely learning to enjoy the blessings we have in the moment they are presented to us.

A Day at the Park

Days where the weather is in the 80's with little humidity are treasured around these parts.  We've been lucky enough to have a bit of Spring weather this year, and we've been soaking it up.  Lots of park days have been happening and the girls have been in heaven! 

Today I tried to get us all to the park in time to meet some friends there, but it just didn't happen.  Both Charlotte and I took too long of a nap.  I decided that even though we had missed our friends we were going anyways.  So off we went.

It was about 1:00 before we arrived and it was getting hot even without the humidity.  I let the girls play for about half an hour. MacLean park is one of our favorites and they really enjoyed themselves.  Days like this are so fun.

Row, row, row your boat!

Lily and Allie have been watching a new cartoon on Disney Junior lately.  It is called Jake and the Neverland pirates.  It is a pretty cute show about three little pirates, Captain Hook, and Smee.  They've been playing pirates a lot because of it.  I don't mind this in any way because their imagination has been getting a work out.  I wasn't in the least bit surprised to look over tonight and see that Allie had created a rowboat just like Captain Hook's.

Lily wanted to try it out too.  The "rowboat" isn't quite as comfortable for her....LOL!

Froooogggiiieee!!!

Frogs are a favorite in our house.  Allie has a frog named Ribbit that Russ bought for her with some random gift card he got at work.  And Lily cannot get enough of the Froggie books.  I think we've read every single one in the series at least once, if not more!

With that in mind imagine their excitement when daddy called halt to the soccer game tonight in order to show them this....

We have quite a few of these little guys hiding out in our grass, shrubs, garage, and even our house!  The one in the house totally freaked me out one day, but I shooed it out the door without hurting it :)  The girls were fascinated by it.  Lily wanted to put it in a jar and keep it as a pet.  I figured that wasn't a good idea because I would probably kill it, so I convinced Lily it needed to go back to its family.  Before letting it go we let each of the girls take a turn holding it.  Lily giggled with excitement.  Allie gave it a try but promptly dropped it on the ground as soon as I got her picture.  Daddy returned it to its "home" aka our swimming pool so no one would step on it as the soccer game resumed.

I can't get enough of this picture of Lily holding the frog and Russ holding her hands.  I feel a scrapbook page coming on :)

Soccer Ball

Lily starts soccer tomorrow.  Since she has never played and has absolutely no clue about the rules I suggested to Russ that he take some time to practice with her tonight.  Of course at the mere mention of soccer Allie's ears perked up and wanted to go outside.  Me too, was her reply.  Her short stubby legs can't keep up with daddy and Lily so we made sure to find her a soccer ball she could use all on her own.

While Allie was off busying herself, Daddy and Lily were having a great time "playing" soccer.  I think the biggest lesson that Lily learned tonight involved not crying.  We wanted her to understand that even if someone takes the ball from you, don't cry about it just get it back.  Many times Lily did get it from Russ, many times she did not.  She would cry and we would remind her not to cry by having her stand on the side for 10 secs.  Towards the end of their "game" Lily was doing well about going after the ball instead of crying.  I'm sure with a bit more practice she'll even start scoring some goals.  Course it will help that she will be playing against someone her own age not a 30-year-old-overgrown-child-at-heart! LOL!

Imagination at Work

Cleaning my kitchen is a quite a task lately.  Not only is it huge with tons of counters that get dirty, but the girls always want to help.  There is nothing wrong with the girls helping except for the fact that they get frustrated when I "reclean" what they have "cleaned".  So for my sanity today, I begged the girls to play together nicely.

I went about my cleaning when I heard such noises as "vroom" , "watch out I'm coming around the corner", and "wheeee!"  The girls were playing cars with their newly acquired McDonald toys.  But they didn't have cars, they had plastic purses meant to hold a dog or cat.  The dog and cat had been discarded in favor of two Quint dolls and a Sleeping Beauty Polly Pocket.  The girls were crawling all around the floor with their "cars", zooming them up the ramp {aka garbage can} to park on top of the island {aka school}.  I loved hearing Lily say something in her pretend Sleeping Beauty voice only to have Allie repeat word for word in her pretend voice.  Lily is teaching Allie so many things without even knowing.

The girls played nicely for about an hour with their pretend cars before I ruined it by trying to take a picture.  Oh well at least I was done cleaning by then!

Pony Time

Recently the girls have been SOOO into ponies.  Even Allie has been enjoying playing with them.  The only problem is that both girls want the pony hair station.  A lot of screaming, tears, and even a few bruises result from this.  Sometimes I hide the ponies just so I don't have to hear the squealing.  Today I was feeling a little adventurous but utterly exhausted and sick from the pregnancy.  I knew I needed something to distract the girls for at least an hour so I could rest.  I pulled out the ponies with the hope that this would be a good distraction.  I chose the right distraction.  No fighting ensued from playing with ponies.  I was able to sit and watch the girls while they enjoyed  playing together.  If only this could be the case everyday!

Allie with her ponies

Playing nicely together

Have some juice horsee

You need some too mom!

Resident hair stylist Lily

Sweet sisters