Birthday

We plan to celebrate my birthday and my sister's (hers is on the 17th) together when we visit California in a week so I hadn't anything planned for today.  And I actually completely forgot it was my birthday until I checked my email this morning and saw happy birthday wishes from my bank.  Gotta love impersonal automated birthday wishes and it is very sad that I needed it to jog my memory.  Of course even if my bank hadn't reminded me, a quick check of Facebook made it clear that today is my day.  And to help my husband out, I texted him that it was my birthday.  To which he responded, after wishing me a happy birthday, asking what I got for myself from him.  It's my parents' marriage all over again (and that isn't a bad thing because they were very happy).

So besides a lovely poop filled diaper Miss T presented to me, the only birthday present so far is an apple pie the girls and I picked up at Fresh Market.  I got the no sugar added pie because who in this day and age needs all the extra sugar in our diets.  The girls certainly don't need to start on that this early in life.  It tasted plenty sweet though and really hit the spot.  The only thing I can think of that would have been better is blueberry pie from fresh picked blueberries.  It is not yet blueberry season though and it looks like with our month long trip to California, we may miss blueberry picking this year.  So sad. 

The girls are currently "napping" while I get some time to myself.  By napping I mean T is fast asleep while D talks to herself.  She used to be the type that no matter how riled up be before bed, if you put her in the crib within a couple minutes she would pass out.  Now she babbles and sometimes cries 15-30 minutes each time after I put them down before falling asleep. Two reasons I can think that might affect her sleep are that she is no longer sucking her thumb (she sucked it too much two weeks ago and left her thumb swollen, callused and with the outer layer of skin missing) and she has started getting more into potty training.  Both of them have both been waking up an hour early for over a week now.  I miss sleeping in the extra hour. 

 

Yesterday we went to a playground at Burns Park for the first time.  We met up with two boys the girls have been pals with all their short lives.  There is a great area there designed for the 2-5 age group.  They had a lot of fun riding the horse merry-go-round, sliding down the slides and hanging on the bars. 

 

This afternoon we are going to make footprint butterflies on canvas with acrylic paint.  I plan to lay cardboard down on the floor for protection but I really hope they don't make a mess.  They will be Mother's Day presents for Oma and Leila.  I'll keep one for myself too but am not sure if I'll count it as a birthday present or Mother's Day present. 

Outside in the Springtime

Spring is in full force here.  The trees are leafy green, weeds and grass are growing like crazy and flowers are blooming everywhere.  We have been spending time outside in the nicer weather.  We bought a family pass for the zoo.  The girls have had fun watching the animals and hearing the lions roar and the seeing the monkeys play.  We walk often to the little playground in our neighborhood.  Slides and swings and a merry-go-round keep them busy and demanding the visits anytime they think of it, especially Tess.

We also spend more time in our backyard.  I keep them penned in the middle level of the yard with one of those six panel super yards so they don't fall over the ledge (its about a 3 foot drop).   And they are good about not trying to escape, except every once in awhile T will try to squeeze around one of the sides.  That girl has a little naughty streak.   To keep them busy, I have little brooms with dust pans for sweeping the patio and trowels for digging up the soil in pots. They have their own pots so they leave my little container garden of tomatoes, peppers and green onions alone.   They also have a collection of rocks and sticks they can play with.  I picked up a little slide for them at a consignment sale a few weeks ago.  They have a lot of fun with it and it is a great size for working on their balance and climbing skills.  They have taken tumbles off the top but landing on the grass, they recover pretty quickly.  They also have their little coupe to push each other around in.  A huge part of the enjoyment of the car is actually getting to clean all the rainwater/dirt/oak pollen off of it with a washcloth before they ride it.  Funny girls

 

 

As it really heats up for summer I plan to get them swimming in the kiddie pool and set up a water table for them.  The patio faces full south though.  It gets pretty blazing out there.  So we'll have to restrict our time out back even with help from a canopy.  Unfortunately, this evening our time outside was cut short because, as D learned to say, "Bug eat you."  Mosquitoes are back in the evenings and I am not sure where I put the bug spray last fall.  We really have to do something about our mosquito problem this year since I do want the girls to learn to love being outside.

Garvan Gardens

Last Friday we went for the first time to Garvan Woodland and Gardens a little south of Hot Springs.  It was a beautiful afternoon and the gardens were gorgeous.  It was a little late for the tulip extravaganza but there were still many beautiful tulip blooms.  There were so many different types and colors. 

 

We strolled down to the koi pond and the girls got to watch the fish swimming around and the water flowing down from the rocks above.  It was such a lovely afternoon and the gardens were not crowded. 

Besides seeing the beautiful flowers and water features, I think the girls enjoyed climbing up on the big rocks the most. Most of the time we let the girls out of the stroller and they walked farther and for longer than I expected they would.  My little girls are growing up! 

 



Tulle Skirts

I've been wanting to make these tulle skirts for the girls all winter long.  Compared to this summer, when they had a million cute dresses to wear, it was all pants for winter.  I figured it would be nice and easy to toss a little tulle skirt on over their pants for a more feminine outfit.  I finally finished sewing them (although I have to fix one because I was sloppy with my stitches). 

 

They were relatively easy to make.  I used 1 inch elastic, material for the waist band to cover the elastic and 1/2 a yard of tulle.  I folded the tulle in half and gathered it along the fold.  I cut a rectangle for a waistband, folded it in half and tucked the elastic inside before sewing the gathered tulle to it.  After it was all sewn I trimmed the tulle skirts a bit making the edge scalloped so it looked more like petals. 

Now of course, it is warm and the girls are in cute summer dresses again.  But hopefully they will still fit in them next year and if not I can always pull them apart a bit and fix them again.

Easter

I had big plans for March's posts but my momentum was derailed by a stomach bug that attacked the whole family.  Man, was it miserable.  On a brighter note though, the girls now know when they feel like throwing up, they need to do it in the potty or a bowl or a bucket.  There are other life skills I would have preferred they learn instead but still, got to look for those silver linings.

So now hopefully April will be a better month for this blog.  We got rained out on Easter, so on April Fools' Day we had a mini Easter egg hunt on our back patio.  I would have liked to have hidden eggs in the grass as well, but it is still so muddy and soggy from all the rain.  The afternoon was warm and sunny though and the girls enjoyed it.

It looks like our little neighborhood park has rescheduled its Easter egg hunt for Saturday so the girls will get another chance to hunt for eggs and I'll have another chance to take photos of them in cute dresses.

Daffodils

On Saturday we loaded the girls into the car after their nap and headed over to Wye, where the Wye United Methodist Church has its annual Wye Mountain Daffodil Festival.  It was a beautiful spring day.  The sun shined most of the time and it was warm.  Warm enough that most of the kids were wearing their short sleeve spring dresses. 

The girls, however, I dressed in one of their warmer dresses with leggings because I was worried there would be a cold wind like the day before.  So, no cute spring dress shots yet.  They still looked cute though and it was a little chilly when the breeze gusted (of course it was also a little hot when the sun came from behind the clouds, but we'll just ignore that fact for now). 

The field had lots of flowers but also lots of patches where the daffodils were thin.  It did not seem like there were that many people but it was really hard to get shots with nice views of all the background flowers without getting fellow festival goers in the shot too.

The festival is very small: just the field itself, a food stand and a craft barn.  We had hot dogs and the girls got to pick their very own balloons from the balloon stand.  They both picked pink.  I wonder if T would have picked another color on her own, but D knew exactly what she wanted.  Once D started shouting 'pink' and pointing at the pink balloon, T went for it too. 

If I feel it is worth it, I may just drive out during the week, just the girls and me, and see if we can get better shots with more flowers and fewer people.  Plus I could try out the spring dresses.  However, it is a 40 minute drive and getting the girls to cooperate for photos by myself might not work well.  We do plan to go to the Garvan Gardens in Hot Springs to see the tulips soon.  I will just wait for the next flower photos until then.  And there is always next year for the daffodils.

Keeping Busy

So Wednesday morning came along and between the girls waking up early and having nothing outside the house planned, the hours seemed to stretch on til lunch time.  So I decided to try out something I saw on Pinterest to keep the girls entertained.

I took two of the girls' play buckets upstairs to our office filled them with shredded paper.  Then I added a few toys in as surprises for the girls to find. Miss D has been spending a lot of time tearing up paper anyway so this just expanded the possibilities for her.

They spent a good half an hour playing around with the paper and then the toys they found mixed in.  The dining room looked a bit like disaster area.  But seeing as it took them awhile to pick up the paper and put it away (along with dumping it back out again and picking it up again), the mess turned out to be a good thing.  A good chunk of the morning was spent happily.

Afterward they colored and played with stickers for a little while.  Coloring doesn't hold their attention for too long and usually leads to random surfaces getting covered with crayon marks but it is a little break and they do enjoy it while it holds their attention. 

 



 

They love stickers.  I end up rationing them out because they go through them so fast.  Dora, peace signs and rainbows now cover their papers and the table.  We made it to lunch time (and after that nap time!) all in happy moods.  Hurray!