How's Audrey?

Wednesday, April 24th was both great and not great for Audrey.

The great - Audrey mastered a backflip on these bars. She's super proud of herself now. She's also finally mastered the art of swinging herself high on the swings. 

The not so great part of that day? 

Kindergarten shots.

3 of them!

 In case there was any doubt, please know that this child can scream with the best of 'em!

But the next day, we got to go register her for Kindergarten! Yay! 

Here's Audrey's preschool Graduation picture. Graduation is next Friday night.

And, what photo shoot is complete without Audrey (and friend) posing like fashion models?

Speaking of posing...

 *sigh* 

My baby is growing up!

How's Julia?

Julia's great!

In the last month she has petted a skunk.

 She's had substitute teachers write an extra little note on her discipline sheet.

And next Thursday, Matt and I have been invited to Award's Day to watch Julia receive the Superintendent's award (for straight A's). Shhhh! The award is a secret for Julia!

April Fool's!

My girls have been talking about April Fool's Day for a month so I knew something had to be done to get the day going!  I started the night before by freezing water in the bottom of their cereal bowls, adding just a thin layer of milk and cereal on top that morning.

  

Julia growled at me. She's not a morning person.

I also made sure to prep some kool-aid (jello w/a straw) ready for them to drink. This made Audrey cry.  "I'm so thirsty. I was so thirsty last night. And now I'm thirsty again, and there's nothing to drink!"

I'm such a great mom. I prank my kids into crying before it even hits 7am. 

Audrey did (eventually) chill out and eat her jello!

I also safety pinned all their panties together so that when they changed clothes, one long strand came out of their drawers. They both thought this was hilarious, but for obvious reasons there are no pictures of the scene. I highly recommend this prank for little ones.

After school I told them I'd made them "brownies" and had them sit on the couch. I then brought the girls the "brown  Ee's" I'd made and waited for their reactions.

Julia figured it out immediately, growled at me again, and tore up her paper.

 

 When Audrey figured out what the brown Ee's meant, she threw herself on the couch... again, crying. I'm such a loving mother. I think I deserve Mom of the Year.

Don't feel sorry for them. I did pull out real brownies for them to snack on before too long.

We pranked Matt by taping a "honk at me" sign on his car and pouring some salt on his toothbrush. They got me by putting shaving cream under my car door handles. Not a bad day, if I do say so myself.

Spring Break 2013

The first day of Spring Break, it was too cold to play outside, the neighborhood kids weren't around, and by 11am my girls were seriously... no, I mean seriously... driving me crazy. 

 We had to get out and about, so I texted a friend and got permission for us to hide Easter eggs in her yard as a surprise for her kiddos. Fun! We had something to do! We stuffed several dozen eggs with stickers and candy and headed out.

 

We had coupons for free ice cream cones, so we stopped to grab that treat after hiding those eggs.

 Later during Spring Break, I broke down and agreed to use the tie dye kit the girls had received for Christmas.

 I was pleasantly surprised with the process. It really wasn't too much of a mess. We initially just did shirts for the girls, but when there was leftover dye we grabbed a couple of pairs of white socks, and I grabbed a t-shirt for myself. I thought they looked pretty cute! We wore our new tie-dye shirts when we headed to the park for "family exercise".

I made sure to buy Audrey some new flip flops this Spring Break so that I wouldn't feel so bad when I finally insisted these much loved Hello Kitty shoes be thrown away. 

And Friday of Spring Break we headed to an "Eggstravaganza"  We did an egg/spoon relay first thing.

There were tears.

But the tears dried up and we hunted eggs. There *might* have been an egg hunting strategy session beforehand. 

Afterwards, we posed with "princesses" and rode horses!

 I'm so glad Julia conquered her fears from last year.

 

Happy Easter!

Party at the Park

Saturday, we invited several friends to the park to celebrate the girls' birthdays! The day was absolutely beautiful with a high of 75. Other than some pretty heavy wind that kept blowing away presents, it was perfect! Julia and Audrey started their party fun with some dancing while I set up and Matt got the grill ready. 

Then they played with some friends  (Few pictures of play time. I was talking too much.)

   Our party was midday, so Matt grilled hotdogs. 

Then we pulled out the dirt cake.

A pail for Julia...

And a pail for Audrey.

We sang to Audrey first, but then she wholeheartedly sang "Happy Birthday" to her sister!

The "dirt" was quite tasty.

Matt's Granny sent down a pinata for the girls' party. It was a cute spring chicken. 

Finally, it was present time! 

 

 

Hairbows that glow. Fabulous!

I wanted a nice family picture, but the girls weren't cooperative.

So we all went silly instead. 

 Happy Birthday, girlies!

I’m obviously not much on blogging anymore, but I thought I'd slowly play catchup! 

How about we revisit December? (pre-Christmas!) 

*We visited Santa several times.

* The girls sang in the children’s musical at church. They had a good time learning the songs, and Audrey eventually volunteered for a short speaking part. (Julia and a 3 year old were the only 2 in the program to not have a speaking part. As much as Julia likes to sing and talk, being spotlighted isn’t currently her thing!) We weren’t sure if Audrey would actually say her line come performance time, but she did!! She grabbed hold tightly to the mic, turned and stared at me and Matt, and rushed very quickly through her short line “And Jonathan did, make his entrance I mean.” I’m not sure that anyone but the 2 of us understood her, but we were thrilled that she “faced her fears” and did it! 

* Audrey and I enjoyed fun times with our preschool friends. We had pajama day with Santa, and we had a short program for parents. 

*We had fun at a few Christmas Parties. Audrey and I joined Julia's class for their Chick-Fil-A Christmas party at school. And we all headed up to church for the staff party. The girls especially had fun, see...?


Our elf, Elfie, had some fun with us this December.
He lit up the girls' dollhouse... (side note: Matt's a great Daddy!)

And he toilet papered the tree.

I and so glad we have our Elf! He's a lot of fun.
More Christmas to come. :)