Jr. Helper

Starshine was gone Friday and Saturday at her first Girl Scout overnight. (Thank goodness they didn't need more mom volunteers, because I went to bed earlier on Friday then they did!) So, Saturday we were all alone with one kid, which is sooooo different than 2 kids. Seriously quiet...

Last weekend M&M Dad was busy painting our old dingy garage doors to not look so shabby next to our fabulous new siding, so this weekend all we had left was putting up the new weatherstripping. And Jr. Princess was a superstar helper...

We put her in charge of picking out the perfect nails...

I wonder what other projects I can get her to do?

2nd Grade Musical

Thursday night was Starshine's 2nd grade musical. (Actually it was more of a concert because they stood on risers the whole time, but who's nit-picking...)

For a few days ahead of time Jr. Princess and I had lots of fun singing "2nd Grade Musical" to the tune of "High School Musical," which Starshine did not appreciate and told me she would die of embarrassment if we did that at school. We restrained ourselves...

So here we are at the big event. Starshine was SUPER excited that she made it up to the first set of risers. While she is perfectly 50th percentile for her age, she is so young in her class that she has always been a front row gal. And thank goodness, because Starshine's school does not have a stage so you can barely see anybody during this performance, but I tried videotaping anyway. Trust me she's in the middle behind the purple-shirted girl in the front row.

I was super impressed with how many songs they had memorized, and then each class recited a funny poem. ( I should have video taped Jr. Princess, too, because she knew some of hte songs and was singing along next to me. ) Can you believe she only has 2 1/2 weeks left of school??

Jr. Monkey

Jr. Princess was so excited when I picked her up from school today because she had discovered she could do the monkey bars. Of course, I didn't have my cell phone running the first time she went across, but I assure you she flew across. The second time, with phone ready, she was a little tired and ran out of steam towards the end...

My baby isn't a baby anymore...

Mothers Day Wonderful

Last year you may remember (I do) that M&M Dad made the girls repeat Mothers Day because they had such bad attitudes about "being nice to Mom" the first time around. Well, this year they hit it out of the park...

First, I was greeted to a breakfast in bed of pink heart shaped pancakes, strawberries and a heart shaped fried egg (good job M&M Dad). Then, they handed me lovingly made cards. Starshine is geting to be such a big girl that she made her's on the computer, and it included her new passion, haikus:

It is Mother's Day

So wake up let's celebrate

You know we love you

Then they gave me my new Mothers Day plants from school. I would like it duely noted that the styrofoam cup in the middle is my plant from Jr. Princess from LAST YEAR. My brown-thumbed-self has kept it alive, and flowering, all year! Wish me luck on keeping 3 of them alive this year...

Next it was a fun family outing to a local historical farm. It was baby animal day, which always makes it fun. Here they are learning how to pump water:

And chase the sheep...

And a fun horse wagon ride...

The only down side was the massive gnat invasion. I spent the nature walk with Starshine's coat tied around my head while constantly fanning myself to keep them out of my eyes and ears. Bummer I don't have a picture of that to post :)

For dinner, M&M Dad served a lovely dinner of steak and roasted vegetables that was WAY better than the pricey steakhouse dinner I had for work the previous week. And for dessert, there were delicious chocolate covered strawberries. M&M Dad was a shining superstar of an awesome husband helping the girls make the day special for me.

The funniest part was Jr. Princess must have said at least 10 times over the course of the day, "see Mom, I'm doing this with a positive attitude!" They sure did, and it was a great day.

Thanks awesome family!

Jr. Princess the track star

Today was the 5k at my work, an event the whole family looks forward to. This year, Grandma and Grandpa M were visiting, so M&M Dad and I could each run with no stroller -awesome. So, while M&M Dad and I struggled though the high winds, the girls got to play on the superjumps and cheer us on as we looped by them. M&M Dad, of course is super fast compared to me, so he nicely backtracked after his finish to find me and encourage me to the finish line.

Then it was time for the kid races. Starshine ran in the 5-8 year old bracket, and did great. Here she is in her super fast form keeping up with the boys.

We're not sure of the distance, but we think a little less than a 1/4 mile. She finished strong, up with the fast kids. She's looking forward to being one of the oldest in her age group next year.

Then it was time for Jr. Princess's 4 and under race. They make this considerably shorter so the cute little toddlers have a chance. The start line is always a zoo of hovering parents, but we did our best to position her to towards the front, and then head on down the course for photos and cheering. Well, at the "Go" she weaved around some adults, streaked out of the crowd, and never looked back! Check her out leading the pack down the stretch to her first victory!

Seriously - she was super fast! Here she is on stage receiving her 1st place medal.

She wore that medal all day until bathtime. Great job Jr. Princess! Now she just has to start training for distance running as she'll have to move up with the big kids next year and race with Starshine!

Fabulous Face Painting

Yesterday, our community center had a fun, free Health Fair. We mainly went over for a fun afternoon of swimming, but ended up enjoying LOTS of other fun activities. (Unfortunately, this meant that I was not prepared with camera.) After swimming, the girls got their faces fabulously painted. Check out Spider Girl and Pixie Fairy...

This lady was so talented and popular that I noticed the college-aged staff all had face paintings by the end of the afternoon.

M&M Dad left early to go home and start dinner (yes he's a sweetie) and the girls and I went to do a craft in the preschool room. Next, we went to the tumbling area, but this totally stressed me out because the 13 year old boys were using the room as their personal cage match, so I quickly moved the girls over to the indoor playland. (In the playland it is A LOT harder for large boys to get up a head of steam...)

We came home to Starshine's favorite spring dinner - salmon with spinach and strawberries (yes, my kids are the best healthy eaters!) and they ate the house down.

This was definitely more activity than our typical Sunday afternoon/evening, so the girls slept like rocks last night.... ahhhhh.

Super Reader!

A few weeks ago, Jr. Princess was upset that we wanted her to work on her reading instead of watch tv. So, she did the worst job of faking that she didn't know how to read to try and get out of it. Well, that doesn't fly at our house, so we made a new rule that there is no tv unless you do 1 page of positive-attitude (this part was key) reading homework that day. Well, she lasted about 1 1/2-days before she got with the program.

And we knew she could do it! It was only about a week before she finished her whole first phonics kit, and she was actually choosing to do more each night as she became super proud of herself. She finished the last book last week, and got to pick where we went out to dinner to celebrate. Snuffy's! She selected chicken fingers, about 1/2 of my hamburger, and a delicious brownie malt.

Welcome to the reading club, Jr. Princess!

Easter Fun

The Easter Bunny came last Sunday while the girls were playing outside. Apparently, he/she needs to be more obvious because they didn't notice the eggs leading the way down the steps for quite a while. After a quick search of the downstairs they found all of their eggs and baskets. The Easter Bunny must know about the over the top extravaganza that is our neighborhood Egg Hunt, so he smartly brings toys and dresses instead of lots of candy.


Soon after we went across the street to the big event. Here is the annual photo where antsy kids wait patiently for lots of group photos. Notice everybody has large shopping bags because cute little baskets will just not suffice!

And they're off!
You really don't need to "hunt" for the eggs as they litter 4 consecutive backyards...

And the best part - sorting and organizing the haul! (This isn't even everything!)

We joke about how many over the top this event is, but our neighbor loves it and you can see how it brings her joy. And it is definitely something the girls will always remember.

Getting Ready for Easter

This morning we started getting ready for Easter by dyeing Easter eggs. I think this was officially the first year I wasn't super afraid that there was going to be a dye-disaster. They are getting so big and responsible (tear)...

Then, they went across the street to help the neighbors fill the thousands of eggs for tomorrow's big Easter egg hunt. (I am not exaggerating when I say thousands!) They, of course, came home with a preview of the treats to come. Jr. Princess enjoyed the fake-gummy Dracula teeth...

Later they were both excited to find Easter packages from both sets of Grandparents in the mail. Grandm/pa M - they love the dresses. And Grandm/pa L - we all got a kick out of the gross book tonight. Thank you!

The apple doesn't fall far from the bird-filled tree...

M&M Dad is a bird watcher. In fact, this year he is even keeping a list of all the birds he sees. So, it gives me great delight to point out cool birds I've seen when he wasn't around. Well, his love of birds is rubbing off on the girls.

Thursday when we were leaving school, Jr. Princess said, "What's that bird in the tree. Has Dad seen it?" Starshine replied, "Well it looks like a crow, but doesn't sound like one." This then turned into ten minutes of us craning our necks to see a small black bird high in a tree. The girls were commenting on color, and size compared to a crow, and also studying it's call. We then rushed home to the birding software, and narrowed it down to our new friend, the Rusty Blackbird!

They were so proud to tell M&M Dad about it when he got home. And the best part - he hasn't seen one yet!