Big Girl Bike!

Here's the latest on our last few weeks. Last Sunday, Caroline had her class program at Sunday school. She kept leaving her spot during the performance (once to take off her sweater, once to give Jamie a hug), so we didn't get much video of her singing! She was great at eating the donut holes after, though!


We also got the playhouse in oder and the girls enjoyed playing restaurant- a favorite playhouse game of mine, too! We did our annual move-in measurements. Caroline is sure that she has grown up to the ceiling now.

The measuring wall.

On Monday Katie's new golf clubs arrived, which Caroline will share until we know whether she golf left or right handed.

The grass in our backyard is growing fast, so they got to practice hitting out of the "rough."

Later Monday night, Jamie decided to take Caroline's training wheels off since she's been doing so well with her push bike and Katie's scooter. Once Jamie got her lined up, she took off and went pretty far:

She continued to ride on her own for about 45 minutes. The big kids on our street were pretty impressed. Our neighbor Miranda was particularly proud of Caroline and went to get her parents to see.

While Caroline was biking, Katie and Miranda were strutting around "being cool."

This week also marked the start of soccer- something Caroline has been waiting for "her whole life." She is very excited to be participating now instead of just watching! Jamie is coaching both girls' teams with another dad whose daughters are the same ages.

Katie has really imroved this year and showed her speed when running down the big field. Maybe she will take after her Aunt Suzie!

While Katie practiced, Caroline and her friend kept busy by eating snacks!

On Friday Katie lost tooth #2. It was extremely loose and I was glad it came out because it was grossing me out.

She happily left it for the tooth fairy and was excited about collecting $2 more for her piggy bank.

Jamie was away Friday and Saturday on a bus trip to Kentucky with about 20 guys to watch some horseracing. It was rainy almost all weekend, so the girls and I had to keep busy indoors. We had a "slumber party", made homemade donuts, went to swimming lessons, got out to the park when there was a break in the weather and then finally Jamie got home just after the girls fell asleep Saturday night.

Here's Caroline dressed to do some errands in the rain. Jamie said a lot of people smiled her way when they were out!

Spring Break

This week Katie and I were off for her spring break. We kept very busy with errands and house projects and she enjoyed laying around watching cartoons in her PJs, but nothing very photo-worthy! I did take this one photo of her after she had "styled her hair" using some squares of fabric that we purchased for a craft project. The weather was nice so we were outside quite a bit and on our one rainy/cold day we went and painted pottery with one of Katie's friends.


On Friday night we went to a baseball game and enjoyed watching from the suite with some friends. The kids loved the food and snacks!


And Caroline enjoyed her first pop from a can- what a treat!
And here, she's still enjoying it!

My friend Ricia and I enjoyed "pops" of another kind from a bottle!
Katie was happy to be head of the girls club!
Scott, Griffin and Ricia had fun and got a kick out og Griffin pretending to drink the beer.















Andrew and Courtney and their three girls.



Kelly, Eric, Jacob and Morgan.

The game went into extra innings, but we left after the 10th, which got us home at about 11 . . . a late night for us.
Saturday morning, the girls started swimming lessons. Caroline was particularly excited since she has been waiting for this day for a year. She did well and followed directions, although I did notice her creeping along the wall off on her own. And being near the water slide, but not able to go on it was torture for her!


Later on Saturday afternoon, Jen, Billy, Hannah and Emma arrived for a visit. The girls were very excited to see their cousins and wasted no time vying for Emma's attention.



After some "rest" time, the girls played in the playhouse. We took a picture that kind of reminded us of the one of Jen and our cousins when they were kids http://kgl2003bjl9.blogspot.com/2008/05/playhouse.html

The girls kept busy inside and out, playing baby dolls, house, school (with Katie being the teacher, of course).

We enjoyed their visit and Caroline wondered all day yesterday why they had to go.

We enjoyed our first outdoor meals of the season yesterday, which was nice.

After nap time, Jamie and Caroline took Lily to the dog park. As Jamie tells it, Lily didn't do much, but Caroline kept very busy with the dog agility equipment! Perhaps we'll have to enter her in some competitions . . .

Happy Easter

Katie's spring break began with Good Friday off from school. We had her friend Annie over for a playdate that afternoon and the girls had a fabulous time. Katie had been telling me that she and Annie needed to get together to practice their singing and dancing, so I was ready for an entertaining afternoon. They were very excited to catch the ice cream truck and enjoyed their gigantic popsicles.

After the gigantic popsicles, they were so sticky they had to change into dresses . . . and then they needed to put makeup on (isn't it lovely?) and then they sang and danced for me. It was quite a show!

On Saturday there was an Easter egg hunt at Katie's school. Some of her favorite friends were there, so she was excited to see them.

Caroline was in the 0-3 division, which gave her a clear advantage.

Here Katie and Annie were so intent on creeping forward in their runners' stance that the actually missed the "go" which ws ironic.

It was very windy at the egg hunt and by the end of it the poor Easter bunny had to hold on to its head.

After the hunt, we went to another park to play and have a picnic.

Here, Katie very willingly posed for a photo by some pretty daffodils.

Just as we laid out our blanket and started our picnic, it began to rain. At first we thought it would pass, but then it quickly started to pour, so we dashed to a shelter. Soon we were chilly and the girls and I had to wrap up in our picnic blanket as we finished our lunch.

That afternoon we decorated spring cupcakes (with our neighbor Miranda) for our Easter dessert and the sprinkles were flying!

On Sunday morning we were excited to see what the Easter Bunny had left for us.

Caroline was delighted with her first Barbie doll (she's been asking for one for a month straight).

Katie was thrilled with her new scooter.

And, of course, Caroline was ready to dive into the candy!

She also received a set of play golf clubs.

After our brunch we went to mass.

Right after this photo Katie took a tumble and she went to church with some fresh scrapes on her knees.

After church we had an egg hunt in our backyard.

Katie took off for the far edges of the yard and Caroline grabbed all of the ones from the patio.

Then we kept busy playing outside, while Katie tried out her new scooter.

Then the girls cracked open their new bubbles.

Lily was a huge fan of our Easter dinner and was very attentive while Jamie cut up the ham.

Her patience was rewarded with a giant bone, which kept her busy in the backyard for an hour.

This was an embarassing moment for Lily . . . if you look in the distance past the fence you can see a little bunny rabbit watching her and she never noticed that he was there!

Katie kept very busy with her new electronic password journal and enjoyed borrowing my iPod to try out its speaker feature. She loaded up all her money into its secret compartment and then thing weighed about 5 pounds. The journal's "voice" comes with a British accent and we found it very amusing when Katie asked us what the "Poss-wohd" was!

We enjoyed the day and were thrilled to have a 70 degree and sunny Easter. Both girls were delighted with their things from the Bunny and managed to work in a lot of opportunities to eat candy!