What Two Girls Can Do With One Crate

This is what the girls were doing while I was doing the binders for Ward Choir Music last Sunday. This was much preferred to what they did today while I was doing my hair. (What a mess!) I didn't realize they could both fit into one crate. But they could.

My beautiful girls, posing in their crate. :)

It's just so fun to take pictures!

I love being the mommy of two sweet, beautiful girls. Life is good.

Crafting for Babies

A friend is blessing her baby today. Friday she came over so we could make a hair bow and bracelet to match the blessing dress. Here our the three of our kids. Nathan came home while I was still busy finishing up the bracelet and took this picture soon after I was done (thus you can see me enjoying the baby in the background.)
The girls really love babies. Not surprising seeing that their mommy loves all babies as well.

Here's little Melanie with her new hair bow and bracelet ready for her special day. This picture really doesn't do justice to the bow or bracelet. I definitely have plans on making a matching set for my girls.

Caught in the act! Nathan surprised me with this picture. You'll have to forgive the no-make-up and lack of doing my hair look.

Preschool Playgroup

For last weeks playgroup I decided to try formalizing our letter of the week a little more. Let's just say this will be a trial and error thing if I continue with this.

First - we traced our names. I typed the names up and had them laminated on strips of paper and the kids traced their names with a dry erase marker.

Second - we played a game with our letter "A". We hid the letter and played hot and cold. Let's just say that two-year-olds are NOT interested in sharing. The three-year-old in our group did really well with this game. (Will have to note that for a later date when most of the group is 3.)

Next - We had our show and tell. Each child brought an item that began with the letter "A". We practiced some positional words. The alligator is "on" Meredith's head, etc.

Then - We had snack time. Here is a picture of what our placemats looked like. The numbers are on there so we can count out our snacks. We had ants (raisins), apricots, apples and dried apples. And I'm thinking, too many snacks is fairly overwhelming, so maybe just keep snacks to only 2 and not have everybody bring a snack. we'll have to take turns.

When the girls ask to color I pull this out. It has everything, minus the paper of course. It's fun to pull out our "craft box" or "coloring box". It was fun to pull it out for our playgroup. All of the stuff was right there. Markers, crayons (in the pink box), pencils, glue sticks, elmer's glue, water colors, scissors, and a ruler.

Here are two of our finished craft projects that we did after our snack. Meredith loved doing this. This was to help teach how to write an A. We put glue on the first line (the left line) of the A and had the kids start at the top of the letter. Then the right line and then the line between. It was a fun little project. Of course, then my girls dumped water and ruined the ones that got left at our house.

So, for next week I think we'll definitely have to shorten the formalized amount of time for our playdate. I think I'll stick to the names, show and tell, snack then craft. I'll just not add anything else and keep each of these short. (I'll let you know if that works better for 2-year-olds. :)

A New Obsession

I am now completely obsessed with looking at the time. Getting Emily to school on time seems like no small matter and then there's picking her up. I have to be there right on time at 9am. Somehow I always get there right on time at 9:03 just when her classmates coming from the bus are headed into the classroom. So, it's pretty perfect timing because she just joins them and goes inside. If I'm late though.....oh, it takes forever! I have to sign in. I have to get BOTH girls out of the car, sign in - Name, where I'm going, what time it is (um...I'm late that's really all I care to know), and I just put the sign out time as one minute later so I don't have to do that again. I also have to wear a name tag. For the whole 30 seconds I'm on the school grounds. So, moral of that story, don't be late. Now, it's just habit to look at my watch. I can't just look at my cell phone anymore. The few seconds it takes to pull the phone out makes me nervous. I still really hate wearing a watch though. And on top of that I think that most watches, not quite all, are really ugly. (Including the one I have, but I got it for timing flash cards for piano lessons and don't want to buy something I truly hate wearing.)

I quit the whole bus thing. It was way more stressful than just dropping her off myself. I now feel free to plan out playgroups and craft nights. :) Happy Day!

Preschool Update: Emily has started talking more. The conversations get better and better (We just had one of our best conversations today.) I'm pleased with her progress. She will tell me though that she doesn't want to go to preschool and then when I take her she is eager to get out of the car. So, now I just ignore the "I don't want to go to preschool". It had me concerned though. Concerned enough to spend another day in preschool a while back where everything went swimmingly once again.

Emily LOVES the new bracelets I made her during our craft night last night. And, I'm afraid that making bracelets could be my newest obsession.

I'm a Princess

The girls LOVE giving horse back rides to each other. Even Meredith will give Emily a ride. I love to see them play together.

I'm really not sure where she learned this, but she is riding the broom in this picture. She really loves brooms. She loves my kitchen broom and she especially loves the toy brooms she can find in the stores. I guess I know what to get her for her Birthday. :)

I overheard this conversation from the Living Room between Emily and Nathan. Those girls just tell him some of the darnedest (or so google says that's the way it's spelled) things. They're hilarious.

Nathan was explaining to Emily that she was a sister to Meredith.

Laughing she says, "No, I'm a princess."

"You are a princess, but your Meredith's sister too."

"No. Meredith is a sister, I'm a princess." Still laughing at the absurdity of such an idea that she was a sister.

Currently Emily still believes that Meredith is a sister and Emily is the princess. She doesn't think it possible that Emily is a sister and a princess.

On Strike

Ok, I'm on strike. Meaning, I'm just dropping a lot of things I'd normally do in a week. One of those things being my playgroup (sorry guys) :(

It's been quite the month though. First off, I've had a computer, no TWO that decided to die on me. After Nathan tried fixing one he finally got a different computer working for me that desperately needs more memory (just add that one on my list of things to do.) Then the girls computer stopped working. Ever heard a dying hard drive before. I have for the first time, and it is not a pleasant sound. We also got a new hard drive that we had to send back to be fixed a month later. They sent it back still not working and now they have to send us a new one. :( I'm finding I really enjoy technology, but hate all of the maintenance and problems that come with it. Good thing I have Nathan. :)

Then my washer machine decided it didn't like the water hose and spit it out. I had my own little flood to deal with. It flooded the garage on the office. This happened Thursday night and we were still working on it by Saturday. Nathan had to do most of the work on Saturday since I was gone all day at the Super Saturday. (That was definitely very pleasant for me.) Right now though, the office is in total disarray, or at least it seems like it. It could be worse. At least, it seems that we've had minimal damage.

In order to get ready for school I have to buy shoes that aren't sandals for Emily. I bought some shoes for her that didn't fit. Finally took her to the store to try shoes on and found a pair I thought would work. We got home and she says, "Ow!" Great, so third times the charm. We got a shoe with plenty of room.

So, I'm thinking I need one "normal" week before starting up everything again. It's is surprisingly very stressful trying to catch that bus on time. If she didn't love it so much I would say forget the bus, it's easier just to take you myself.

Back to School

We've started school! Emily was soooo excited. We were actually supposed to catch the bus, but didn't get there all the time (probably not the best way to start out the school year. :) ) Oh, well.

Meredith headed out the door. She was not happy when she found out she was getting left behind with Daddy. She's excited now though, because we walk Emily to her bus (which is a long walk because we have to go clear out to the highway.) and then we do our file folder games, and watch our Letter Factory movie and stuff like that. I try to use the time for just spending time on teaching Meredith.

She did NOT want to pose for me. She posed all of twice and decided she just wanted to go to school. Um, perhaps if I'd not taken pictures she would have made it to the bus on time. That's ok, the pictures were worth it still.

The Adventures of 4 Kids

There are just those weeks when all you can think about doing is survive. I have to say I was a little nervous about this week for a while before it finally happened. I babysat two little boys. One was 6 and the other was 2. Two two-year-olds and two little boys seemed like that would be quite the household. I also have a problem with double scheduling myself. I tell someone I can do something without looking at my calendar. A habit I must rid myself of one of these days. So, come Monday morning I realized that not only did I have 2 extra kids, but I scheduled myself to go walking with a friend. So, I loaded up all 4 kids into the car and we headed over to the mall. Insane, I know. The 2-year-olds went into the double stroller and Emily kept up with the 6-year-old really well. At the end though, Emily got tired. So, I put her in the double stroller and put Meredith in the sling. Luckily, we didn't go too far like that. We played at the play place in the mall. Going from 2 kids to 4 was something different. I'd just go through the rounds of keeping tabs on them. 1 kid, 2 kids, 3 kids, 4 kids. 10 seconds later, 1 kid, 2 kids, 3, kids, .....where is she? Panic. Panic. Panic. Whew! There she is. 1 kids, 2 kids, 3 kids, ...alright, where'd he go? (You get the idea.)

Tuesday we had a playdate which I was thankful for because the 6-year-old wanted constant entertainment and I was hard pressed to entertain a 6-year-old while doing all the normal stuff I do everyday and watch the other kids. Of course, I needed graham crackers for the playdate, so we headed to Safeway. There I was pleasantly surprised with 4 well-behaved kids. Sort of knocked my socks off you might say (not that I'd be wearing socks in Tucson in July :) because Meredith is always TERRIBLE at the grocery store. If I tighten the strap on the seat so I don't think she could possibly get out of that she finds a way and grabs everything in her sight and rips apart anything in her grasp. At the playgroup I was finally able to sit back, relax and get the binding on the quilt done that I've wanted to finish for 2 years now.

Wednesday was one of my easier days since we stayed here and had a friend over instead. (Much easier to just stay at home with 4 kids let me tell ya.)

Thursday was our playgroup. We sort of headed in the wrong direction for 20 minutes. Where my brain was that day, I don't know. So, an hour later, we arrived VERY late for the playgroup. It was still fun to get out of the house and see all of our friends though. The playgroup is getting BIG! Such a change from when we first started and it was me and 1 or 2 other people and we were THRILLED to get a 3rd. Now, we at least have 3 and if I have it in my Living Room we have it packed. And it's a good sized Living Room too.

Friday was my half day because the boys were with their dad that morning. I took the girls walking and playing at the mall again. Sooooo much easier looking after only 2. There was no panicking, or at least it was kept minimal.

Today, I really just want to relax, but I've got to get ready for Sunday!