Learning to Wait

We'll Miss You!

These boys have been such fun friends for our girls! We were able to have a few fun play dates before our good friends had to move. Such cute kids! Madison won't know what to do without her "prince charming"!

Science Museum

Jake's hospital sponsored a family fun night at our local science museum. The girls loved the mini medical center. Madison was a great doctor to her little baby doll and Emerie was elated to see a whole container of band-aids that she could put on her baby. Santa knows what to put in Emerie's stocking this Christmas:) I don't think a day goes by that she doesn't ask for band-aids for her "owies".

They also loved the dinosaur exhibit that had some moving life size dinosaurs. The girls were quick to run to my legs when they saw the big T-Rex open his jaws.

Happy Birthday Jake!

Jake's birthday is always a fun busy week since our anniversary and Father's day are all around the same time. The girls helped me make his favorite cheesecake and we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. The girls were so excited to be going out on a date with mommy and daddy! They love going to restaurants and do pretty well. Madison is always ready to tell the waitress that she would please like some root beer and Emerie asks for Sprite. It's a good thing we don't go out very often:)
We gave Jake lots of fun presents to help him get ready for his big hiking trip in the Grand Canyon the following week. We left Emerie alone with the presents for a few seconds and she had opened most of them for her dad:) I should take time to do more traditional wrapping rather than the bags:) That might slow the girls down a bit! Happy Birthday Jake, we had a great time celebrating with you!

More Preschool Fun!

This was such a fun preschool day! The night before I made some really fun sock puppets and took pictures of them so I could put them in a storybook for the kids. The girls and boys took turns putting on puppet shows for each other and it was so funny to watch. All of the kids wrote their own story starring their puppet and did their own illustrations. They told the stories to each other and had so much fun!

Trip to Toledo

A few weeks ago we made a quick trip to our old stomping grounds in Toledo. We went down to participate in the Cystic Fibrosis run with some good friends who have two little ones with the disease.
We got there Friday evening and let the girls play on one of our favorite playgrounds at Walbridge Park. It is a beautiful park by the Maumee river and the girls loved the playground! We made sure to stop by our favorite Wixey bakery that was just a short stroll down the street from our house. It was fun to visit old friends, our old place, and reminisce all of our fun times in Toledo. We were only their one night and we wished we could have visited even more of our old friends still their. What a fun place:)

Homemade Pudding Pops

A few weeks ago we made some cold yummy treats for a warm sunny day! As you can see the girls loved them!

Lemon Meringue Pie

Last Sunday Jake ambitiously decide to make a lemon meringue pie and this Sunday he made a key lime pie! Not only does this pie look amazing, it tasted amazing. I was so impressed. I don't think I had ever tasted either one and I am definitely a fan. What a chef!

Colors and Bugs

This was a fun preschool day at our house a month or two ago. Being the former art teacher that I am we had to do an art lesson of some sorts:) The kids colored their own color wheels (which I am proud to say I designed). They turned out to be flowers showing how the colors in the color wheel mix together. We then went on a hunt for bugs that matched the color of on their flower petals. The bugs were glued on little clothes pins so they could clip them on the right petal.

We talked about prisms, showed them how sunlight makes rainbows. They learned how to mix colors, and of course we talked about bugs. Part of the snack was going into a dark room and digging out gummy bugs out of a container filled with crushed chocolate graham crackers. The tweezers they used made the bugs light up and glow which they thought was pretty fun! Emerie loves it when preschool is at our house and does everything the big kids do (coloring on her face was her own idea). She still likes to decorate more than just the paper:)

Daddy Saves the Day!

Jake is such a kind loving dad and on this day he went the extra mile to make his little girls happy.

We have a small gap between the sliding back door and the deck. Small enough that kids can't fall through (Emerie is finally convinced that she doesn't fit down the crack. Before we had to lift her from the porch to the house because she was afraid of it) but the crack is just big enough for small toys like "Pascal" and Kitty fall through just fine if they get dropped on the crack.

The day that Madison got Pascal he accidentally got dropped in the crack when they were playing outside. Instantly Madison teared up thinking he was lost for good. I let her know that when daddy got home from work he would be happy to rescue her fallen friend. So after dinner Jake changed his clothes, got out his tools and took the fence off the deck. He then proceeded to army crawl across the muddy floor with the unknown of what lived under our deck. He risked encounters with critters, spiders, and creepy crawlies to rescue Madison's little friends.

The girls set up their lawn chairs and ate cupcakes while they watched their daddy crawl in the dark scary unknown. Thanks Jake for making your girls smile! They were so proud of your bravery!

Pirate Ship

This pirate ship was Emerie's birthday present since she loves water! These pictures are actually the day of her birthday before the rain came so I put warm water in it so they wouldn't get too cold. Kids however don't seem to mind what the temperature is outside when water is involved. They have loved playing in the ship with the warm weather and love getting wet!

Our girls also discovered the spout where the hose connects in the backyard. It isn't long before they are filling up their buckets and throwing water at each other anytime we go outside. We go through a lot of outfits at our house within a single day!

Friends

Friends...most of the time. The older they get the better they are at playing together. They are really great at acting out different stories, especially Rapunzel. Sometimes I have a hard time telling if Emerie is yelling at Madison because she really did something wrong or if she is just being "Mother Gothel" and telling Rapunzel to "get back in her tower!" They make me laugh and I have fun watching them play. Sometimes Madison will wake Emerie up earlier in the morning than I would like or get her up from a nap just so she can play with her. Madison usually directs all the playing and tells Emerie what her name is and what she should be doing. Emerie can hold her own though and will not go along with Madison if she is doing something that she doesn't want to do.