The loudest house on the block

Have you ever hat the chance to sit outside on a nice evening, where the the weather is perfect - not too hot or humid. Perhaps there is a nice gentle breeze blowing every now and then. And the air is still and quiet. So quiet, that you can hear the birds chirping and the crickets .... er .... cricketing?

Well....if you live in our neighborhood and we are home, you will never get one of those evenings! 8 )

The girls are enjoying the last days of summer and they want to make sure that all of the neighborhood is too! 8 ) This evening after dinner I took the girls outside for some swimming and water table playing. We pulled out the bubble machine, too.

TinyDancer discovered that it is super fun to pour a bucket of water down the slide (which is on the swing set) and then stack buckets of water at the bottom of the slide. Thus enabling her to shoot down the slide and hit the buckets of water with her feet, making the water shoot up into the air and then come down on her head. Afterwards she would shout "THAT WAS AWESOME!" And then do it again.

This was paired with EasternStar swinging in the swing and shouting "PUSH!" over and over. Stopping only when the wind changed and the bubbles from the bubble machine would blow into her. Then she would shout "Bubble world!" over and over. Well, an outsider might not understand the word "world" or even "push" for that matter...but that's what she was saying nonetheless.

Not to be outdone, RainbowBaby was propped up with a boppy in a lawn chair and a set of keys. Those keys were serenaded to like keys have never been serenaded to before!

I wish that I had had the video camera to show Stranger what he missed out on! 8 )

I'll be sad when it is too cold to play outside and all of this noise is trapped within these four walls! 8 )

First day of Kindergarten

Here are some shots of TinyDancer from this morning. How can she look so big and so little at the same time?

All dressed and eagerly waiting to go!



Smiles!

With Mommy

With Daddy

With RainbowBaby

No pictures with EasternStar! She has been sick so we let her sleep in instead of waking her up just to walk to the bus stop.

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I think that TinyDancer was nervous about school starting......until today! She had asked that I follow the bus to school and walk her in (which I did) but I think that once she saw the bus and got on she was fine. As you can see below, she was "too big" for a picture of her in the window. We didn't even get a kiss goodbye at the bus stop, or after I followed the bus to school and walked her in!

See the tiny smudge of hand in the front window? That's her!

Bonus - video of the walk to the bus stop! 8 )

First Day of school - Done!

Well, TinyDancer survived her first day of Kindergarten. Or rather, Stranger and I survived her first day of kindergarten! 8 ) The first three days they are going for 1/2 of the day and then on Friday they start staying all day.

Her report from the first day - we played some, then we sat in our chairs and learned, then we walked around the school, then we had snack, then we went to the church and they told us not to turn on our cell phones at school, then we went to the playground, then we learned some more, then Daddy picked me up!


Pictures to follow tonight after the kids go to bed.

31

Today Stranger turns 31.

Happy Birthday Stranger!


Love and kisses,
your girls

Back to school cake

Tomorrow TinyDancer starts kindergarten. I can't believe it. In fact, Stranger and I are pretty sure we are in denial. 8 )





To celebrate, we made this school bus cake:








We took it outside to share with some of her friends. Don't they look excited?

4 months old!

Today RainbowBaby turned 4 months old! My how the time flies!

I cannot get over how different she is from TinyDancer. Of course, every child is different and unique, but I had no idea that we could make a sleeper! TinyDancer did NOT sleep - ever! I am so grateful that RainbowBaby sleeps through the night! AND she will allow herself to be put down on her playmat or swing or bouncy seat!

She is working hard to sit up although she is still weeks away from being able to do it by herself. She does enjoy sucking on her fingers and putting things in her mouth. And she is fascinated by her feet. 8 ) She is really interested in food but we might hold off on that for a few more weeks.

Tomorrow we are off for her 4 month doctor visit.

Enjoy some video of her from tonight!

Road trip!

We took an unexpected car trip last week - Stranger's grandmother had been sick for almost 3 years and passed away last week. We spent 4 days in the car (2 days there and 2 days back home) and only had 3 meltdowns - 2 baby meltdowns and 1 toddler meltdown. Unfortunately the toddler meltdown and the baby meltdown occured at the same time. That makes for one loud car!!!

Here is how we spent the drive through Mississippi: