Muddin'

DISCLAIMER: I WAS AT GRAD SCHOOL THIS MORNING. I DID NOT DRESS MY CHILDREN!

It rained all morning today, which meant it was the perfect time to get more use out of those rain boots the girls got.

There's a puddle just waiting for kids to jump in it!

Or not! Too deep!

After playing in the puddles, we called Auntie Jenni and Evan to go for a walk.


Gracie and Bee loved picking the dandelions and trying to blow the seeds off.

What a beautiful evening!

Baseball!

If you've read our blog for a while, you should know that we are big baseball fans around here. With Daddy on two softball teams, Gracie has been asking for her own bat an ball for a while now. Daddy found a Spider-Man one at work today. Gracie loves Spider-Man, and often shoots webs at us, just like he does in the cartoons, so this was a double treat for her.

"Momma. Don't take picture of me."

Swing batta, batta!

Not so sure about her expression~she was having fun, really!

Big Girl Swing!

This is old news.
Gracie like the big girl swing at times~usually when the other kids are outside so she can feel big too. She's even catching on to how to pump!

This, however, is very new news.

Yep, my little Bee tried out the big girl swing today, and she was pretty proud of herself!

Dino

See the dinosaur? There is one almost exactly like it at the park by Grandma's house. The only difference is that the one by Grandma's is purple. Gracie rides on it all the time. This one is at a park near our house. Gracie runs away from it screaming that it's going to eat her. She calls the one by Grandma's house Barney.

Fun Run/Walk

Both of my schools are very good at promoting a healthy lifestyle to the kids we serve. Today was one of the school's Fun Run/Walk. The kids are asked to follow a training regimen and then come the the run/walk with an adult. I brought the kids last year, but didn't walk. We saw the kids off, played on the playground, and then cheered for them when they arrived back at the school. This year we walked about 2/3 of the course. I realized that the course I had walked had been all downhill and if we wanted to make it back, I had to reserve a lot of energy to pushing the kids back up the three block hill!

They've got it good. Beautiful day and a momma to push them around.

About a block from returning to school, I was encouraging one of my third graders. He passed us saying he needed to walk so I called out "You're almost there, you can do it!!" At that point, Gracie decided she wanted to walk too. She ran the last block yelling "I know I can do it! I know I can do it!"

Upon returning to the school she received a medal and cheers.

Posing with her first medal.
G: "Momma! I got a nickel!"
M: "It's called a medal, honey."
G: "Well, it's like a nickel!"

A girl's gotta rehydrate.

We played on the playground for a while before heading home to show Daddy Gracie's first medal. Gracie loves the school playground because that's where Momma works.

Boots!

One of my colleagues told me about buying rain boots for her kids when they were young. She said she put a dot on the inside of each boot and taught her kids to make the dots touch, so they could put their boots on by themselves. She said they loved being able to do it by themselves, and it made going places that much easier on her with one less thing to do. Sounds good to me! We went to Wal-Mart and got Gracie a pair, but they didn't have Bee's size. We went to Fleet Farm, where Bee found the cutest pair of pink leather cowboy boots that she really wanted. Mom and Dad were in, until we saw that they were $45! For boots for an 18 month old? Um, no thanks. We found some rain boots instead. A little big, but they work. Gracie's have a big flower on the side, so I taught her to make sure the flower is on the outside of her leg. They are now her favorite footwear.

Stylin' and Profilin'.

This picture cracks me up. I asked Gracie to put her arm around her sister and smile. This is what I got.

Miss Independent

I don't know why, but when my kids are big enough to go down the slide by themselves, I get a bit sad. Brianna is getting so big! She still likes help sometimes, but other times, I'd better not even think about it.

More From Our Easter

The day before Easter, my brother's family's neighborhood had an egg hunt. If you can call it a "hunt." They put eggs out in a field and the kid collect them. Luckily, they let the kids three and under have the first minute before letting the other kids join the collecting. Once the big kids are unleashed, the little kids are pretty much done. Gracie had a blast, and Bee was pretty entertained too. Above, the cousins are waiting to be allowed to begin.

After the egg hunt we went to my brother's family's house for a while. Gracie loves singing "Happy Birthday," so she was in heaven when she found Elara's birthday cake toy. You can really blow out the candles after singing!

Easter morning both girls got a little basket from the Easter Bunny.

Easter day we went back to my brother's family's house for a family egg hunt and brunch.

Ready to hunt for eggs!

Found one!

After hunting and eating, we went to the park.

After naps, we played in our "back yard" for a while.

Both girls got a decorate-your-own jewelry box from Tony's family, and they wanted to work on them before bedtime. Gracie matched up the shapes of her jewels before gluing anything on.

Bee jumped right in with her stickers!