Happy Belated 4th!

We had a good 4th of July weekend. Dan took the girls on their 1st parade here in the subdivision. I couldn't believe how good they did with training wheels on. Claire has been saying ever since "Momma, I was goin 90 to nutten!" She really was trucking it. Here are the girls at the beginning...




Here's the funny part when they were almost done... you must click to enlarge the picture. Dan thought they were getting too much sun so he made them finish it out in the back of the trailer. They were not happy they didn't get to finish the ride home.



After the parade, we went to a neighbors party and swam. It was so much fun, but I drank too many margaritas. That always happens when there is a margarita machine in the picture. I seem to quit counting. Later that evening when the girls and Dan were popping fireworks, one of our neighbors across the street asked Dan where I was. Claire responded for him with "mommie had a bad margarita!"

Why do they have to be so honest? :)

Matching Swim Suits

I can't help but post this adorable picture with their matching swim suits.



And Claire wiped out again after swimming - same spot on the couch watching what else of course... SpongeBob!

Homeade Popsicles

Wow! I love this. So few ingredients and looks so easy.

Now, I'm on the hunt for some popsicle molds. I am forever standing in the frozen section of the grocery store reading the ingredient list on the back of the popsicle packages and the list goes on and on and on...

http://wondertime.go.com/life-at-home/article/fruit-popsicles.html

(ok, so I still have not figured out how to make this link work to where you just click and go. you'll have to copy and paste into your browser...)

Welcome to the Family, Beauty

It was only a matter of time... her name is "Beauty." Short for Sleeping Beauty. Go figure. We got her on Fathers Day.

Update: Just fyi - Ezzie (our numbero uno chicken) died a while back. We think a fox got her.... Dan found her left over feathers in the backyard. Sad.

Update #2: Not only do we have Beauty now, but Dan came home with another chicken. What the...!?!... The girls named her after her cousin Madi. Now we have 2 chickens crapping everywhere in our backyard. The girls love getting 2 eggs a day though and we are starting to get enough to give away. Meg picks the chickens up and holds them like babies. I told Dan when we get our pool built he is going to have to build an all-enclosed coop! None of this chicken poop in the pool - that simply won't work! :) And hopefully, the Gleannloch homeowners won't catch on to the fact that Beauty and Madi are in our backyard!

Swimming Lessons

Since we are not in school this summer, we decided to take swim lessons here in Gleannloch Farms this summer. They offer the swim lessons 3 days a week and it was way more inexpensive to do it here at Gleannloch as opposed to several of the other places close to us. And with 3, it all adds up! I really want the girls to learn to swim. The sooner they can swim, the sooner we get a pool! :)

I also wanted to have plenty to do and three times a week sounded like a great idea. Last week was our first week and they did pretty good. I throw all 3 of them in the trailer that attaches to my bike and off we go. It takes 15 minutes to get there on the bike and 15 minutes back. So, I figure I'm getting a little work-out too. It's been great and the girls have enjoyed it. Well, except when they are fighting because they are smushed! I think the trailer is only meant for 2. Oh well.




Claire doesn't take naps anymore, but here she is konked out after swim lessons on Thursday. She wanted to watch Spongebob but didn't last long...

Show Day at the Little Gym

So back on May 27th (yeah, sorry this one is a little late) we had Show Day at the Little Gym for Claire & Meg. The girls basically got to show off what they learned during the school year and got a medal for all their hard work. Here are a couple of cute pics. They were so proud of themselves...

We have since started the summer class and I couldn't be happier. There are a total of 3 girls in the class which means lots of one on one attention from the teachers. In the last 2 weeks they have improved so much.

Meg & the dreaded nail polish

Ok, yesterday was not so good. We had plans at 3pm to meet one of Claire's friends from school and her super nice mom at the pool. At about naptime... 1 ish, i told meg it was time to go down for her nap and that if she did not take a nap we would not be going to the pool. So, I put her to bed in my room - seperate of Emma so they wouldn't keep each other awake (Claire unfortunately does not take naps anymore).

At about 2:30 I went in to my bedroom to wake her up so we could go to the pool. It had been peace and quite for me for about an hour and a half. I walked into the room and got about knocked out from the smell of nail polish. Meg was not in the bed. I did however see wrappers of torn apart bandaids everywhere. She had destroyed a whole box of Barbie bandaids. Those things are not cheap by the way. To get a character on there you are paying high dollar. The bandaids were all over my bed and the floor. When I looked a little further I saw Meg on top of the sink near Dan's medicine cabinet. That is where she got the bandaids. It also looked as if Dan (who had painted their nails hot pink a few days before) did not put the polish back under my child proof cabinet where I stash it all. Yup - he left it right where the monkey could climb and get it. At first, I had no idea where the polish was. After I freaked out and got her down from the sink I noticed she had spilled nearly the whole bottle on my comforter and sheets. Yup, they're ruined.

The hardest part for me was sticking to my threat. We were not able to go swimming now since I had warned her - no nap - no swimming. I have never seen her cry so hard in her whole life and I've never had to alter our plans because they've acted up. This was a first and it was so sad. She almost hypervenalated for an hour when I told her I was taking Claire & Emma after daddy got home. How could I punish Claire & Emm for what Meg did? Anyway - yesterday was traumatic and I'm glad it's over. Her heart was broken as we left for the pool...

On a brighter note, she did much better today. I went in and checked on her about 15 minutes after I put her down for nap. She had only destroyed about half a package of bandaids. Why is it so hard to get through to a toddler? Ok - so tonight I am cleaning out that cabinet!