Goodbye Oreo...

Our family said goodbye to our dog Oreo yesterday. We had for about 1 year. But she was a bit too aggressive for our girls. So, we did some research and a new friend of ours found her a new home in St. Louis.

The girls really enjoyed talking to her and playing with her from the other side of the fence or from the inside of the house (looking out the back door). Molly even knew her name. She learned to say "ooooooo.....ugh........ooooooo."

After Oreo left yesterday, Leah drew a picture of her and Oreo. She asked me for help to spell, "I will never forget you Oreo." If you know our Leah, then you are not surprised. She has such a sensitive heart.... for everything!

We'll never forget you Oreo! Our first family pet!

A Package From Nanny

The girls received a package from Kentucky yesterday! I really don't know who was more excited about it, the girls or Nanny!

Here they are with the monstrous package that traveled 550 miles.

Leah was thrilled to get some money so she could get a movie or maybe a pool!

Lexie, as you can imagine, was very happy with her lip gloss from Nanny!

Thank you, Nanny for the wonderful package full of goodies. We love them all!

Easter 2011

We love celebrating Easter! It is one of our favorite times of the year. This year, Sunday morning came early with a Sunrise Service held at our church at 6:30am. I led our teens and children in an Easter puppet skit. I was so proud of all of them. They all got up and came to the 6:30am service! That included Lexie and Leah. They were part of the puppet skit and loved it.

After the Sunrise service, we stayed at the church with our church family and had a wonderful Easter breakfast. Later in the morning, we went to Sunday School and then our Easter Worship service. The whole morning was anointed with God's presence.

We then came home to have our own special Easter celebration with our family. Every Sunday when the girls get home from church, believe it or not, but while I'm fixing lunch, they love to watch "The Lawrence-Welk Show." Special re-runs come on PBS on Sunday afternoons. And the girls absolutely love it! On Easter, they were doing a special Easter re-run. They had this big bunny playing an Easter decorated piano. And the girls HAD to take a picture of it! That's what you see below.....

This is part of our special Easter dinner. I made some homemade braided bread and an Easter bonnet that has become an Easter tradition at our "girly" home.

I tried and tried to get a "perfect" pic of the girls ALL looking and ALL smiling. This was the best I could do, even with Lexie and Leah's head chopped off. My bad!

And here we are having our Easter dinner.

HE IS RISEN !!!! HE IS RISEN, INDEED !!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen's birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year. We all thought that was so exciting. She, especially, did. Even though we had had a big Easter celebration earlier in the day, we managed to have a small party for her. Greg took her down to the church and distracted her while I finished the cake and decorated. When she came back home, she was thrilled to see her friends and all the Mickey Mouse decorations. She especially enjoyed opening presents.

She doesn't know it yet, but her biggest birthday surprise is coming later in the week. We are taking her to see her best buddy, Owen. He moved about an hour away and she misses him. We thought that would be the best gift for her!

I always take a picture of the girls sometime near their birthday. Here is Mary Ellen with her pics from when she was 1 and 2.

My pitiful attempt to make a "Toodles" birthday cake for her Mickey Mouse party.

This was when she first walked into the room and was surprised to see her friends and the party decorations.

Yum, yum! She loved the icing. Notice that all that is on her plate is the leftover cake.

Extracting

Yesterday, during the girls school time, Leah and Mary Ellen were running around, chasing each other. If you've never been to our house before then it might help if you knew the layout of it. Our living room, school room, dining room and kitchen are all connected with large open doorways. All 4 rooms are in a square and you can walk or in this case, RUN, in a circle through all 4 rooms. And that's what Leah and Mary Ellen were doing.

This was going on while Lexie was trying to do her phonics work. Lexie held her head in her hands, looked at me and said, "They're extracting me!"

How funny is that? I just smiled and then had Leah and Mary Ellen calm down. Moments like that definitely help you get through the difficult ones.

Battleship!

I found a few bargains yesterday at the local thrift store. One of those was the board game, BATTLESHIP for $1. It was/is in really good shape w/ all the pieces there... which is very important, of course.

Anyway, last night after supper, we got it out and played. Greg and Leah were on a team and Lexie and I were on a team. Leah started out really well and hit two of our 5 ships right off the bat. I thought for sure we were going to loose. Then we had a huge come back and won the game.

It was so comical to watch Leah, especially, play the game. She was so anxious everytime Lexie would "fire" her shot at Leah. One time when Lexie made a HIT, Leah said, "Oh no, you hit our ship. The biggest ship of all! It will take 4 more hits to sink it, though!" Greg was dying, because she was giving us clues about her ship and its location.

Then when we finally HIT their last ship, which was the submarine, Leah was so nervous that they were going to die. I eased her pain and told her that maybe a plane would zoom down and rescue them before we sunk their last ship. She was glad for that. Otherwise, she did not like where the game was going.

Kids are so much fun to play games with.... a lot more fun than watching TV!

And I definitely got my dollars worth in that game... even if we never play it again!

Oldies, but Goldies !

I wanted to post some pics today and these were the easiest and quickest ones to post. I love these two pics. These were taken at the beginning of the school year. And to think, that we are now wrapping up the school year. Lexie is finishing up Kindergarten and Leah is finishing up Pre-School. Although Leah is doing a lot of the same work that Lexie is. I guess it's to be expected considering that they are only 17 months apart.

They have been having fun in math as they are learning to skip-count. Leah skip-counted by 5's all the way to 55 today. She was so proud. And I was too!

Lexie is doing very well with reading and is progressing more and more everyday. Its so amazing to see their little minds work.

These girls make being a mom and teacher alot of fun!