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!

Learning About Colonial Times in School

We have had so much fun learning about what it must have been like to live with the pioneers who founded America.

Today, we did a little sewing project and the girls did such a good job. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves too! Lexie pretended like she had her own sewing show the whole time she was sewing. Too cute!

Then.... after I explained to them how one of our favorite family blankets had originally been made on a weaving machine, Leah said, "Wow, this is just so complicated. How can all those threads make this big soft blanket?" And yes, she used the word: complicated. : )

Tomorrow's activity with our history lesson: Soap Making! That should be fun!

Just Between Friends Sale

Recently, I took Lexie and Leah on a special trip - mommy-daughter-daughter trip. We went to St. Louis and spent some time with one of our good friends, Tristan Wampler and her family. We had such a good time visiting with them and the girls had a blast playing with their little boy, Blaine. During the visit, we went shopping at a "Just Between Friends" Consignment sale. Oh my! What fun we had! I had my list ready and knew what I was after! I have to say, that only God could have worked everything out like it happened. I came home with 90% of the things on my list. I got exactly what I was looking for. My best deal of the trip was a gently used "Leap Frog Leapster" video/educational game. It sells for about $70 at Wal-Mart. I got it for $4! Yep, I was so excited and the girls have been having so much fun with it. We're already on our 2nd set of batteries with it. Of course, after 3 girls play with it, it doesn't take long for the batteries to go down.

Anyway.... we had a blast and I was so glad to spend some special time with just Lexie and Leah.

Below is a link to the kids sale if you are interested in finding one in your area!

www.jbfsale.com

Yellow Eggs

We have been having eggs more often here lately. I've been trying to make them a bit more interesting for the girls since we are eating them more regularly. I've been adding food color to the eggs. We've had all sorts of colors as you can imagine. But today, Mary Ellen asked me if we could please have yellow eggs. She asked in such a way that she thought it might be impossible for me to do. I told her I would try my best to make her some yellow eggs. And I did. We had amazing yellow eggs this morning. Now isn't that neat?