Last day of school!

Last Thursday was the last day of our Mother's Day Out school.  The kids have been going on Tues/Thurs since September.  I'm so grateful for this school.  They have music class, P.E. class, they went to chapel and learned about Jesus, they did arts and crafts and accomplished things that they didn't think they could.  They played with friends and opened up with teachers.  They came out of their shells so much, I just couldn't be happier with all they have learned!!

Of course, we are signed up for Tues/Thurs again starting in the fall, but we will have to fend for ourselves for the summer!  I have a feeling we will have lots of play dates, picnics and pool time!  Anything to keep us out of the house- I don't care if we have to walk up and down the aisles at Kroger- we are getting OUT!

So here are some attempts at pictures I took with my phone on their last day, last Thursday..

And just to refresh your memories, here are the pictures I took on their FIRST day, back in September (just 8 short months ago)..

How have they already grown up so much??  They have definitely gone from chubby babies to big kids :(  Someone stop the clock PLEASE!!

Fancy Nancy party!!

I'm a little late since this party was in April, but I keep forgetting because I didn't take any of my own pictures!  My girlfriend invited us to this GIRLY birthday party for her little girl, and I think I may have been more excited about it than Lilly!  This is our first "no boys allowed" birthday party, and I knew it would be good for Lilly and I to get out by ourselves!  This is a phone picture of another picture, so please excuse the quality.. 

That's my girl in the very middle, in the blue dresss, holding on to the front of it..  

 It was so fun, all the girls got to pick out dress up clothes and shoes, and then they got their hair done, and even got their nails painted! Lilly was pretty quiet, but I could tell she was loving it all..

Sorry- another picture of a picture..

They had all the girls walk down a little runway like models, then they had them do some fun little dances to music before cake and ice cream.  Quite a day- I had fun with my baby girl (and don't you worry about Nate- he and Daddy took a fun MANLY trip to Home Depot)! :)

Outside fun.. TONS of sweet pictures

I've been waiting to add words to this post, but then I thought, why not let the pictures just speak for themselves on this one?!  I think they say plenty!!  (I LOOOOVE the way the sun comes in behind our yard in the evenings.. )

They are really starting to enjoy being in front of the camera a little too much!

Our first SWING set!

We got the kids a wooden swing set as an early birthday present this year.. Figured we should let them play in it for a couple of months before it gets too hot.. OH WAIT- It's already too hot!  Gotta love that Texas weather.. BOOO! Anyway, when MeMa and Papa were visiting from Colorado, Papa was kind enough to help Brian start building it (what a complicated mess those things are!), so Brian thankfully Brian just had a couple more mornings he had to work on it by himself..

This particular morning, the kids and I were out in the front yard with him (that's just where they started it to have a flat surface to work on), and I just had to post these pictures of what they were doing while Dad was hard at work..

 We still have an empty lot next door so our sidewalk stops after our house.  The kids will take all of their toys down there and set them up.. sometimes it's the "doctor", sometimes it's "school" or even the "grovery store"!

 Yes they are still in their jammies!

 Riding his trike holding on to his baby, whom he named Brayden.. (?)

 Let's see, we have bikes, two strollers, a salon chair, and a high chair with a doll in it who is dressed in some kind of swim gear..

 Then Daddy could finally move it to the backyard!  He did this part while the kids were in school, and was working so hard to have it done before he left so they would be surprised when they got home from school!

And they were very surprised!  They were screaming and laughing, it was awesome!  They loved it. 

This was just the first day they played on it.. I have a lot more cute swing set playing pictures to post soon!  We have really enjoyed our backyard this spring (summer), despite the disgusting Texas heat and giant Texas bugs!!!  Thanks, MeMa and Papa for your contribution toward to swingset and for helping Brian put it together!  They LOVE it!

Preschool Spring Recital!

I know it was almost a month ago (sorry!), but I still wanted to mention the Spring show the kids had at school!  They were in the back, kind of covered up by th kids in front of them, so this was the only group shot where you can still see them (see Nate in blue and Lil in her Easter dress with her blue flower in her hair?).  The reason I have to mention the show is that the kids did so much better this time, than they did in the Christmas show!  The actually sang and danced and did the hand motions and everything!  It was awesome.  I have it on video, but I'm too lazy to upload it (if I even know how??) They are covered up in half the video too, though.  Hopefully this performance earned them a place in the front for next years' shows! 

 They weren't in the best of moods after the show.. tired and hungry.. but  my mom did manage to get this shot of the three of us (Brian was at work but watched the cute video as soon as he got home!!).



Laughing together..

Just a little something I wanted to remember..

The other night I was listening to the kids cracking up in the bath tub, just really loud belly laughs.. and I heard Lilly say "Nate, you make me too much laughing!!" and Nate said "Lilly, you make me too much laughing, too!!" 

Every once in a while I will hear a sweet little conversation between the two of them.. and it's good.. because sometimes in the midst of all the fighting and whining and crying.. I forget what a connection they have. 

HAPPY FRIDAY! A long post about today..

Trying something new tonight- uploading some pictures I took with my IPhone.  I love it, with this new one they just go straight to my computer so I don't have to download anything or email myself pictures anymore!  As usual, I have other posts to do (we took an AWESOME trip last Wednesday to a place called Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glenrose and I have some pictures from that too!)

So the kids were all excited about TWO birthday parties we were invited to today.. one in the morning at a bounce house and one in the evening at a park.  I have to admit I was excited too.  Now that the kids are opening up more, it's just fun for me to see them playing and having fun (and not demanding something of/from me for an hour or so) :)  I digress..

We've been so lucky that the kids haven't really been sick at all in the past year or so.  So of course, Lilly wakes up around midnight last night burning up, with a fever of 102!  It went down quickly with Tylenol, and I wasn't too worried because she seemed in an even better mood than usual, talking and laughing.  In the morning she still had a tiny fever so we had to skip the morning party.  Let me tell you, it's NOT fun telling two kids that are super excited about a birthday party that they can not go.  I told them we couldn't go because we didn't want Lilly to make her friends sick..and she was so sad, crying, and said "Mommy, I promise I won't make my friends sick.." :(  So I did what any good mother would do.. I went to the Dollar Store and bought tons of new and exciting crud they could play with to try and distract them.. I grabbed lots of stickers, play-dough (Dollar Tree version is better than the real stuff BTW), construction paper, letter and number flash cards, and some new coloring books.  I LOVE DOLLAR TREE for kid stuff.  THE BEST. 

Funnily, Lilly seemed to start feeling better once her mind was on playing with new stuff!  After we played with stickers for a bit, we broke out the play-dough and some letter and number cookie cutters (first time using these- I got them on Amazon- they are awesome!).  Total success, it kept them busy for a very long time and they had a blast!  To make a long story LONGER, we ended up going to the evening park party and the kids had a blast.  Lilly made a friend, an older little girl, and was running around all over the park with her, and Nate was playing with another little boy (also a twin) who lives in our neighborhood.  They were connected at the hip!  For the longest time they stuck together everywhere we went, so it's nice for me to see them kind of breaking away from each other to play with other friends. It was the perfect ending to our pretty-fun-partly-sick-kinda-weird-Friday! 

NOW FOR PICTURES (from the IPhone camera- really great for a phone camera, in my opinion!)

Sorry- these are a bit dark.. Making letters out of play-dough!!  She's feeling better already! 

 Burning off all the cake and cookies at the birthday party with friends!