Routine Routine

I just had to post some routine things so I never forget this time period in life.

At night is our most routine part of the day. We give a bath to both Natalie & Nicole together (they love playing in the water together). Then, get ready for bed. After that, we read a devotional all together. Then, I usually read with Nicole and Woody goes over Bible verses with Natalie. Then, nighttime with Nicole is not complete without her prayer in bed followed by (of all things) 4 verses of the Wheels on The Bus song. These are wheels go round (verse 1), babies cry waah-waah (verse 2), Mommies say shh-shh (verse 3), and Woody's original verse 4 -Daddies go spank. Of course, we don't spank a lot here, and I guess that makes it more funny. You can see her excitement grow as we sing verses 1 and 2 to get to the last verse. She is nearly bouncing in bed to do the last verse. Then, Woody and Nicole "look" for angels in room to settle her down while I go and spend a few minutes with Natalie before we pray for her.

Two praises were that Natalie is not picking her fingernails right now. Also, Nicole went to "big potty" once or twice. So, one night this week we celebrated by going to Dollar Tree and picking out a toy for each. That probably was the highlight of the week for both of them! Maybe we can get into these routines and stay!

Dress up and Roll!

Wow, what a day...even though it was raining, we still went out to have fun! The first order of business: ice cream! I love PJ day because you get free ice cream if you come in your PJs. Woody was more than willing to drive us, but not willing to get free ice cream by wearing PJs. But, the girls had a lot of fun even if it was in the rain!

Later that day, time to dress the 80s for retro skate night. I did convince Woody to dress up for this since it wasn't too out of the ordinary. He was a good sport! The girls told me I looked pretty (I had about a week's worth of makeup on with teased hair). They loved my beads and bracelets (how fashionable!)/

Off to try on skates. We brought the one toddler pair we had and put it on Nicole. For Natalie, she was using the ABC skates from the skating rink, which was a great start for her first try. She did try regular skates later, but definitely prefered these.

Nicole and Daddy! Always needed a little support as she kept falling. But, she never cried and kept getting back up.

There were people of all levels there from our church, but was mostly amateurs. I saw a lot of people young and old trying to get their "skate legs." And, it was only a miracle from God that more people did not bump and fall. I was glad I could still skate and did not feel too sore the next day.

Natalie skated hard! She went around and around again and again. I tried to take a few movies but it was too dark with no flash. She really loved it!

She would pair up with friends if they were available, or was happy just to go around by herself. Here she is with her friend, Kyle. He was trying big skates.

Nicole kept trying to get more and more independent as she would skate with her arms stretched wide out.

It was a lot of fun and we have great memories!!

The Great Outdoors

Kites each $1 from Dollar Tree....definitely money well spent on a very windy afternoon...

The Kite Commandos!

2 parents extremely brave to take 2 children on one john boat.

We went to see the reports of bald eagles out on the lake. Sadly, did not see these but saw some geese and turtles (quite a few, actually!).

They were content to fish for a while. We made so much ruckus though, there was no way any fish within miles was going to bite our lures!

So, the order of the day was to play in the water!

Can I go back to Kindergarten?

Wow, Natalie's K5 is so much fun. It seems like they celebrate most days. On the 100th day of school, they celebrated with a party. The assignment was to come wearing 100 of something. I made Natalie a shirt with 100 pompoms on it in the shape of a heart. It took quite a while to tack 100 on there. By the end of the day, she only had 98 on there after playing!

The next big day was her teacher's birthday, which they celebrated with a nice, sweet party. Then, the next day was Dr. Seuss' birthday. We had a week's warning that we would need to have a costume for it. I broke out in a cold sweat when I read the note! Natalie & I immediately went through the Seuss books we had to try and find a character. After I suggested a few easier to do costumes, she wasn't interested. I went online to see about costumes and they were expensive! So, I called out for help on Facebook and my dear sweet friend reminded me that Natalie had a mermaid costume that could be a fish costume. Which was great because that was what Natalie wanted to be! Add some fabric and padding that we had already had in the house, some posterboard and hotglue, plus a LOT of prayers = a top for the blue fish costume.

Here she is on the actual Seuss day at the classroom!


And the whole class! Threr were a lot of Cat in the Hats and Thing 1 & 2, and one Grinch! They seemed to have a great time dressing up and celebrating. It would be great to be back enjoying this. My only memories from K5 are stacking paper blocks and "rest time." It wasn't until 2nd grade that we had an imaginative enough teacher to have a lot of fun. Something to learn by!