Easter

Here are the girls with their new dolls they found in their Easter baskets Sunday morning. I had actually purchased them for Christmas, but decided they were already getting enough and saved them until now. The dolls are even cuter irl. They are from a line called the "Playalong Club." I would highly suggest them to anyone with young girls. The shoes are easy to take off/put on, yet they actually stay on. Also they are quite easy to dress, even for little hands. :) I decided to use baskets this year that were a bit more practical for us than the usual wicker baskets. To dress them up a bit I planned to just run some ribbon through the top row of holes and then ended up taking it a bit further by adding their names. I thought they turned out pretty cute and the girls were excited to wake up to them Sunday morning.

Here are Beka and Sopie Kate playing with the new duckie bubbles.

Last Friday we headed to Lubbock to have some fun with the girls and to just get away for an overnight. On Saturday we took them to an Easter egg hunt. Besides for the fact that it was pretty cool outside they really enjoyed themselves. The egg hunt was hosted by a beautiful new development called Vintage Township along with Victory Fellowship Church.

They're off!


Here are the girls going through their haul.

Riley met "the Easter bunny" while Beka just kept a safe distance from him. lol

Me and my girls.

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Here is daddy with Beka from a few weeks ago when we did a mini egg hunt inside. It was a good plan for a yucky cold day outside. He was congratulating her for finding an egg that was very sneakily hidden.

The girls proudly made rabbit baskets out of milk jugs with all of our friends. We got the idea from our latest Family Fun magazine. Here are a few of them...


I think that's it for now. Time to go chase some kiddos!

getting caught up...

Before I post Easter pictures I thought I should post a few others to catch up just a bit. :) I have the best of intentions when it comes to keeping in touch with all of you who live far away from us. Time is flying and my girls are growing so fast. Beka's 4th party last month... She wanted a "Strawberry Shortcake dress up party" meaning she wanted to be SS. So, I put together a hat, did a simple iron on for her shirt and we had lots of Strawberry themed stuff for the party too. She really enjoyed herself. This first picture makes her look a bit silly since she is pushing up on her face, but it captures that joy that she was feeling as everyone sung H-bday to her. This picture was taken just as a few of her hairs caught on fire from the candle. Thankfully I was fast moving that day (as less than a cm burned) and thankfully I didn't use any hairspray on her hair that morning. Riley wanted to be Blueberry Muffin (Strawberry Shortcake's friend from her story books). We went shopping at Kohl's and found her shirt. I thought it was perfect. :) This was her main cake. It was my attempt to use all natural icing to avoid the artificial dyes. It ended up being yummy! We also had cupcakes which the kids decorated themselves. They all thought that was great-pour on the sprinkles! Last but not least, we had a blast playing games, which Beka said was her favorite part. Tag Tails was the best-I even got many of the parents to play. If you haven't heard of or seen this game, it's by Playskool and basically everyone wears an animal tail and you try to avoid anyone taking it off. The kids love it!! Here we are playing in the back yard. (Never mind all of the land mines I forgot to move out of the way. In retrospect I'm thinking how nice it was to have that handle just sticking out for anyone to trip over-hindsight is 20/20).

We also played pin the top on the strawberry. We actually ran out of time during the party so my girls played afterward. They were too funny, especially with one who wouldn't stop peeking.

My other fun for the month was getting a new stroller for all of my kiddos (myown 2 plus the other 3 I watch during the week). All of them are big enough to walk, but this guarantees that I can walk a bit further-like twice around the park to get exercise-then they can play-that's the deal I made with them.

This stroller usually runs over $1,000 new (wow), but I got it for $175 + the transport fees from
Houston. The girls love their new ride!

it's the little things...

This past week the girls had their first slinky experience. It was just about bed time when we were playing with this fun green slinky.

We tried making it walk down from the chair over pillow stairs to the floor, but that didn't work out like we wanted. So I suggested that we take it to church (which is just through the alley behind our house). Dan wasn't too thrilled with this idea since all of us were in our pajamas already, but he decided to go along with my last minute crazy idea. So off we went.

Let's just say that this slinky could use some improvements. None of us were able to get it to walk down the stairs like Dan and I remember from when we were little. We plan to invest in a real metal slinky in the near future. :)

The best part was that the girls really didn't know any different and still thought it was a great adventure.

I think Beka was aiming for me in the picture on the right. Yikes!







When it comes to managing both girls in the kitchen, I have to admit I've not attempted this too often. Riley is just so impulsive that I've found it to me not only unnerving but also quite dangerous. We learned this when she was around age 3 and Nana told her not to touch the stove because it was hot. Riley thought for a moment then reached up and put her hand right on the burner. She's a quick one I tell ya.

A few weeks ago both girls wanted to help and I decided to give it a try (again).

They ended up doing really well (no random impulses in dangerous directions) and had a great time! Beka washed dishes...

and her feet. lol











While Riley worked on making meatballs for Daddy.


Oh, the joys of childhood. My girls are a constant reminder to me that it's the little things in life that mean so much.

Christmas '07

We had a great Christmas this year! Dan's sister, Diane, joined us from South Carolina to spend Christmas with us. We enjoyed her company and loved staying home to rest and spend time together. We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas too!

Christmas Eve

We opened a few presents from far away family... In her Christmas Eve Minnie Mouse sweater, Beka was ready to get started.


a new Littlest Pet Shop book and dog... She loved it, can you tell?

And here are the girls in their new Christmas jammies...

Here is Dan and his sister, Diane.

Christmas Morning

Afternoon (yep, still in jammies, and it was great!)

We played some Candyland together. This is a great version for little ones-all of those "go back to..." cards aren't included. Yes!

Christmas Night

We put "real" clothes and headed to the park with the girls . Beka, spent most of her time playing in the pebble rocks, and Riley was off to climb, jump, run and swing-anything to be on the go. Dan and I just had fun playing with our new camera. Play, girls, play!


...And thinking of Emmalee always. Even though we know she is celebrating a wonderful Christmas in Heaven, we still miss her.

This ornament was given to us last year by a family friend to remember her. It so sweetly hangs in our tree this year and warms my heart every time I glance at it.

Tis the season!

Here are the girls dressed up for a program they were part of on Sunday morning.


Last Sunday the girls were supposed to say a Bible verse in front of our church congregation. Of course, when it came to their turn Beka froze, but thankfully Riley remembered the ASL signs as I said the verse. lol

I decided to get them on video when we got home just so I could convince myself that they did know it.

Here are two of the bloopers first...



After correcting the fact that we have not come to worship "Matthew" ...take 2



and finally they did it!



Please note that the girls are trying their best to use "real" ASL signs. Try as we may, we still have a little polishing to do. :)