I'm Back...I Hope

Four monthes...shameful...truly shameful. I apologize and decided to try something new...our week in review...


Saturday we went to Mystic Aquarium with Daddy. The girls had a great time...beluga whales, sea lion show, birds, tadpoles, submarines, oh my!


Bella wasn't too sure about the birds



Of course, Lily didn't want it to end



Lily had a busy week. We started reviewing our letters using a very loose version of this. Lily basically knows her letters so I thought this would give her a good introduction to phonics and me some needed focus to our day. I don't think she really needs to know any of this until she's 6 maybe even 7. But the fact is a lot of kids are beyond this at her age and so I'm trying to keep it fun. Apple painting, Baking Bread, Cooking Cookies, Dinosaur tracks...you get the idea. She is currently into tracing. She wanted to know the correct way to form each letter and reached out for high 5's when she did it. TOO CUTE!! We've finally had some Summer weather this week and got out on the slippy slide quite a few times. Lily LOVES the slippy slide, if you could go down a slippy slide with style and drama - Lily has mastered that ability. The best use of $10 this year! This week we worked on thinking of others and trying to remember the Golden Rule. I pulled my current favorite parenting book out and feeling the need to revamp my parenting skills.


Bella impressed me a lot this week. She's been involved in our Letter of the Day FUN. She loved "B for Bella" and "D for Daddy." Try as I might, A and C are just not necessary parts of her life right now so they got put on the back burner. She could care less about tracing, except B's - as I'd expect. But, to my surprise, she was REALLY into finding the letters. I printed off word searches and here's a quote: "C, c, c, c, c, c, c, c okay Mommy I done." My little smarty pants. Bella has developed an unnatural love for Timmy's pink Nintendo DS. Today we visited Timmy & Nana, our usual Friday fun. After an hour or two she kept asking for the "dinosaur coloring thing". I had no idea what she was talking about. I took her to the coloring stuff..."you want this?" "NO!" "this?" "NO!" "this?" "No, Mama the dinosaur coloring thing!" Eventually we figured out she wanted the coloring game on Timmy's DS. We are going to have to create some rules for visiting Timmy and Nana and the DS. We also got to see Naomi a few times this week and Bella was very happy. Although, Thursday you wouldn't have thought it. (Again I'm sorry Julia.) Apparently we need to work on hospitality...not a gift of mine either...we might need a tutor :)


That's a small glimpse of our week, hopefully not too boring. I'll try to take more pictures this week and hope to write next Friday night...but hopefully not at 2 am...Tiffany GO TO BED!

Powerful Testimony

This woman's story is amazing.

Find the hour to watch it, it's worth the effort.

Rachel's Story

Lily's Prayer

Dear Jesus, I know they put that crown on you and it hurt so bad but you knew you had to die on the cross so I could go to heaven. When we get to heaven Bella is going to give you a big hug. Amen.

I Just Wanna Dance!

The girls got Barbie Nutcracker DVD for Valentine's Day. Tonight, Lily and Bella watched clips from the real ballet. Bella said, "Look mommy's dancing!" (That's my girl!) Lily's jaw dropped slightly. She asked questions but mainly watched in amazement. Eventually she got inspired. I decided to show her the following video.

As she watched she said, "They are not very good."



Then we filmed a "good dancer"...

(Thanks to Miriam for leaving her crown behind.)

Sweet Victory!

So shortly after my last post I saw this...

And shortly after that I saw this...

(I think they were scouting out those ugly things.)

I was so excited...at least the squirrels where using them.

But this morning...aaaa sweet victory!

This is "Handsome"

Because he won my heart by doing this...

He's so cute huh?

Some other buddies came. I don't have the knowledge or the eye to distinguish between birds but it was so exciting to see so many different kinds. The girls where really excited too. But still learning to keep quiet and still. They stuck their hands out the window in hopes a bird would land on them. One actually did! See below.

This one I'm going to name "Beauty" if she comes back. I want a better look at her.

Of course these guys had to crash the party...



Oh and we saw this bird...

And Lily "spotted" this one, who landed on her finger...

And something else that happened last night...

Looks like our poor neighbors will have to endure and yes we will be THAT family with THOSE things in our trees. (Sorry Tom.)

For the Birds

On Valentine's Day we lovingly made bird feeders for the neighborhood birds.


I'm starting to wonder if Milk Jug Bird Feeders are just an ugly joke on the neighbors and actually completely non-functional.

So far this has been our only visitor in 3 days...

...and he won't go near the milk jugs either.

So much for recycling.

Now for the girls...

Bella snuggles are always nice, even Snickers enjoys them.

Lily singing at her schools Mother's Celebration

(I missed the note about wearing red/pink.)

I'll try to post the video. It's 4 minutes long, but SUPER cute!!

Pictures!

Found the 'thingy'



Bird Identification is hard, especially with a blurry picture & bad memory.

fyi this deer was walking not running. When they run their toes spread apart and you can see the 'dewclaws'.

Nature Baby Nature

Okay so this weekend I found this blog: http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/.

I thought her ideas would give us some direction and focus to our outdoor adventures. Yesterday we went on a nature walk down our street. It's so funny what kind of things fascinate my girls. We saw a stream in our front yard...thanks to the 50 degree temps! We followed it to the drain. The girls were amazed that the snow was melting and flowing down the street. At every drain I'd hear...mommy look at this one, do you hear the water? We jumped in puddles and followed a pretend bear to his snow cave. Lily was able to tell me the birds we saw were crows. Now I know that's not too tough, but I am still impressed.

This morning, as we are pulling out of our driveway, there next to the house was a deer! Normally this is how the rest of the story would go...I stopped the car and said Lily look a deer and Lily would look and I'd drive off. But this is how the story goes today...I stopped the car and said look girls a deer. Lily saw it right away, but Bella couldn't. After a few seconds of hearing her struggle, I turned around to get her unbuckled. (I wouldn't normally do this because we are on our way to dance class and if I unstrap her that means I have to re-strap her and we don't have time for that.) Bella got free, stood up, saw the deer and a squeal of glee came out of her. Yes, glee. The deer turned its head, probably wondering what that shreek was, and stared right at us...so we stayed longer (crazy I know, what about dance class?). Then he started walking toward us. I was, I mean the girls were so excited but were really great about staying quiet so they, um I mean we wouldn't scare it. It was only a few minutes and then he turned around and walk away and we headed off to dance class. There was a bonding moment there though.

We went to the library after dance class to find out more about our deer. We got the book All About Deer by James Arnosky. We determined that we saw a White-Tailed doe although Lily thinks it could have been a Black-Tailed doe. I'm pretty sure she's wrong...3 year olds. When we got to the page on deer tracks I, er, we had to go out and check. So out we went and there they were...deer tracks! Can you believe it? I know the way I'm reacting it's as if I've never seen a deer before. But I am having this child-like wonder with nature all of a sudden. We followed the tracks and discovered they were eating off one of our trees, just like the book said. We found some other 'bonuses' the book didn't mention but hey those are the facts of life.

We spent an hour outside today. Amazing I know. We got some sledding and swinging in. Took a 'safari' across Mister John's yard to watch Miss Flo's bird feeders. After this post I'm going to search what kind of bird we saw. My hope is that one day I'll be able to blurt out oh look girls a such and such bird/leaf/flower/animal/etc. But hey we've all got to start somewhere. And I'm right at a 3 year old, um maybe 4 year old level. Perfect!

If I could find our camera attachment thingy, I'd post some pictures. But it's missing right now, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Seriously?

Its snowing again! Can a woman get a break from...
30 minute getting ready to go out in the snow?
cold hands?
almost sledding down the back cliff?
wet pant bottoms?
trying to pull a kid in snow boots out of an infant swing?
shoveling?
cold, crying kids?
heating bills?
dirty water puddles?
runny noses?

I promised myself I'd start taking the girls out daily for at least 30 minutes. I know that seems like a short time, but for someone who hates cold...it's a stretch. The next day it starts snowing...of course.

With all my complaining I should say it has been fun. We've gone on 'journeys', looked for animal tracks, played with sticks (some how that is 30 minutes of fun...seriously!), sledding, swinging, and best of all we caught pretend bunnies. Now I feel I have to not be ungrateful for this beautiful snow, because it really is beautiful. So let me re-try that with a positive outlook...

*That extra 30 minutes getting dress helps speed the day along.
*Cold hands? Well there's nothing good about cold hands except drinking hot cocoa to warm them up...YUM!
*I'm finding a new love for sledding..."mommy's turn by herself."
*that's what driers are for right?
*During this fiasco Lily said "You're doing it mama, I'm almost out"
*Who knew kids like to shovel...to bad they aren't good at it yet.
*Cold crying kids? Not fun either...but that's where that hot cocoa comes in handy again...SWEET!
*Phooey to heating bills, dirty water puddles and runny noses...things could be worse.

To me going out in the snow is like working out. Getting out there and doing it isn't always fun and sometimes it's easier to just turn the TV on, but once we are out we're glad we made the effort.

PS...Don't get the idea that I workout. I don't and I'm not planning to anytime soon...I do believe it is too cold to workout. Yes, it is definitely TOO COLD! ;)

PPS...Our Christmas tree is sitting on our front porch and Lily gives it a hug everytime before we come inside.

For the Sake of Cuteness

Have I ever mentioned that my kids are the cutest kids in the world. Seriously, they are. I love them so much. My newest/oldest favorite thing they do is talk. I love hearing the things they have to say. I've decided to keep track of the cuteness since I forget so much important stuff so easily...so here's a peek at my notebook of things I've heard over the past month ...

Lily as we discuss making better choices: "Let's take a break from all the talking."

Conversation with Lily as we are taking down the Christmas Tree:
(Lily standing really close to the tree)
ME: What are you doing?
LILY: Hugging my tree.
ME: Why?
LILY: I'm going to miss it.

Conversation with Lily:
(Lily standing on one foot)
ME: What are you doing? (sense a theme)
LILY: "I'M A FLAMINGO!!"

Bella when our piano arrived: "I love this piano!"
Lily when our piano arrived: "Can they take it back now?"

Conversation with Bella after we dropped Lily at school:
BELLA: "Lili my friend and Timby my friend, Nana my friend, Daddy my friend, Auntie and Mommy my friend."
ME: "Anyone else?"
BELLA: "Uncle Mark"
(Sorry to all the relatives who were left out)

Lily to me as I'm playing piano: "Mom you have to stop playing. Your fingers are going to get tired."

Bella, after I took her sippy cup instead of Lily's: "Actually, that's mine" (This from a 2 year old!)

Frankly Bella is always coming up with some kind of cuteness. There are entire conversations about a range of topics. I'm always flabbergasted by her vocabulary. Maybe this is how most 2 year olds are but I know Lily wasn't and so it's new to me. I LOVE THE CUTENESS!

Thank you girls for making Mommy smile!

(Notice I've completely ignored the fact that I haven't posted in um...yeah...)