Hoppy Times

Lydia's  not shy to wear the Happy Birthday hat on her Baptism Birthday!
She got a little Legos Friends set and is good at following the directions.

DADDY  LOVE

It was Very Fairy Princess Day at the Domes. Garden fairies could be found all around.

Lydia took this picture of the pond frog.

 The live fairies sprinkled fairy dust on their heads and posed pretty.

I don't think Lydia recognized this creepy Cruella Deville from the movie or understood that she was supposed to be a villain. "Aw, she has a cute puppy." Yes, remember, because she steals them and kills them!!

When dyeing eggs, we dye our fingers too!

Abigail makes sure each Easter egg had a cute little sticker.

And lastly, I found a big bunny hopping around my house, so I gave it a carrot. Maybe it'll stick around till Easter. ;)

Ready to Travel?

Driving in the car.

Under the table because it's raining.

Should we take another road trip, for real? Yes?

Are you ready to see different country? Yeah?

 Then just look straight into the camera...

 There.

Perfect.

outside Cracker Barrel, Kenosha

Yes, I think it's time to make our move and get these girls their very first passport cards and plan a summer trip to Niagara Falls and Toronto, Canada!

An Elegant Spa Night

We started off with a mint foot soak, you'll just have to picture all three of us squished in a bucket of water. Then a foot scrub and foot massage. The girls love it when I massage their feet. In fact, if they are having trouble going to sleep, they request "sleeping lotion," which is just some lotion and a massage by Masseuse Mom. So, then we stretched little toes into those toe holders and did polish. They are learning patience when they have to wait for the polish to dry, it's not all vanity and fun! Then makeovers! With some leftover Mary Kay samples, so we all got Double Espresso and Espresso Double eye color...

It's not for all eye types ;)  Lydia had some new princess lipsticks from her birthday party, so we used those. Then Lydia threw on a scarf and pretended she was a movie star!

Such an elegant movie star!

That's her new favorite word, elegant.

"Word up!"

(That's Word Girl's famous exiting phrase, just in case you didn't know because you don't spend all your days watching PBS Kids shows.)

March Activities and Party!

Last Sunday we went to Family Swim at Swimtastic. When I go to a pool, indoors or out, and it's not even 30 degrees outside, you know I'm getting desperate for activity. But I said if we're going swimming, then we have to go get frozen yogurt afterwards.

 'Enjoy Life. Eat Healthy.' See those words on the wall? Well, the funny thing here is that Lydia 'topped' her healthy frozen yogurt with loads of crushed Oreos. YoFresh!

 On Monday Abigail started her Tumbling class through the Rec Dept. She had an awesome time and did so well waiting her turn to do forward and backward somersaults! 

 We got more snow this week, and I decided to bring some of it inside again for the girls to play with. They made a snowman formation and named him pickle, scooped the snow around, ate some, and I swear they played with that sink of cold stuff for hours! On Friday, after a week on community helpers in 4-K, the kids got to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up. Lydia was thrilled to go to school dressed up as a ballerina.

On Saturday, we had Abigail's Minnie Mouse themed birthday party.

Abigail got a cool Disney Look & Find board game. We all played it after cake, trying as a team to get to the finish before the clock struck midnight.

The cake we made was an awesome rainbow cake. The girls enjoyed stirring all six bowls of different colored batter and helping me get the colors right. Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Purple.

"Birthday parties are so much fun, Especially when it's your third one!"

Happy 3rd Birthday, Abigail!

Good Morning, Birthday Girl! 

 Here's the winning breakfast of a new three year old!
She can tell you she's 3 and recognize the number 3. We're working on holding up just 3 fingers, but that's probably the hardest number of fingers to hold up on one hand, just try it.

 On Saturday we picked up a new big girl bed! She had a fun time breaking it in, and we've had one successful night in it, sleeping in the longest she's slept in for a while! :) 

Abigail loves anything sparkly, dressing up, dancing, slides, swimming, playing catch, red light/green light, all kinds of shoes, Caillou, Elsa and that song of hers, nail polish, smoothies, jumping, flowers, flashlights. 

Speaking of flashlights, she's learned this technique from Ben-holding the flashlight with one hand and plugging in the microphone cord with the other-impressive!

In honor of her love of jumping on her bed, we played a game of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.

She's loving, sweet, the light of my life, and now

three whole years old!

We love you!

Abigail's 3 yr Portrait

For Abigail's 3 year picture, I drove over to Portrait Innovations in Brookfield. I just love how you can leave the studio with your pictures in ten minutes! The lady photographer was really good with Abigail. I thought I would have to help get her to smile, but the photographer took the reigns and Abigail enjoyed all the attention. It's great to see her shine on her own.

I've never picked the number block picture before, but I do like the benefit of instantly knowing how old she is in the picture. I think they should add 9 months and 18 months on a block because those are the milestone pictures I'm always flipping over to age check when I look back ;)

And the photographer was nice enough to humor Lydia by taking her picture with Abigail, [even though I explained to Lydia beforehand that she already had her pictures taken (see Lydia's 4K school picture along the right panel)] but Lydia knows how to assert herself, I'll just say that. They pulled their own chairs on the scene and this picture surprisingly captures their silly selves quite well. "May Your Spring Be Silly" seemed to me and the photographer to be an appropriate caption, but Lydia thinks 'Fun' sounds more princess-y.

Yes, Spring will be here very soon! :)

Lydia's Ariel Birthday Party at Chasing Tales

Lydia was excited for her party. She helped set up the room yesterday and we hung our homemade jellyfish from the ceiling, and she even helped decorate the cake.

Lydia pulling Abigail around just before our guests arrived. When they did, she wanted to introduce everyone to everyone.

Abigail and Violet

Addison, Matthew H. and Lydia

 Lydia showing her friends the cake. She's a natural little leader. 

 Some two-on-two games went on with the grown ups. Lots of room to play!

From 11-11:30, the hosts organized games, starting with the parachute.

Playing popcorn!

 The kids went under the pillow parachute.

 What a cutie, Matthew is!

 Playing prince/princesses and dragons. The kids loved being the dragons and catching the grown ups.

Reaching high for the Under the Sea bubbles.
The kids were encouraged to catch them on their nose, belly, and toes.

They were the Bubble Ooodles from Gymboree, and might be the best bubbles.

 Pizza
The boys didn't fuss at all about the princess straws, princess place mats or everything pink. I did have regular party hats instead of mini tiaras, and distinctively boyish goodies bags for the two boys.

 Gifts
Addison is so sweet. She said a few times, "this is the best party ever!" And she was thrilled that Lydia gave her Skittles instead of M&Ms because she's allergic to peanuts.

Matthew H., Addison, Heather, Isabelle, Ethan, Aaliyah, Abigail, Ariel

 Cake
It was awkwardly brought to her because she wanted to sit the cute little birthday chair.

 More free play

Our party room time was 10:30 to 12:30, but we could clear the room and play as long as we wanted. The last of us played till 3. I think everyone had a fun time. The party wasn't at our house, but I'm still tired!