25 1/2

So I was chatting with Ryan tonight at bedtime and we were talking about our plans for the upcoming week. I reminded him he is doing another Vacation Bible School aka VBS or as Kevin calls it, "All the stay at home moms dump their kids for the week and eat bonbons together". So Ryan says he doesn't want to do another dumb bible school because all they do is tell stories about Jesus. I told him stories about Jesus are good, and he learns about Jesus in school and VBS is fun! Because really, he doesn't have a choice, I am having my week of bonbons, darn it!

So then he says well, I can talk to Jesus himself when I get old and go to heaven. Ya know, when I'm 25 1/2.

Cuz that's old.

Almost but not quite....

About two weeks ago, Molly got her ears pierced. She was over the moon excited and was so brave. We went on a Thursday night and despite the fact that there was only one employee and she would have her ears done one at a time, Molly was determined. She didn't cry, didn't even flinch. And she has been thrilled ever since.

At the time, Kate had NO interest in getting hers done. Nada. Zip. Zero. Nothing.

Until today. She came into my room this morning and announced she wanted her ears pierced. Say what?! I didn't say too much but asked her again later and she stood by her answer. So we did a quick run to Costco tonight and afterwards we stopped at the mall. Kate had already decided which earrings she wanted and insisted she was ready. Well, apparently the earrings she picked are gold plated and have a greater risk of infection and can turn your ears green. Ewww. So we were trying to pick another pair when Kate put the kabosh on the plan. Nope, not ready. So we left. No biggie.

Except Molly had the hugest hissy fit ever because she wanted the lollipop that the piercer lady gives you at the end.

My girls are so different and for that I am blessed.

Cape May 2009

Our trip to Cape May this year was a lot of fun as always. We were there from 6/13-20. Aunt Kiki stayed the whole week and we had some other visitors in and out. We had two great beach days, did the Wildwood Boardwalk, spent way too much money on goofy prizes at the arcade, ate dinner at Groff's where Kate enjoyed a peanut free meal, had a few colder beach days, got tons of mosquito bites, saw Cape May the kitty and much more.

Of course I brought my camera ....


















The kids already can't wait for Cape May 2010!

Oh boy!

Just a sneak peek at my future with twin girls. Tonight at the dinner table...

Kate: " I want a boyfriend."

Me: "Um really, why?"

Kate: "Because I like boys now. I think I'll ask _____ to be my boyfriend and I'll kiss him too" (name omitted to protect the innocent, hee hee)

Molly: "No! _____ is my boyfriend! You can't have him Kate!"

Kate: "Well I'm just gonna kiss _____ at the pool!"

Kevin: "Oh dear!"

Kindergarten Graduate!

Yep, my baby boy is officially a Kindergarten Graduate. Graduation day was Tuesday, June 2. It was such a sweet ceremony. The kids sang lots of songs and even recited a poem or two. Ryan kept talking about how his role was to hug the priest. I had no idea what he meant until it happened. The kids presented a plant to Father Charlie and Ryan was one of the "huggers". It was so cute.
I have to say a few tears were shed. Daddy had the day off and Gam came too. The girls were even well behaved. After the ceremony, there was a short reception in the hall and we got some pictures with his teachers.
We had McDonald's for lunch as where else would a kindergarten graduate want to eat??? That night we did the carnival. All in all a great family day.

Here's my boy...

Rock on sisters!

The other day I was in the other room when I got called to the family room to "Check this out!" It was Molly and Kate putting on a "Rock Band" show. It was so darn cute I had to grab some quick snaps....

Life lessons can be tough

So last week we got a letter home from Ryan's teacher saying he was misbehaving at recess. Apparently he got pulled into a pushing/hitting game with some other boys and despite being told to stop and even being put in a time out, he continued to play the game. He got talked to by his teacher and told she was sending a note home. I picked him up and he welled up with tears and told me he had had a bad day and that there was a note for me in his backpack. He was SO upset. The note said he would lose two outside recesses and that his teacher hoped next time he would make better decisions about his behavior. We had a big talk about how to handle this next time and that if we make a bad choice, there are consequences for our actions. This was tough. Tough on Ry and tough on momma. I wanted so bad to just give him a big hug and make it all go away. My baby boy is growing up! How do you teach them not to cave to peer pressure? Right now it's innocent enough games but someday it could be smoking or drinking or drugs. I can't even think about any of my kids getting caught up in these things but know they are all lurking out there. I can only hope I do a good job of instilling good values and give them the tools to be strong and confident, able to say no when they know something is wrong. Yeah this parenting gig is harder than I thought. My mom always said, "Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems." I think I want to go back to when they were all babies.

March madness

It's been a while so I figured I should post something here. Life has been good. Busy but good. Dare I say it, but I think we've turned a corner with the girls. The past couple of days they have been playing so nicely together, listening and just all around behaving. *knock on wood* Yesterday we took a spur of the moment trip to the outlets in Lancaster, PA to get some spring clothes. Ryan and Daddy went to see cousins Kerri and Erin play basketball so it was just the girls! Gam and Aunt Kiki came along for the ride. We didn't get up there until 5:30ish. The girls both napped in the car and were very pleasant and well behaved. We hit Hartstrings and got some utterly adorable outfits for Easter. They are coordinated but not matchy matchy. Then we went to Carter's and got some sundresses, capris and the girls picked out new pjs. Molly chose a nightgown while Kate got a 2 piece shirt and pants set. We also hit Striderite and got some new shoes. After all of the shopping we were all famished so we went to Cracker Barrell for dinner. They are peanut free (except for dessert but who needs dessert after all the good eats). The girls again were so good! We didn't get home until 11:30 PM and they were oh so tired and went to sleep without a peep. All around a good day.
At Cracker Barrell I saw these little eggs that you stick in water and they hatch a dinosaur. I got one for each of the kids and they have had a blast watching them all day. They hatched tonight and the kids are such proud parents. If you keep the dinos in water they grow bigger. The kids are very anxious to see how big they are in the morning. Let's hope they aren't too big!

More photography

TV much?

For quite some time Kevin has been dreaming about this. Truly, he kept hinting around about how much he wanted it. So I splurged, ha ha, and got it for him for Valentine's Day. His eyes lit up when he opened it and he actually cracked a smile. So Sunday night was the big event, the debut. He cooked 'em up and they were good. It worked! So we're eating dinner and Ryan comes out with, "Billy Mays says, not even burnt on cheese will stick!" Like father, like son.

Photography

So my dream is to some day do this for real. Right now, I'm learning and practicing and learning some more.

My good friend was so kind to let me use her newborn as my guinea pig the other day. Isn't he the cutest?

I thought I had more time ....

Until I heard this, "Mom, how do you get girls to hang out with you?" coming from my six year old son. Whaaaaatttt????? Cue the record screeching and the world coming to a stop. Yep, my baby wants to know about hanging out with girls. Let's just hope it's a passing thing and not something I really need to worry about. Although, I do remember my first kiss was in the sandbox at school when I was a kindergartner.

So we've gotten back into the swing of things this week. The first week back to school after the holidays was a rough one. No one wanted to get out of bed and out the door. While Ryan was on time every day thanks to Daddy, the girls were not. Somehow no matter how early we started, we were late every day last week. This week is going much more smoothly thank goodness.

Here's a few pictures from after Christmas....