Yummy

 Homemade ice cram in new kid-size lawn chairs in our front yard after a great Memorial Day together... awesome. :) I'm at a point now where I have SO MANY PICTURES that I will never be able to catch up (especially with the busy week I have ahead with a big anniversary celebration going on on my "pixies" website)- so I'm tempted to just not blog at all... but then remember that even just a picture or two is sometimes just enough. :)

And the ice cream... was really good. :)

Ice Cream

Today was a cold and wet and rainy day- not exactly the kind of weather we were having a few days ago when we went out for ice cream (along with half our town it seemed like). 

 Nora nearly always asks for orange when she gets to choose a color.

Carolyn nearly always says pink. Side note: how does she manage to be so effortlessly beautiful??

We're getting ready for a fun weekend with the family, enjoying a bit of a getaway- which of course means that I'm working feverishly to finish up my assignments before we leave and get everything all packed. It's SO NICE to be able to get away even for just a few days, without having to make special arrangements for Brad's pager. It's hard to believe how freeing that really is just knowing that he won't get called away in the middle of our family time. :)

Lots of anniversaries coming up... next week is my one-year-anniversary of My Little Pixies- what a wild ride THAT has been... then the following week on the 9th will be the one-year-anniversary of the day our life took a detour (this was the day I discovered I had an ectopic pregnancy, a huge cyst on my ovary, and learned about how well IV hydromorphone works for pain and how nasty methotrexate injections are)... then on the 15th, we will celebrate 9 years of marriage... and on the 30th, 5 years of parenthood (and Carolyn's fifth birthday- wow!) Brad was listening to an old sermon by our pastor years ago, about Memorial Day being a time to stop and remember what God has done for us. I'll be working on our Year Nine digital scrapbook this weekend, so I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of remembering.

Last Day

Amazing, but today was Carolyn's last day of preschool. The parents got to come to class today and see some of what the kids have been working on.

 The class sang a few of their songs for us- including the one they all seemed to really like called "Thank You God for Making Me" where they get to pretend to be several different animals...

 Here is Carolyn with her best preschool friend, Olivia. These two were glued at the hip all year long!

 And here's the class picture (minus a few because I didn't have a wide enough angle). Believe it or not, this was the most normal face that she made the whole time that the cameras were clicking. I told her that we would be showing this picture at her high school graduation... but I don't think she understood the threat. :)

 After school was done, I took her out to "our" Pizza Hut buffet, where we have spent many wonderful lunches together. Nora goes to "school" one day a week, so sometimes we take a "big girl day" and do big girl things together. Soon I'm going to have to start doing some more solo time with Nora, because she is getting big enough now to really enjoy it. :)

Please ignore my no-makeup, ugly face look here- I am learning to wear contact lenses, and it's just too much of a pain to put makeup on and take it off. I'm not a huge fan of the contacts, but it is nice to be able to see, and I just don't like the way I look in glasses. I am too old to be comfortable with changing my appearance, and too young not to care anymore. So I guess I'll just have to get used to the contacts... ugh...

After lunch, we went home for a brief rest (for her) and a little last-minute order filling for me, and then we went to see African Cats. I had wanted to see it and thought she would enjoy learning about the animals. It was an amazing masterpiece of a film; can't believe that they were able to get the kind of footage of the lions and cheetahs that they did. There were a few questions to skate around- like why the mean lions ate the nice zebra... but overall, I thought it was a good movie.

And now it's bedtime. I was up way too late last night and up again way too early this morning, so it's off to bed, off to bed...

Someone...

... in our family LOVES spaghetti!! She downed three full helpings of it tonight... though maybe not all of it actually made it down into her tummy! :) She even turned down watermelon for more spaghetti! And EVERY kid needs some pictures like this for her baby book! :)

Painted

Please excuse the quality of these pictures. I did not feel like editing them. :) We're going out for ice cream tonight- that's way more fun. :)

 But there's nothing more special than painted toenails when Aunt Michelle comes to visit! They were just in for a quick overnight visiting friends (and we make a nice/cheap hotel :)) but they hung out with us for a few hours this morning, and had enough time to paint some toes. :)

 I think this was Nora's first time. :) She was fascinated.

Really wanted fingernails painted too... but Carolyn just started to be big enough to not eat the polish, so Nora's definitely too little. :)

It's so nice having sisters! :)

Books

I love that Nora is starting to enjoy "real" books now. She's beginning to move out of that board book stage and be ready for more of a story. I'm a bit sad to think of boxing up the baby books for a yet-undetermined-but-still-hoped-for-day when we may need them again... but I'm excited to be able to read a more complex story to her and to see how her comprehension is advancing! Since this blog is sort of in lieu of a baby book, here I will list some of the current favorites. :)

Nora loves:
-Knuffle Bunny (Kuh-lull Bunny)
-Big Sister book (somehow the "I'm a Big Sister Now" book got left in the bathroom, and I have to read it to Nora every day when we are trying for a BM on the potty... I think she wants a baby sibling! Me too, baby, me too!)
-Olivia
-How Does a Dinosaur... Say Good Night, Say I Love You, Eat All His Food, etc
-Madeline
-Still chooses the pop-up Elmo book whenever it is visible. :)

Carolyn:
-Frances books
-Fancy Nancy books
-Pinkalicious books
-pretty much any story featuring a princess, a mermaid, a fairy, or someone wearing pink. :)
-currently about 2/3 of the way through Charlotte's Web for the first time.

That's all I can think of right now. Bedtime for us... way too late again... sigh...

Slowdown

I'm not always very good about STOPPING... but today we all needed some down time, and so we got it. :) It was very nice to slow down enough to have the time to watch my girls discover something as simple as a (really nasty, long) worm in our driveway. :)

They were totally fascinated with it.

When we were done watching it, I brought it over to the grass to let it have a better place than our driveway to be. 

 Nora was very interested in where it was going, and hours later, she asked me where the worm was. :)

Sometimes these days are so beneficial- though my "go-go-go" personality at times feels frustrated with the slower pace on days when I don't leave the house all day (I hate laundry, dishes, and housework- and whenever I'm home for any length of time, I feel constantly reminded of my shortcomings in all of those areas)! But I think the girls appreciated some extra time for savoring life... and I enjoyed some extra time with them, after the crazy week I've had.