First Bandage

Last night Penny lost her balance and grabbed onto the dishwasher door for support. Somehow she scraped the skin off the inside of her teeny tiny pinky finger. I couldn't convince her of the importance of leaving the bandage on. That is, I couldn't convince her until it was Perry the Platypus guarding her boo boo!

Fake Birthday!

That's what Norah called today, the day of her birthday party, because her real birthday was last Sunday.

This will be a photo heavy post, so buckle up!

The invitations! Sorry for the blurry photo. I took this in the car, with my phone, on our way to give the last invitation away. Then I cropped it so you can't see our address. Leave it to me to realize last-second that I'd totally forgotten to document how cute they turned out! I made these using my Silhouette machine's print & cut function. I can't say enough about how much I love that thing! Seriously. I'm working on a post about all the stuf I've made with it.

The upstairs decorations. The banner and all the letters were cut on my Silhouette. The upside down balloons were meant to look like bubbles. Added bonus: no buying helium!

Lunch was "sushi-wiches" and "baby whales"

Dessert

The cupcakes were blue with pink frosting. Like the banner, I cut the cupcake toppers out with my Silhouette machine.

I made the downstairs deck into an underwater lagoon, complete with bubbles and seaweed. Norah LOVED it!
It was adorable until the breeze kicked up. Then the tablecloths started blowing around and getting in everyone's way. They were just tacked up, so the came down pretty quick. Still, for less than $1 each, totally worth it.

I made all the girls mermaid tails. Here's Penny modeling hers.

After the girls got their tails, they went to the underwater lagoon to dig for sunken treasure. I also made the girls personalized buckets to keep their treasure in (another Silhouette project). Each girl got a bucket with her name and a picture of her as a mermaid on it. Jazzy decided she'd rather stand back a watch for a bit.

Hannah was the first to shout, "I found something!"

The girls really had fun digging for treasure. For the cost of an under bed storage box, two $3 bags of sand, seashells, and some dollar store toys (see the sunglasses in Elise's pink bucket?), this was a GREAT activity. I saved the box and sand to use for my kiddos later.

Norah in her tail. Elise inspects her new ring.

The little kids loved digging too! That's Penny, Isaac (Elise's little
brother) and that hand behind him is sweet, 6 month old Levi!  

He's not sure who made that mess of sand around him. :) To be fair,
I think it was mostly the treasure hunting big girls who did it. 

Norah shows off her seashell find.

Hannah found lots of bracelets!

Penny has a future as a sunglass model.

We wanted to take a pic of everyone in their tails with their buckets. The girls weren't into it.

Except for photo-bombing baby sister. She was definitely into it!

After the dig, Norah opened her presents. Personalized mermaid
dolls from Elise, dress up gear from Hannah (see the awesome
flower headband) and an A-frame tent from Jazzy!

Thanks for comin' to my fake birthday guys!

Birthday Girl

On Sunday my firstborn baby girl turned four. Four years has flown by and I don't imagine they'll be slowing down any time soon.
Speaking of flying, even though it was taken over a month ago now, I think this picture perfectly represents her personality these days. She is fearless, insightful, loving, and strong. I'm so proud of my sweet, sweet girl.

New Outfit Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago, we got an envelope in the mail from Mark's Aunt Cathie with some new outfits! Of course, part of getting new outfits as gifts is taking pictures in the outfits to show the giver how much you love them (and the girls do LOVE them!).

My lovely daughters may have taken the New Outfit Photo Shoot
as an opportunity to make as many funny faces as possible.

She thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Penny has to concentrate pretty hard to stick out her tongue.

Apparently, Norah really has to think about it too.

I was persistent enough to get a good picture... eventually.

For this one I asked her, "Do you like your new dress?"

This one of Norah is my favorite.

Thanks for the new clothes Aunt Cathie!

Kids in Hats!

Actually, it's two kids sharing one hat, but whatever.

Who knew wearing a hat was so exciting?

I couldn't get a clearer picture of her, she was so excited to be wearing a hat.

Despite what this last photo might make you think, Norah did not knock her sister down and steal the hat. Penny was just so excited she bounced herself right over.

Crazy kids.

Library Time!

The same day we went to the museum, we went to the library. Again, Norah was busy showing Grandma her favorite computer game and I didn't get a picture. However, here's a picture my mom took a couple of weeks later that'll give you a pretty good idea of what she looked like.

"This game is SOOOOO cool!"

Penny worked on her puzzlin' skills. My mom says this is by far
her favorite thing to do at the library. 

Laser-focused concentration...

"I did it!" She was so proud!
She got the chain lock off the green door and placed the chain
in the holder next to the door. Not bad, kiddo! I suspect
that there's a few of her dad's engineer genes in her little head.

Magic, Magnets, and Museums!

While Mark's parents were in town visiting, we did a few of the girls' favorite activities. I've decided to break them up a bit because:
1) the're photo heavy and
2) it makes it look like I'm blogging more, and I've been seriously lacking in that area recently

Our first activity was the museum. Norah was running around showing Grandma (literally) everything, so I didn't get a picture of her. Penny and I hung out in the little kids' area.

She loves playing with magnets. Also, she insisted on the cape.
It adds to the mystery of sticking magnets together, or something.

She refused to look at me (since, you know, I was trying to take a
picture!). Thank goodness she was sitting in front of a mirror.

I got her to turn around by asking if she saw Grandma.

She got really excited when she thought Grandma was coming!

Then she got annoyed that I had tricked her into looking at me
and went back to concentrating on her magnets.

Then she decided that one of the curved magnets was a phone.
Here, she's saying, "Helloooooo!" Just after I snapped this picture,
She informed me, "It Daddy. Shhh!"

I Am That Hero!

After going for a swim in Grammy's little pool, Norah decided that she would ride her bike. Then she decided that her outfit looked like Larry Boy in the Veggie Tales movies. She proceeded to do a dance singing the Larry Boy theme song. The song concludes with the proclamation, "I am that HERO!"

Things I Miss From Where I Sit

It's always good to change your perspective once in a while. When Mark's parents were visiting a couple of weeks ago, I spent several car rides in the back seat with the girls rather than in the front where I usually sit.

When I sit in the front seat, I hear the girls talking and giggling, singing to each other, or (if someone tries to take someone else's something away) screaming at the top of their lungs. But since I'm in the front seat, I don't get to actually see what goes on. 

Beyond the noise, the silliness, the singing, the endless talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking and talking, there's a real affection between these two. 

I love that I got to change seats for a bit and witness it.

Dinosaur Train!

On Father's Day weekend, the Dinosaur Train came to our little town. If you don't know what the Dinosaur Train is, you probably don't live in the same house as a pre-schooler. Dinosaur Train is a fantastically informative and entertaining show on PBS about a family of dinosaurs who ride a train to different areas of the world - and even different time periods, with the help of a time tunnel - to learn all about different species of dinosaurs.

If you're like me, you're probably thinking, "If dinosaurs could build themselves a train, complete with time tunnel, why couldn't they avoid extinction?" What? You're not thinking that? Well fine. Never mind then.

Anyway, Norah loves the show and has learned a ton from watching it. A few of the choice morsels of learning include the following vocabulary words and their correct definitions:

Herbivore

Carnivore

Omnivore

Nocturnal

Diurnal

Predator

Prey

Cretaceous

A bunch more, but you get the idea.

We were able to arrange it so that Norah and her friend got to go on the Dinosaur Train together with their dads. It might not have been the relaxing afternoon that the dads had envisioned for the start to their Father's Day weekend, but they were great sports to take some time out to spend with their kids. I guarantee that it was a trip the girls won't forget!

Between kid-wrangling and mom-absence, there wasn't too much time for pictures, but this one is my favorite. They may have been a little excited.

Win-eeee

Another thing about June:

We had some really weird high winds. Being their father's daughters, both girls absolutely loved it. Norah thought the trees were dancing and stood at the window watching for minutes (which is like hours in three-year-old time). Every time we heard the leaves rustle outside the (perpetually open) windows, Penny would exclaim, "Win-eeeeee!" Truth be told, it was much win-eeee-er than we've ever seen it. 

Here are some photos of the aftermath.

Down the street from our house.

Normally when the wind blows, it just knocks over the trees that
are already dead. The winds were... a little bit higher, as evidenced
 by this tree trunk.

We definitely heard this one! It was right across the street from us.

But, of course, this little narrow miss at the construction site down the street was our all time favorite. :-D