Easter 2011

I know that Nate will not like the first picture in this post, but I'm proud of his creativity. We have a leak inside the wall in our upstairs bathroom. Our contractor will come someday soon to start tearing into the wall to repair it. In the meantime, Nate hooked this up to keep the laundry room floor dry. The hose dumps any water leakage into our laundry sink.


The girls trying on their Easter Dresses!




Tearing around the corner from Aunt Cyndi's house to begin the egg hunt.


and Ellie finally starts the hunt too!


Cousin Macy and Mikayla


The Easter bunny was creative this year!


Chocolate Easter eggs in the flowers...




The Jones' in front of Nate's home church.


The girls hyped up on candy, made their shirts into capes.

April Drags On...

I can't believe we got a taste of spring and now we're back in the 30's this week. This week, I played hooky from a few commitments and hung out at the Mall with Ellie. I've discovered a nice shoe store that does layaway and I was finally able to pay off some boots. Elyana was happy to meet the Easter bunny there. I was annoyed that the Easter bunny doesn't talk. What's the point of that? (In all honesty, what is the point of even sitting on his lap for photos?) Anyway, Ellie was thrilled and I snapped a cute picture.




Today, Mikayla had a community education theater class. Nearby at the Civic Center, there was Mayo One, Mayo Clinic's helicopter. They were having a high school career education day and were cool about inviting us inside for a peek. Here are a few pictures of Ellie, Mikayla, and her friend, Drew.










Finally, I can't remember if I posted this one, but it is Ellie's preschool picture this year. I think it turned out cute.

Indoor Triathlon Photos

Spring is Finally Here!!

It has been so nice to be able to send the girls outside after school while I start on dinner. At the same time, I'm a bit overwhelmed with the things that now need to be done: yard work, wash and pack away winter outer wear, and figure out what the girls have outgrown and now need.

With the start of spring has come preparing for the 2011 Triathlon season. I did an indoor triathlon at the YWCA in Minneapolis this Sunday. It was a 600 yard swim, 10 mile bike, and a 2 mile run. For some reason, running is getting easier for me. I made 21 minutes for my run. Listening to good tunes really can quicken your step. I loved the cute signs the girls made for me. Hopefully, I will have some pictures soon to post.

Mikayla starts a theater class this Saturday. She says that she is nervous about it, but with her personality, I expect she'll get into it and do great! Now that spring is here, I'm going to push her to try to learn to ride her bike without training wheels. I don't know anyone her age that still has them. She's just afraid to hurt herself. Just getting a mere rug burn is traumatizing to her! Ahh, first born drama!

Elyana started spring swimming lessons this week. She was so so excited to be back into them and ran the whole way from the parking lot. We couldn't get dressed fast enough. I'm still trying to figure out what the girls will do this summer and what is logical budget-wise.

Right now, Elyana is watching Dora the Explorer and just reminded me of her father. She said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. There is an owl in the background and it's daytime. Owls are only awake at night. They always do stuff like that! Geez!" Details, details.

Ellie's Purse

http://madebyk.blogspot.com/2011/03/ellies-purse.html

Thanks Karin for making Ellie such a sweet purse and for no particular occasion. She's loving it!

Some of Mikayla's Art

Elephants. She colored Mickey Mouse on the opposite side so that is showing through a bit...


Patrick and Plankton from SpongeBob Squarepants:



Phineas from Phineas and Ferb:

March!

I can't believe I haven't posted on the blog in such a long time. March is almost over! I blame Facebook who gets to hear my day to day ramblings of life. From birthday parties to school events, to getting together with friends, we've been busy.

Mikayla just finished an after school art class and really enjoyed it. I think she is getting to be pretty good!

She has been doing incredible at school and has been bringing home 100%'s on math and spelling tests. In March the 1st and 2nd graders of her school went to the Recreation Center where they could either swim or ice skate. We did swimming this year and I volunteered. The weird thing is they had tons of parent volunteers but only one other was suited up to be IN the pool with the kids. It was a good thing I'm such a swimming fanatic and was in the water playing with the kids because when a little boy was drowning, I responded before the life guard did. Evidently, the lifeguard was trying to decide if she should take off her sweatsuit before jumping in. It was kind of neat to be a hero in front of my kid and all of her friends!

Mikayla has been busy with American Heritage Girls. Currently we are working on our Citizenship and Government badge and have earned our Needle Arts and Personal Hygiene badge this last month. She even completed her service star (which means she's done 5 hours of community service!).

Recently they had a special dress up event. I dug out all my prom dresses (which I kept for future kids to play dress up in). Mikayla wore one of them over some leggings and I clothes-pinned it to fit. Then, the only fancy outfit I found was the bridesmaids dress my sister wore to my wedding. It was fun to get dressed up together! Here is a photo our our AHG group that I am the assistant leader of. It's a great group of girls!


If we aren't working on a badge, then we are doing science experiments. The science kit we purchased through Amazon at Christmas time is still providing hours of fun. Last week Nate built a volcano with the kids. As I was heading downstairs I heard the following conversation:

Ellie: Where do we buy the lava at?
Mikayla: We can't buy lava Ellie. That would cost Google plex dollars and we only have a thousand.

Ellie is still impressing us with her reading skills. She had an evaluation in preschool for a parent/teacher conference. They were testing her on her shapes. The teacher realized that the shapes also had the shape name written on them. She had to flip them over and said to Elyana, "You know why I just did that, right?" Ellie responded dryly, "Yep." I can't wait to see how much she will grow and change from now until Kindergarten next Fall. She's going to really enjoy Elementary School, especially with her big sis down the hall. Next month, Ellie will be starting swimming lessons again on Tuesday mornings. She's so excited for them to begin. After all, she still wants to be a sea diver when she grows up. I can't wait to see what she really does for an occupation!

I've been busy this month with dog sitting, cleaning houses, writing another article (for the May/June issue) and training for an upcoming indoor triathlon. It's this Sunday. I'm wondering how I'm going to get last minute training in this week with it being spring break and the girls here all day. It's also reminding me that I need to figure out how to work in my regular cleaning jobs this summer with them here all day. I want to have a "normal" part time job this Fall, but I need it to be flexible with the girls schedule. I have no idea what it will be, but am still kicking around the school district para professional job idea. Oh, here's a picture I snapped. It sums up for me that I am officially in training. If you ever needed another idea to do with the IKEA wire curtain hangers, put them in your laundry room for to hang things to dry. In my case, perfect place for swim cap, goggles, and suit:


This month Nate and I celebrated our 12th Anniversary. We sent the girls to Madison to stay with my mom and we came back home for a weekend at home. It was so nice to be able to have the house to ourselves and sleep in. We did take the opportunity to finish our taxes together, go out to dinner, and catch a movie. We even went to the new Love and Respect couples class offered at our church.

We traveled once again this last weekend to meet up with a long lost friend of mine, Nikki Mueller. We hadn't seen each other since 1994! What a sweet reunion! Here's a picture of the girls traveling in our Sienna watching a DVD. I love the wireless headphones!


Finally, I must end with this photo. I'm so so blessed to be able to stay at home with them as they always are making me laugh. Recently I found these barbies posed like this. The explanation was that one barbie was the Yoga teacher and the other her student. They were just practicing their Yoga moves! Ha Ha!