Practice cupcakes

Today, we practiced making ice cream cone cupcakes for Paige's Ice Cream themed birthday party this year.  Boy, am I glad I practiced!  I definitely needed to figure out how much batter to put in each cone to get the desired look.  Clearly the first batch was a failure.  But they still tasted good! 

Paige licking the spoon. 
She's such a good helper in the kitchen.

Not what the Pinterest picture looks like.  :(

I'm not sure this frosting could be more obnoxiously pink.
 I don't even want to know what makes it that color. 

Swim Lessons

This year the girls are taking swim lessons at the Nazomi Aquatic Center because the classes at Hamilton, where we usually go, were full.  (Even though enrollment time was a 10am and I logged in at 10:01am!)  Paige is in the Seahorse class and it's 50 minutes long.  Hailey was enrolled in the Duck class, but the teacher is a male, so she will not get in the pool with him with out me.  So we've switched her to the Parent/Toddler class where I can get in.  Both of those are 25 minutes long.  She's definitely at the Duck level of swimming, but emotionally not ready.  So it looks like I'm going swimming too! 

Teacher Thank You

This is the teacher gift from the girls as thanks for a great summer school.  It a cool cup that you can put in the freezer and I put a In N out giftcard in them.  We really are fortunate to have such an awesome Montessori teacher.  Both have grown and learned so much, and so fast, from her.  Her aides are great too! 

Mermaid Parade

The girls love to swim with my mom.  I think one reason is because she goes under water with them (I'm just not a 'get your head wet' kind of girl...even in the shower I don't like it).  After swimming they put on their mermaid towels that my mom made for them last year and gave us a Mermaid Parade around the pool.  Such fun.

Montessori Water Extravaganza

 For the last day of Montessori Summer School they had a water extravaganza with a huge water slide and water games.  They divided the class in half and one went to the water activities while the other had fun in a classroom with fun pirate themed games (Pirate School was the theme for summer this year).  They both had fun and I'm really happy that I was able to attend the fun with them. 

Here's the link to Paige's first water extravaganza at Adobe in 2011.  I think we missed last year because we had a slide at our own house the same day with our playgroup.  My how she has grown.
http://bandkstwogirls.blogspot.com/2011/07/water-extravaganza.html

Paige coloring

Hailey fishing

Paige Up

Paige down

Hailey Up

Hailey down

pool fun

Dollie Hair

 

Yesterday, I gave Paige the American Girl catalog to look at.  She has been enjoying looking at them since Christmas.  After she looked at it, she immediately went to her dolls to play with them.  She then asked me to help her put her dollie's hair in a "bum,' which is what she calls a bun.  The she asked for a braid to be around it.  Luckily, while she was playing, I had looked through the catalog myself and realized she wanted her dollie to have the hair like the one in the catalog which used a fake hair braid accessory.  I could not believe she remembered and tried to implement!  She's growing so fast! 

 

So toady before I picked them up from school I went to Target where their knock off dolls are from to try to find a hair braid.  No luck.  So I decided as a birthday treat I would take them to the mall to get a fake braid at Claire's and get some lunch.  They of course picked the braid that also had pink flowers in it.  It was a great way to beat the heat for a while too.  They came home a played for quite a while with their dolls.  It was a really nice afternoon. 



Lunch was frozen yogurt. 

Paige with her doll braid.

Hailey's doll braid in the chair.

Montessori Birthday



Today Paige got to celebrate her birthday at school.  It was a bit early, but her actual birthday falls during summer break.  So Mrs. Hart choose to do it before summer school let out rather than trying to do it the first few days of school when the children are trying to get back into routine.  For her birthday, she got to bring a poster about her life, I've just been including pictures of their latest year and can give a book to the classroom.  We gave Prairie Day by Laura Ingalls Wilder which is from the My First Little House books series.  I put the following verse on her poster:

Welcome, welcome happy day

With candles bright and flowers gay

And loving playmates round me too

Oh make me kind and good and true

 

Paige got to wear a special birthday crown and I also sent banana bread for snack.  She said she felt special and had a good day. 



 

Five Fingers!

Her poster

Play Fun

 

Like I said, we have been without Dada for a good 3 weeks now.  They have been really good a finding fun things to do inside.  In the evening before bed we have been heading out to the pool.  It's just been too hot to do it midday lately.  

 

Posing as Princesses, apparently,
they pose with their eyes closed.

Playing "cabin" and these were their beds.

Bath time fun.  Brusha, Brusha!

Dance Class

 

We switched this year from gymnastics back to dance.  I enrolled them at a different studio than they were before.  It is a Ballet, Tap and Tumble class.  They were so excited the night before and ready with their tutus on and dance bags in hand for their class.  I was pretty impressed in that they were actually learning the ballet positions!  They also did some really good tap moves while holding onto the barre.  I think I may have chosen a good studio!  Looking forward to watching them progress.  

 

Dada

 

Brian has been working 14+ hour days for the last 3 weeks and the girls really miss him.  Last Sunday, they crawled into bed with him and watched some cartoons while he slept a bit longer.  Think they just wanted to be close to him.  

 

July 4, 2013

Ready to go to school on the 3rd!

Popsicles!

Aubrey, Hailey, Emma, Paige

All the kids at the party lined up for fireworks

Me helping Hailey get her sparkler started


We have made some new friends that have children our girls age too and they have a TON of friends who also have little kids.  We were invited to their house for a 4th of July party and were able to meet many new people and the girls got to play with all the other kids.  It was so fun to be around so many families and children.  This was the girls second year getting to light sparklers.  Paige did great with hers; Hailey was a little hesitant, but once I held it with her she was fine.  It was such a nice evening with friends, potluck, hot dogs and fireworks. 

Reading Book

I was so surprised the other day when I picked up Paige and her teacher gave me this for practice.  It's a book of words for Paige to learn.  She's growing so fast!!!