Move It! Dig It! Do It!

Wow, a lot of time has passed since I last posted so I have a lot of catching up to do. This past weekend we went to Move It! Dig It! Do It! which is an event sponsored by a local children's museum that brings in many different kinds of trucks and vehicles that the kids can climb in and on. There were construction cranes (only inside the cab of those!), recycler truck, trash truck, bus, fire truck, police car, combine, construction equipment, you name it, they probably had it. Two of the coolest things were going inside the balloon part of a hot air balloon that was tipped on its side and watching a helicopter land and go inside. They also had all kinds of animals and Winky's favorite...HUGE piles of sand with lots of sand toys to play in it. We spent most of our day there and here's a few photos.

Gussie doing the wheelbarrel race.

Winky drives the recycling truck. Just a little too short. :-)

Both girls had fun playing with the little cars. Gussie barely fit but they pretended to contact each other on the little radios and race around the track.

Playin at the Lake

I wish I had photos since it's rare Paul gets to come on an outing with us, but we had a great day out as a family (as I said, a rarity!!) at a local lake playing in the water. Gussie's swimming skills have improved so much with this last round of swimming lessons and she surprises me with her abilities each time we go in the water. Winky was finally willing to try the little arm floaties and could join us in the deeper water with a little dog paddle. We'll be BBQ'ing tonight and then a fabulous day will be had by all! If there wasn't rain in the forecast we would be letting the girls sleep outside in the tent tonight but I have no desire to get rained on, so we'll save that for another weekend. ;-) You can't expend all the fun in one day, can you??

Crazy Busy

Wow, what a busy week it's been! Sunday was Mother's Day and although Paul had to work all day, my Mom and I went out to brunch with the girls and a few friends. These aren't the best pictures, but it shows off the girls dresses that their Grandma made and they proudly wore. The top one is taken at the restaurant we were at with the Iowa River in the background right outside our window. Brunch was very yummy and it was nice to indulge in all the wonderful delicacies on Mommy's day.The rest of the day was cool and windy but we were able to walk down to our favorite ice cream shop with our neighbors and their kids at the end of the night for free sundaes for Moms. Lots of treats in one day!

Monday brought more fun and excitement. After school was out we headed up to the Girl Scout store to pick up badges, picked up the girls flower girl dresses for my cousin's wedding that the girls get to be in this fall, and then...grand finale...hit Chuck E. Cheese's for hours of fun and excitement. We all had a great time, I think I have as much fun there as they do. Of course I don't get to do the climber and slide, but my Mom and I took turns who watched the girls so we could give some games our full attention. Grandma is a skee-ball champ!

Tuesday was our last Girl Scout troop meeting of the year. This is our first year of Brownies, second year as a troop, and it's been a combination of stress, fun, exhaustion, and definitely an awesome learning experience as I've gotten to see this group of girls interact and hopefully learn things from each other and my co-leader and I.

Tonight was gymnastics for Gussie and Winky was on the verge of a meltdown the whole time. She spent most of the time sitting under my seat eating crackers or yelling at me. My best consolation was rocking her while singing Christmas carols, but that only bought me about 15 minutes of peace. She went to bed soon after we got home. Thank goodness!!! Not so fun being out in public with a crabby kid.

The week should be winding down soon and I'm hoping for a peaceful weekend. I was shocked to realize all my shows are airing season finales this week and next. Where has the time gone???

No Stress Saturday

Paul's missing out again while he's at work and Grandma and I took the girls out for another outing together. We all went to Cyro Baptista and Beat the Donkey which is a percussion group made up of people from all over the world but I think they originated in Brazil. They encouraged audience interaction and we made rain forest noises and sang and clapped along to the beat. It's really pretty amazing what people can make music out of.

We've been hanging out at home the rest of the afternoon and I had a few cute pictures to share. The girls love their dolls that Grandma gave them and here they're dressed as a butterfly fairy and in a pink ballgown. My girls are just about the girly-ist girly girls around. I don't quite know how that happened. I'm convinced it's some recessive gene that was passed on by my mother. They didn't get it from me and Paul seems somewhat shocked and horrified by all the pink, dolls and Barbies that over run the house. Someday someone will pick out something other than pink, I'm sure of it...until then, at least it makes sorting laundry for the girls easier. :) Winky can have a closet full of clothes but if all of her pink shirts are dirty, she'll come crying to me "Mommmmmy, I don't have nothing to weeeaaaar!!!!" Like the world will fall apart if something other than pink is worn. Poor child.
Penny loves to fetch the ball and she's always a ham for the camera. Here's a picture of her tongue and a picture of her beloved ball.Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I wish all the Mom's out there a happy, hopefully peaceful day!

Go Diego Go

The girls and I went with Grandma to Go Diego Go Live tonight and had a blast. There was singing, dancing, and a super studly rescue pack. I've never seen rescue pack be so cool!! They had a cute free photo op because they didn't allow any cameras in. We played by the rules and left the cameras at home, but I was surprised to see how many snuck them in. I guess I'm a chronic rule-follower. We went to the "Carnivale," helped rescue baby jaguar's roar from the bobo brothers, sang with Diego, Alicia, and Dora, and a fun time was had by all! The girls have been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks and it was great to see them enjoy it so much.

The show ended at 8:30 pm and normally the girls would be trying to weasel their way into staying up past their bedtimes but instead they both fell sound asleep on the ride home. I guess all that singing and dancing wears a girl out!