Doing Summer

We've been doing summer a little differently this year.  Last year we spent several days each week at the pool in the mornings, and were outside playing constantly.  This year, with the arrival of Baby Sis, plus Miss having school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, swimming on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and our standing play date on Fridays, and with naps in the afternoons, well, we haven't been outside as much so far this summer (except for the two weeks we've spent at the Farm already, of course).  This summer we've been chilling out around the house a bit more when we are home.   

It's different, but still fun.  The big girls have taken to putting on their own dance parties.

The little baby play table next to Miss is what she was playing the music on.  My little budding DJ...

Lass initially just wanted to watch.

I won't dance.  Don't ask me.

But of course she started to get into the music before long.

And eventually really let loose.

Miss is really into playing her games and being crafty.

She and I made the "crown" she's wearing from rolled up strips of a Snow White page she colored and yarn.  The idea came from our summer babysitter, who brought over this craft and made necklaces with the girls one day.  Yep, I now have a babysitter who does crafts with the girls.  Her own crafts, that she prepares and brings with her.  And cleans up.  This is huge.  I love this.

Baby sis is just such a little lover.  She's the happiest little baby.

She has started to giggle a tiny bit.  Here is the progression of one of her giggles:

Miss takes an art class on Wednesday mornings before her swimming lesson.  Yesterday Lass and Sis and I  ran a few short errands and then sat outside and had a snack while waiting for her class to finish.

It was the perfect spot for a little snack picnic.

So far summer has felt very full.  Maybe it has been a little too full, with school and swimming and art and play dates and travel and all the other day to day stuff that has to fit in there too.  But it has been good.  Today was Miss's last day of school for the summer, so we will have a bit of time freed up for pool and park mornings or just playing outside in our own yard a bit more.  Tomorrow we leave for Kentucky to visit my parents.  My Grandma will be visiting them too, so we will celebrate her 90th birthday and have a family reunion this weekend.  I can't wait for her to meet Sis.  My parents haven't seen her since the week after she was born.  She's three months old today.

It's gonna be a great trip.

Quickie

Just returned tonight from another week in the blogging black hole (my parents' house).  We had a great visit, and I'll post about that soon.  But tonight I'm tired from a long day in the car and little sleep last night, so here's a quickie with a few photos from last week.

Miss has gotten into wearing dresses to school.  This is because she likes to wear tights, not because she really cares about dresses.  I don't have a ton of dresses for her, since she's never really been into them before, and I tend to think they're a bit impractical for an active girl.  I didn't want to spend a ton on new dresses for her, but I found this amazing online consignment store, where I got her three dresses for under $25.  Cute, name brand dresses in great condition.  I love a great deal (have I mentioned that before?).

And somebody got her very own ballet shoes to be like big sister.

Now they dance together.

No words needed for these next three photos.  I'll just say I love them.

And in closing, Miss's new thing (besides dresses) is to inspect her feet for toe jam.  It makes me chuckle just to type that.  She almost never finds any.  I do wash regularly between her toes.  But she likes to look for it.  Whatever floats her boat, right?

There.  A quickie.  Night.

Membership Has its Privileges

For months now, I have been saying that I want to rejoin the YMCA.  My husband and I were members when we first moved here, because we lived in a rental house and didn't have a good place to exercise at home.  When we bought our current house, we set up a nice garage gym area and let our Y membership lapse.  Miss was too tiny to do any activities there and we could exercise at home, so we let it go. BUT, now Miss is bigger.  She's old enough to start getting into some of the little classes they have at the Y and I really need to keep up with swimming lessons for both of the girls. There are so many good activities for families at the Y.  Plus, there isn't a whole lot else to do indoors in our town during the winter.  So, this week I finally got myself in gear and went to the Y to renew our family membership.  We started taking advantage of it yesterday by going to "Wiggles and Giggles."  Our Y has an indoor soccer field, and they open it up twice a week in the mornings for little ones to come and play.  They pull out ride-on toys, balls, big mats, and various other things for the kids to enjoy.  Not to mention there's lots of room to run.  The girls had a blast.

 (Quick snack break)

I'm so glad we joined.  The girls ran and danced and got to blow off some steam.  And we met some other moms and kids there, so I got to visit with some grown ups.  

And speaking of visiting with grown ups, my husband and I had a great date night last night.  We went to a new sushi place, and it was pretty good.  Of course the best part was just being able to hang out and chat with my hubby.  Before dinner we went to Miss's school and met with her teachers for our little parent-teacher conference.

It was great to hear all about what she has been doing in school and to see how thorough they are in their assessments of her.  And it was pretty cool to hear someone else describe her spot-on and know how much time and attention she must get there for them to be able to really "get" her so well.  I loved when they told me how much she likes to sing at the top of her lungs and to shake it when they dance.

No one needs to tell me how much my girls love to dance and that they've got some moves.

Miss got new ballet shoes yesterday.  The ones I got her for her Halloween costume had cut into her little heels and one shoe had totally split on the side from being worn so much, so I told her she couldn't wear those anymore.  She was so upset and asked repeatedly for them for several days.  When I pulled out the new shoes yesterday, I was relieved to find that she loves these just as much even though they're a different style.  She immediately asked, "Momma, can you play some music so I can ballet dance?"

So I did.  What better for ballet than The Cure??  

I got a question in a comment about organizing photos, related to my last post about taking at least one photo a day.  Unfortunately, I'm not really great about organizing my photos.  Mostly I just dump them into iPhoto.  I do "flag" my favorites when I'm going through and editing them, which is how I select the pics I'm going to upload to a blog post or use for something else.  Just in the past few days with the start of this new project I have begun putting photos into folders by month, so I will have a little bit better organization of them that way.  I also have set a goal to start deleting photos a little bit more so I won't have such an overwhelming mass of pictures.  And few years ago I set a goal to make photo books for each of my girls for each year of their lives.  Unfortunately, I've only completed Miss's first year book.  So making the rest of the books needs to become a priority, and I'm hoping to get my photos more organized that way too.  I will make folders for each girl, each year in my iPhoto in addition to making the books.  That's it.  I don't have a great system yet.  Anyone else have a good way of organizing digital photos?

Big Steps

One of the hard things about moving around the country for school and other stages of professional training is that you end up making wonderful friends and then missing them when everyone inevitably moves on to the next stage of life (the real job stage). I've lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina, before finally settling here where my husband found a great job. I miss my friends from all the places I've lived. I don't see them often enough. Fortunately this past weekend we had a fantastic visit from some of our closest friends we met in North Carolina. It was so fun to see them. It's always good for the soul to spend some time visiting and talking in the comfortable way that old friends do. The girls really enjoyed playing with our friends' kids too. It was a special weekend.

It was special in more ways than one, since Lass took her first steps on Friday!

We tried to get photos and video footage, but naturally as soon as my husband grabbed the camera, she stopped stepping.

She'll be walking all over before we know it. I'm planning her first birthday party, which is so hard to believe.

Little sister is getting so big.

And big sister is too. She will most likely be starting preschool twice a week this fall. I say most likely because I am not completely sure I've managed to fully commit myself to the idea. I found a fabulous preschool. I really like the owner and her vision for the school. I love the way they teach there. I really think Miss would love it, but it makes me a little anxious to think of leaving her somewhere else for three hours twice a week. I think it will be a great experience for her, so I know I will get over myself and enroll her. I'm pretty sure... This is a big step for me.

I'm also thinking of enrolling her in a dance class in the near future. This girl loves to dance, as you might have noticed from my multiple posts about family dance parties and videos of her dancing. This weekend we happened to have the TV on when "Angelina Ballerina" came on PBS. She had never seen the show, but she was fascinated.

Right away she asked me to get her a tutu and she started trying to imitate the dance steps.

Plie

Pirouette

Arabesque

Not bad!

We're gearing up to go visit some more friends from my graduate school days in Kentucky. Two of my friends are getting married and Miss is going to be their flower girl. We've been getting her dress fitted and watching You Tube videos of flower girls so she'll have some idea what to do, since we won't make it down in time to go to the rehearsal. I can't wait to see Miss as a little flower girl! And I can't wait to see my friends on their big day.