Valentines Swim

For this past week I have been dreaming of floating. I saw on my friend, Jennifer's blog some pics of her little girl's birthday party at an indoor pool and ever since then I couldn't get the idea of floating out of my head. Soo.... I had been planing on going to that same pool this weekend but as it turns out our friends and former neighbors (and parents of Jane's best friend Jennifer) happen to be having an open house at their gym which has an indoor pool so we all packed up our swim bags and with 39 degree weather we went for a dip. That above pic is of the girls just before we went swimming. I didn't actually get any pictures of us swimming because I was too scared to get my camera wet and I was really more concerned about getting in the water!! It was a lot of fun. We were there for a couple of hours! I would go back right now if I could!

Princess Birthday Party

Saturday we went to Jane's friend Jennifer's birthday party. It was a princess party so the guests were invited to wear princess outfits. Here is Jane in hers:

The first thing we saw when we arrived was a bounce house... in the middle of the house! Jane was thrilled!

While Jane jumped, Jill mostly just walked around the house with a balloon.

Here's Jane and the birthday girl Jennifer:

After pizza and cake the girls were entertained by participating in a short dance class given by a ballet dance teacher. Jane was so intent on following every instruction and you can see by the video at the bottom how much needs instruction ;) LOL! It was so cute! We have been talking about putting Jane in ballet this summer and after seeing this it is settled. We might even find one that start sooner!

The More it Snows

The more it snows tiddly pom,

The more it goes tiddly pom,

The more it goes tiddly pom

on snowing....

I was reminded of this poem from Winnie the Pooh today as we woke up to snow and then it snowed and snowed and snowed. And as far as I know it is still snowing...

I got some fun pics of the girls today when I got home from school.

Jill was LOVING it!! We took her out for a bit and then brought her back inside and she cried and cried until we brought her back out.

Her favorite part was eating the snow.

Jane's favorite part was throwing snow balls at mommy!

All in all fun, fun fun!

Valentines Preparations

Jane has been very excited about her Valentine's party at school for a couple of weeks and now that it was almost here I was REALLY hoping for her sake that there would be school on Thursday so she could go to it.

On Wednesday night she had a very special playdate with her cousin Kylie (though somehow I didn't take any pictures- what is wrong with me?) Anyway, we had a great visit with Aunt Kerri and Kylie. Then, after they left it was Valentine's preparations until 9:30 p.m.

First, Jane and I made sugar cookies and died them red and cut out hearts...

Then, once they were in the oven we started on Jane's Valentine's bags for her class. Jane helped me stuff them with candy. Then we took the cookies out of the oven to cool. I should have taken a picture of the cookie sheet after I got it out of the oven because up until that point I thought we might send them to school with Jane but after I got them out of the oven I quickly realized that was not going to happen. They had all baked together and looked pretty bad. I was able to salvage them by cutting them into hearts but not enough for her to take to class. Oh well, more for us at home ;)

Then we made all of Jane's valentines. I cut out some rectangles from Valentine's paper with scalloped scissors and then Jane helped me write who they were for. I had her write the first letter of each kids' name and the first letter of her name on each one and I wrote the rest. Then, she put on some heart stickers and each one of them.

Jill decided to write some valentine cards too except she forgot to take the cap off the sharpie- oh well.

After Jill went to bed Jane iced all of the cookies and decorated them with sprinkles.

All in all very fun and exhausting and I think maybe next year we will do cookies and bags and valentines all on different days!

Headband holder

Anyone who knows my Jane knows that this girl likes her some headbands!! See below...

So... needless to say we have what seems to be a never ending supply of headbands and I have been thinking for a long time what to do with them all as we find them not only all over the bathroom, but also all over the kitchen, the living room, my room etc... After thinking a while I came up with covering a Quaker Oats container with scrapbook paper and maybe some ribbon. My problem was I couldn't think of how to keep the headband container still on the counter (picturing it rolling everywhere) so I was talking to my friend Rachel about something that would hold the container and she says, "Well, why don't you just stand it up?" DUUUUH!! So, after seeing numerous posts on my friend Kristy's blog about getting organized I decided just to do it. So here it is...

You can hardly see the paper and ribbon I covered it with because of all of the headbands! But trust me... it's cute!

After I had it all set up and was so proud of myself and the mess that was cleaned up (before picture is purposefully not shown) Jay says, "That's great! AND you could store stuff inside it too!" DUUUUUH! So I filled it up with Jane's soft ponies and ribbons and not only did I clean up the countertop in her bathroom but I ALSO cleaned out a whole drawer!

Shark!

The other night I went to bed before Jane and Jay and while they were up late Jay filmed this video of one of the MANY imaginary scenarios that Jane makes up daily, basically this girl is in constant pretend mode. Actually, it reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger and it's funny because Jay, who grew up in a house full of boys, remembers very little pretend play that goes beyond running around in Spiderman pajamas so he is constantly amazed at the scope of Jane's imagination. Anyway, I thought this video was funny so I thought I'd share it with you...

Jill's Birthday

For Jill's birthday we decided to start the day by taking the girls to breakfast. We went to Le Peep's Cafe. Yummy breakfast food!! Here are the pics from our table.

And the birthday girl....

After breakfast I took the girls over to Build-A- Bear workshop (see previous post). Then in the afternoon we went over to my mom's house for presents and cake. I made the cake with a cute cake pan I borrowed from my friend, Jessica. Afterwards I told Jane, "Your mom is no Betty Crocker Jane" and even though she doesn't know who Betty Crocker is she somehow got the jist of it anyway because she says, "Mommy, you are not very good at this." referring to the cake. I do think it looked better after she added the sprinkles.

Jill didn't seem to mind the state of her cake.

Jill got some great presents for her birthday: clothes, play food, a precious moments keepsake but I included these pictures of her Strawberry Shortcake below because the story that goes with it. Jane had gotten this exact same doll as a Christmas present in the mail from my aunt and Jill desperately wanted the doll. She sat by my side the whole time I was trying to get it open (which took a long time) rocking back and forth and grunting. Then when I finally got it open I gave it to Jane of course because it was for her and Jill went into full on temper tantrum. I tried to give her the any other time fabulous sock monkey that was for her in the same package and she it hit it and threw it across the room. She cried for a full on twenty to thirty minutes (I mean like sobbing) about the Strawberry Shortcake and her sister didn't help matters by flaunting in her face how wonderful the doll smelled and how pretty her hair was etc. Anyway, as a result we now have TWO identical and very cute Strawberry Shortcakes. I am sure it won't be the last time we have double of the same toy.

Here is Jill after all of the excitement. Poor baby had a fever (which is why she looks a bit under the weather in all of her pictures). Not fun to be sick on your birthday. But thank goodness it was a quick spell and she was feeling better again by the next day.

Happy birthday to my beautiful little darling! The joy and laughter you have brought to me and your dad and your sister is priceless! I can't imagine our family without our Jillybean.