Our "new" playhouse

One of our neighbors across the street offered to let us have her daughter's old playhouse if Eric would just get it out of her backyard. We were happy to take it. It was a little bit of a project for Eric though. The base had to be rebuilt because it was rotten and the roof had to be replaced because it was rotten too. The house had been in her backyard for about 8 years she said. So, Eric went to work. This kind of thing is right up his alley. It was pretty dirty too. The girls were eager to play in it so I put them to work cleaning it one day. They had fun with a bucket of soapy water! I'm going to repaint it soon and make it really cute. I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to paint it yet. It needs a little TLC but it makes a cute addition to our little backyard.

Mother's Day 2009

On Friday before Mother's Day Grace brought this painted flower pot home for me with a card. She told me "Happy Mother's Day". It was sweet. Gotta love the homemade gifts! I really like that Grace can write now. I love to see what she come up with when she writes. So here is the pot and card...

Then on Saturday, Eric asked the girls if they wanted to go buy me a Mother's Day present. He told them he would take them somewhere to pick something out for me. Grace said she didn't need to because she had already given me my gift and "that was good enough". But later she came to me and asked me if she needed to give me something else for Mother's day even though she already gave me my gift. I told her she didn't need to but if she wanted to that was fine. (never turn down a gift, right??) That afternoon she started making things to give me as another gift. She asked me for a gift bag to put them all in. Lyla, of course, had to follow Grace's lead. She made a gift bag of homemade gifts for me too. I guess Grace started feeling guilty that she didn't have something to give me on the actual Mother's Day. So here is what I got on the morning of Mother's Day...

Here is what was in Grace's bag....

She was into making puppets at the time so there was a paper bag puppet and a sock puppet. The 4 strips of paper were bookmarks.

Here is what was in Lyla's bag.... She is not as interested in the arts as Grace was at 4 years old. She would much rather be doing something more physical rather than sitting at a table. But, she's coming along. She did ask me to write my name on the paper when she was doing all of this so she could try to copy my name. As you can see on the paper at the top there is some sort of foot print. She stepped on a stamp pad and put her partial footprint on the paper. It is just so "Lyla" to do that. She passed up all of the stamps that were on the table that were intended to be used with the stamp pad. Instead, she used her foot! Hilarious and so cute! (the green footprints on the floor were not quite as cute.)

They were both very proud of their gift bags. I have two very sweet little girls.

Elye Kate at 3 weeks

Joni and I tried to have a little photo shoot with Elye last week. I didn't feel like we were very successful but these are the best of what I got.

Birthday Time

Lyla's birthday was last weekend. She highly anticipates her birthday as soon as Grace has her birthday in January. I was surprised when she decided not to have a birthday party with her friends this year. I kept giving her choices and she would never give me a straight answer. She just kept saying she wanted Ford to come and she wanted a pirate party. So, we just had a family party with a pirate cake on Saturday and then her buddy, Ford, came to play on Monday.

Two of her presents this year were pretty big, which posed a problem with wrapping and hiding them. She got a train table from us and a bike from my parents. Her and Grace spent the night at Joni's house Friday night and I stayed up late to put the train table together and set up the track. Then Eric took Lyla to the park the next morning to keep her out of the house. I couldn't really wrap it and I was afraid she wouldn't be able to leave it alone until present time. Here are some of the pictures from the day. My grandma Galloway sent Lyla a Lightning McQueen blanket too. I don't have a picture of that yet. Lyla loves it and has slept with it every night since she got it. Here are the pictures from the day.

Look at that face...so cute, but such a stinker!

This is Grace getting silly. She has icing and ice cream all over her face. I don't think you can really see it in the picture.

Lyla sitting in front of her big present.

The table was a hit. It's really neat and has lots of sounds.

Lyla's Spider man bike! It's a little tall for her still. She's really right in between bike sizes. The 12in bike she has now is too little but this one is 16 inches and it's a little too big. I couldn't have ordered a 14 inch bike but it wouldn't have been Spider man, which is what she wanted. So, she's just going to have to grow into this one. She's already catching on to how to lean to the side on one foot and then push off with the other one.

Joni gave her these "kids at play" signs. I've been wanting some of these since we moved to this house. It's on a busy street and we need something to catch the attention of the cars as they come around the corner down our street. Obviously, it's was more of a present for me. Grace saw Joni wrapping them the night before and asked "Is that what you got Lyla for her birthday? Do you think she's going to like that?" Lyla didn't say much about them. I know I appreciate them!

Grandma and Papaw Gardner brought her a big bag of goodies too. There was a Spider man hat, (which she's worn every day since then) a Lightning McQueen rolling suitcase (which has several cars in it now), a game, several movies and some more cars to play with. It was all a hit.

Julie and Jason gave Lyla a very cool pitching machine. It throws up 5 balls in a row for her to hit. She can do it too. It's really neat! Thanks Julie!

Here she is on her new bike. We put the helmet and knee pads on b/c she's still getting used to the size of the bike. She's fallen countless times but hasn't cried yet! She's one tough chick!

Here is her pirate cake. It's leaning quite a bit. As the morning went on it leaned more and more. We ate it before it completely fell over though.
Lyla at four.....

1. She loves Lightning McQueen, Spider man, Batman

2. She is very opinionated about the clothes she wears!!!

3. She loves to climb, swing and ride bikes.

4. She one tough little girl. Rarely cries from getting hurt.

5. She's very emotional though. She gets mean when she's mad.

6. She's a Mommy's girl.

7. She likes to stay up late and sleep late.

8. She definitely needs a lot of sleep but refuses to take a nap (not good)

9. She's a daredevil and has great balance (thank goodness).

10. She loves Carnation Instant Breakfast and drinks it as hot chocolate for her breakfast every morning.

They say the cutest things...

Grace: "Dad, are you hungry?" (They were out riding bikes)
Eric: "No, why?"
Grace: (As she speeds away she says) "Because I was going to tell you to 'eat my bubbles'."

One day particulary foggy morning Lyla said, "Mom, why is it so gravy outside?"

One day on the playground at preschool Lyla was playing duck, duck, goose with 5 other boys. A little girl walked up to play with them and Lyla immediately raised her hand to the little girl and said, "No girls allowed". (We may have a gender identity issue :)

Today after school Grace told me that they're having a little talent show in P.E. at school next week. They get 3-4 minutes to stand up in front of their class and demonstrate their talent during P.E.
Grace: "We're having talent show in PE next week."
Me: "I know. What talent do you want to show?"
Grace: "I only have one talent and it's 'caring' and how am I supposed to show that in a talent show?"
She's right about the talent of caring. She is a very caring and sensitive child. She is very in tuned with the people around her and how they're feeling! So sweet. She decided she could have a friend pretend to fall on the ground and then she would help her up and put a bandaid on her knee. Too cute.

Rain, rain, go away....Please!

It has rained for so many days that I can't even remember when it started. Our backyard does not drain well either so we have a very soggy, muddy mess! Plus, Eric started putting extra patio paver tiles around our patio to make it bigger last weekend. He didn't get finished so there was a lot of exposed dirt which is now a huge puddle of squishy, watery mud. It is torture for my children to see this and not touch it. I have held them off for a while but yesterday it happened. Lyla wanted to go out and I "made a deal" with her that she would only swing, not get in the mud. Well, that didn't last long. So, the next deal was that she would only step in it. Then Grace went out. Around that time I realized my freezer hadn't shut last night and everything was melting. I started pulling everything out and wiping the freezer out. Eric came downstairs in a few minutes and said, "Jenny, look at them!". I looked outside and Grace was putting mud in Lyla's hair! So much for our "deal". Even though I didn't approve, I still had to take pictures to document what my girls love to do. They were covered! Their boots were full of mud, their clothes are still soaking in Oxyclean and Eric sprayed them off with the garden hose.

Today they wanted to go out again! Eric took them to the river to fish in the rain. They came back muddy and wet, of course. Then they went out again later to "walk in the rain". I made them go in the front yard this time where there isn't so much mud, just water. One romp in the mud is fine and manageable but my girls can't just do it one time. I feel guilty for disliking it so much. It is a kid thing to do, right? Play in the rain and mud? But, I really wish this rain would please stop!