All Summer In a Day

We smashed all of summer's wonderful things into one beautiful day yesterday. A quiet early morning followed by lunch picnic at the pool. The girlsn dove right back into the water this year with little hesitation. Naomi was pretty insistent about being able to doggie paddle the whole length of the pool by herself, just using one of the barbell floats Lillian wanted a little more hands on support but happily lapped at the water as she trundled around. After lunch , we spent an hour at the kiddie pool where the girls were on their own, lounging and splashing and approaching other kids to ask to share toys.  Here is Naomi the supermodel, lounging on daddy. 

Lillian the water baby

We took a quick nap at home and then left for Memphis kiddie Park, The most magical parking lot in the universe.  The magic hasn't worn off since last year and both girls dashed into the park cackling with excitement. They rode the roller coaster by themselves this year and had fun with Jack and Ivy. They rode each ride in the park happily handing their tickets to the attendant even buckling themselves in.

Lillian and Ivy.  They kind of like each other. 

Our brave little daredevils, all with their hands In the air. 

And, as if there hadn't been enough excitement ,we stopped on the way home for ice cream. 

 

On the ride home Naomi said "We haven't even been to the zoo yet!"

Summer's Here!

I'm going to blame all my troubles on technology.  The ipad turns out to be an inferior device for blogging and this laptop should be donated to the History Museum after I complete this entry.  Where is my IT department?

In other, unplugged news, we are off to a lovely start to summer.

Perennial favorite Parade the Circle was this Saturday.  The girls enjoyed the actual parade part more than last year but the balloons were still the highlight of the day.  Until Lillian's orange one flew off into the cloudy sky.  That was almost the unraveling of the whole day, but we managed to avert disaster with a dose of kettle corn. We particularly liked anything on stilts. 

Yesterday, we met up with baby (not baby!) Anderson again.  When I get my camera charged, I'll load some blurry pictures of fast moving children. 

We tackled the bear at the History Museum today.  And were very happy about it!

Recital!

In which girls slide and prance and twirl and I lose my composure when Naomi flicks off Mr. Lukas for a while. 

The dance class experience was purely delightful. We will definitely sign up again.  The observation class/recital was the ultimate in adorableness and confusion. Little leotard-clad girls bumping around the room and stopping to see their parents and grandparents for a kiss or help with a hair bow or, in our case, to run downstairs and come back to announce to the room, "I just had to pee! I'm back!" 

Dancing With Picasso

Have I mentioned just how lovely the art museum is?

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

Last Saturday was a breezy and warm(er) blessing in what's been a pretty slow start to springtime here in Ohio.  As I type this, the snow is falling once again.  It was 80 degress two days ago. 

The kite flying was mostly a success.  Lillian had a blast flying her owl-shaped kite all over the baseball field, cackling and pointing and watching it dip and dive.  It was windy enough that you hardly had to do anything to keep it aloft.

 Naomi was a litte overwhelmed by the breeze and requested to be held by William most of the time.

Papa's airplane was also overwhelmed by the wind and did little else besides nosedive into the grass. 

We of course got Lillan's kite stuck in a tree, but were able to rescue it, saving the outing from disaster.  Playing on the playground with no coats on helped too.

Bonus Footage

Egg hunt, reprise.

Easter Highlights

 We hung eggs in the tree out front this week so the Easter Bunny would know where to find us.  The girls were a big help, teetering ontop of the terrifying ladder, making design decisions about where to hang each  color of egg and just general cheerleading.  Then we went to visit the 55th and final year Eggshelland, a display of over 20,000 hand painted egg shells in someone's front yard.  Our few dozen plastic things hanging inthe barren tree out front didn't quite compare.  I'll get the girls drawing up something more elaborate for next year.




Then, Botanical Garden Egg Hunt Day!  It really is the highlight of the spring.  Aunt Pat sent along beautiful dresses again, and amazing coats.   We topped the whole ensemble off with hats from the dollar section at Target!  Here are the precious darlings:

The sun made its appearance and turned the day into one of the prettiest we've had so far this year.  Naomi teamed up wth Jack and Ivy to stake out the tortises

Lillian got chased by butterflies.  If you look closely, there's one right by her hand.

And then, the hunt was on!  Fancy dress be damned, these ladies climbed under brush, into shrubs and through sprouting gardens to get all 10 of their alloted eggs.  And then some.  Once again, we had to steal eggs back from their baskets and hide them in our wake to stay under the quota.  This year, though, we had to be a lot sneakier to keep the

re-hide from them, as they woud just go and snantch up the very ones we had put back.

This year, Naomi got a rare Golden Ticket in one of her eggs.  Instead of being whisked off to the chocolate factory, though, she was ushered to a big cardboard box of prizes.  She selected this spinning flower

We'll be going back to the gardens soon, as I miss having flowers in the pictures and they have a wonderful 'Big Spring' display up for the month.