March Fun

We enjoyed some unusually warm weather in March, so we took advantage of our Botanica membership and spent some time there with Gianna and Amy.

Claire, Melanie and Gianna

Making some music together!

Amelia, ladybug tamer extraordinaire!

We attempted (in vain) to get a picture of the three older girls.

Melanie was trying to keep the sun out of her eyes...

...which led Gianna to think she was supposed to hold her arm that way as well.

Amy recently told me Gianna will still do that for pictures.  I guess Melanie devised a new photo pose!

Amelia is a bit of a rough one. 

Melanie is very patient with all the wrestling her littlest sister inflicts upon her, and often encourages it.

Don't let that face fool you!

Here's another "post within a post" about some time we spent at Spring Creek.

This time we went out to help plant potatoes on St. Patrick's Day.

Festive feet for planting potatoes!

 Melanie's first ride on the tractor

She and Gramps even made up a song to sing while driving the tractor to get some dirt for the garden.
"Row, row, row your tractor

Gently down the road!

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Now we'll pick up some cows!"

(This song is immediately followed by intense fits of giggles.  You know, because it's so hilarious.  Really, it is.  I'm glad it adds to their memory though, and that they can have so much silly fun with their grandparents.)

 Evening out the soil

 Our littlest big helper, getting the seed potatoes out of the bag.

 Making holes for the potatoes

 One in every hole

 This picture really is pitiful, especially if you can see the dirty tears streaming down her face.  When it came time to cover the first bed of potatoes, Claire was engaged elsewhere (playing? bathroom break?  I don't remember what) and when she came back all of the potatoes had been covered.  Needless to say, she was heartbroken.  Fortunately for her, she has a wonderful Grams who uncovered some potatoes so Claire could cover them back up.  We also made sure she was present when it was time to cover the second bed of potatoes to avoid any further meltdowns.

 She obviously recovered pretty quickly.

 Has anyone else noticed how hard it is to get a picture of a sweet sibling kiss at just the right moment?

 Burying the potatoes

 Claire's first ride in the tractor

Now that's one pooped little potato planter!

 Unlike her mother, Melanie does not have exceedingly ticklish feet.  In fact, they aren't ticklish at all really.  She has developed an affinity for asking my mom to rub her feet and rub her (grandma's) fingers between her (Melanie's) toes.  Gives me the willies just thinking about it!

 Claire, on the other hand, does have ticklish feet.  She likes being tickled though, and doesn't want to feel left out, so she often sits in on the fun.

 Baby bunnies in one of Matt's parents' gardens!

The girls were very excited to get to see this when we went to visit the chickens one evening.

 Silly girlies!

Drawing with the chalk instead of trying to eat it?

She's getting so big!

Late Summer Recap

In an effort to get caught up more quickly I'm bundling several smaller things into one post, along with a few random pictures I thought were cute. 

Amelia catching some Zs while the rest of the family swims

This crawling stuff really wears you out!

 Not sure if Amelia will share her sister Melanie's strange sleeping habits or not, only time will tell.

 Claire has really started to enjoy dancing with a bit of a dramatic flourish.

 She's also an eager helper in the kitchen.  Here she is peeling garlic for us while we made pickles.

 Melanie had her first dentist appointment and did a great job!

They went ahead and took x-rays to confirm that there were no baby incisors left hiding up in her gums, which there weren't.  The dentist thought he might have seen some little teeth buds for permanent incisors, but it's a bit early to say if the buds were for her incisors or canines.  Only time will tell.

 Melanie also went to summer camp for six weeks and has continued her thirst for learning.  I got her a few workbooks to keep her busy, but she breezes through them in one sitting, so there goes that idea for buying me some time to get other things done!  We've also started to work on reading and spelling a bit, but once again, we aren't spending nearly as much time on it as Melanie would like.  I think it's a combination of how difficult it can be to sit down with her to teach her the stuff in a focused manner with Claire and Amelia needing attention and the fact that I don't think I'm ready for her to be reading yet - she's only four!  I don't remember reading until kindergarten!  Someone needs to tell her to slow down because her momma is definitely not ready for this!  (Tangent over.)

We got to see our friends David and Laura who are living in North Carolina finishing up their residencies and their baby, Gabriella, who was born just five days after Amelia.

 Random picture of Matt, Claire and Amelia

(every once in a while we snap a picture of the girls with one of us to prove they did indeed have parents and weren't raised by picture crazy strangers)

Being the record breaking summer that it's been, it was entirely too hot out to go without shoes when going swimming at my parents house one day, and the girls had insisted on wearing their boots.  They made quite the interesting fashion statements on their way to the pool.

 This summer heat didn't bring much from the garden aside from the strawberries we got earlier in the season.  The peas dried up, the vidalia onions didn't get very big, it was the first year for the rhubarb so I wasn't supposed to harvest any of it, all but one of the cantaloups were discovered and eaten on by some animal before I got them harvested and last time I checked the carrots  they were super skinny so I just left them be.  We did get some corn though, which was fun to watch grow.  The girls thoroughly enjoyed eating it as well.

 "Mom, I'm stuck!"

 I just like this picture, and it doesn't fit anywhere else, so here it is.

Matt and I took Melanie to see her first movie at a movie theater this summer.  We took her to see Winnie the Pooh.  I really like the idea some of our friends have of taking a picture in front of the movie poster so the kids can remember what movie they got to see, but we went on the last day it was showing (it only showed for three weeks!) and they had already taken all of the movie posters down :(  Despite not getting the memory making picture I had hoped for, Melanie really enjoyed the movie.  A lot.  I had no idea Winnie the Pooh could be so hilarious, but apparently it was (according to our 4 year old at least).

And what would a trip to the movie theater be without popcorn and a giant Sprite (we shared them between the three of us).  She really liked those.

Well, with any luck (and cooperation from the kiddos) I'll get caught up on blogging before September gets here.  I make no promises though...

Mother's Day

 For Mother's Day Melanie had made me a gift at preschool and brought it home the Thursday before, all wrapped and ready to go.  She was very excited about it, but very insistent I wait until it was actually Mother's Day to open my gift.  So it sat on the mantle waiting for the day to come.  When I was combing her hair on Sunday morning she asked what day it was (her typical question when I'm combing her hair in the morning) and when I told her it was Sunday she got really excited and exclaimed "It's Mother's Day!  I can give you your present!"  It was very cute to see her get so excited about the first present she's given me that was truly from her.

 Melanie with her gift, waiting for me to come downstairs so she can give it to me.

(You'll have to excuse her smile.  She's entered the inevitable "weird smile" stage.  This was the best one Matt was able to get out of her.)

 Melanie and me with her gift - a glass candle holder she had painted with flowers on it.

 Claire was a little sad/jealous that Melanie got her picture taken with me, so we snapped another one so she could be included.

After mass we went to brunch with Matt's family and then just hung out at home the rest of the day.  Matt, Claire and Amelia all took naps at the same time, so Melanie and I went outside to check on my strawberry plants since I knew they would be close to having a few ripe berries for us to pick.

The first strawberries of the 2011 season.

So much sweeter than the ones you buy in the store!

That evening we had our families over for some game time and dessert with the girls.

I always feel bad when we have big family gatherings at our parents' houses since it seems that inevitably someone ends up stuck in the kitchen and feels like they didn't get to spend much time with the girls.  My solution was to have everyone over with the specific intent of just having fun, and I think everyone enjoyed it.

Amelia enjoyed herself so much that she fell asleep before the evening was over.

So an uneventful day overall, yet so full.  We truly are blessed!