Paige's 9th birthday

Many thanks to my mom for taking pictures. ☺

Paige celebrated her ninth birthday on June 6. We had some family come over and two of Paige's friends for cake and ice cream. After that I took Paige and Emma and Paige's friends swimming at the local indoor pool.

The birthday gang AND Auntie Beth!

Mom, Ron, and Paige

Miss Gooby and "Papa"--as she calls him

Myself, Dave, and Paige :)

Cherished Teddy number 9 from Gram Gram

Mosaic box from Gram Gram. Paige begged to stay up late and work on it. I found her still awake and working at midnight!

I had to include this picture because I feel that I am often smiling and laughing. :) I also have to admit that I cropped David out of the picture. But I'm sure he won't mind as he had a very "interesting" look on his face. *wink* ☺

After a month-long hiatus I am finally posting something. ☺

Pictures of my girlies. ☺ Love them!

 Girls and I at our quarterly shopping trip to the Mall of America. Daddy got to join us! And we are extra thankful to Grandma Lori for watching Abby that day.

 Paige and Emma made a LEGO pyramid. They wanted me to submit this picture to the LEGO Magazine. Now that I think about it I never did that. Hmmm...

 Emma, my little fashion model, was trying to come up with a suitable Easter ensemble. After she found one she was pleased with she asked me to take pictures of her.

Paige's yearly piano recital was yesterday. She did so well! We were very pleased. Also it's kind of funny that Grandma Lori told Paige specifically to "smile", and as Paige walked up to the piano she looked very somber and disgruntled. Nerves maybe? Ah well. There's always next year. ☺ And we also thoroughly enjoyed listening to all the students perform. Thank you, Miss Ana!

A tower and a smile.

Paige made the Eiffel Tower out of LEGOS:

That picture led to an impromptu photo session:

A couple of pictures of my Gooby

 This spot in the kitchen is usually where we store the laptop. But since I was using the laptop Abby decided to crawl into the space instead. She was slightly apprehensive once she was actually on the shelf.

Here is Abby all snuggled in Daddy's chair, watching Barney. She LOVES to watch Barney now. Thankfully not only do we own about a dozen of the videos, but Netflix also has many available for instant streaming. ☺

They've become quite the fans.

As I've previously mentioned David and I are watching Star Trek: The Original Series. But what I didn't say is that shortly after we grownups began watching the show Paige and Emma became interested in it as well. At first Paige didn't understand that Spock's name wasn't "Spark" as she thought. And both girls ask a lot of questions which highlight how little they actually understand of what is going on. "What is Spock's last name?" "Well, what's his first name?" "What is Kirk's name?" "Where are they?" You get the picture.

But despite those drawbacks we've all enjoyed watching the show as a family. The girls like it so much that Saturday morning P&E decided they were going to play "Star Trek". Paige was Spock and Emma was Kirk. Paige had me put blue eye shadow on her lids, both girls wore the correct colored shirts, and they made phasers out of pipe cleaners. They also added their own shirt emblems. I thought they did a great job.

Here are their "models":

And now for the girls' representations:

I told them to make serious faces. ☺ Emma had an actual Star Trek pin on her shirt (it belonged to David in his youth), but Paige had to get creative with hers. A Pontiac emblem substitutes nicely, don't you think?

Even two year-olds like Pandora...

...provided you make them a Blue's Clues station. ☺ Abby saw one of her big sisters listening to Pandora Radio during school, and as soon as her sister took off those headphones Abby jumped at the opportunity to try them out for herself. So I created a radio station of children's music for Abby, and she sat in the brown chair and listened for 15 minutes--which is almost an eternity in toddler years. ;-)

Abby's 2nd birthday

On Sunday, December 12 Abigail celebrated 2 years of life. We were to have a birthday party for her on Saturday with my parents and David's parents, but unfortunately God predetermined for southern Minnesota to experience a massive blizzard that day. Instead we tried for Sunday. Well, the roads were still nasty so no party that day either.

But being as it WAS her birthday, and church was cancelled due to the storm, we decided to gather with David's parents at their place and have cake and ice cream and open gifts. Admittedly it was difficult to even get out of our driveway. Perseverance!

Since Abby LOVES babies I ordered her a baby cake.



 She of course was thrilled with the baby on her cake.

 Name one child who DOESN'T prematurely sample their cake? ;-)

 Abby with her new purse from Gram-gram. Abby has to make sure that she has the wallet with her purse at all times.

 David and I gave Abby a baby. She sleeps with it every night.

 ~
A few days later, once the roads were back to winter "normal" I took the girls to my mom's place. There Abby opened gifts from my mom and step-dad.

 Mom gave Abby a Pillow Pet.

Abby also received a figurine of a girl holding a number 2. Abby likes holding the little girl and inspecting her.

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I know every parent says this, but it really is amazing how quickly children grow up. They advance from being little stoic lumps to crawling and then running and talking in such a short span of time. And when they begin to speak they have such cute little voices. (Except when you have to listen to them shout "NO!" for about the 37th time that day...) Pretty soon they're telling you stories and asking you to paint their faces "like a chipmunk".

Speaking of which, I have to go draw a chameleon on Paige's face. ☺ Toodles!

Pictures of my girls

 Abby just loves to wear people's reading glasses. Gram-Gram has a nice basket full of them, and Abby partakes of it often.

 We briefly studied gladiators during school, and Paige decided to dress like one. But as Grandma pointed out she looks Grecian more than anything. Valiant effort though! ☺

 I snapped this picture of Abby and her cousin Brett while serving in the nursery during church. I couldn't get them to look at me and smile. They're still so cute!

Emma lost both top front teeth within a couple weeks of each other. She's missing the bottom ones as well. Makes me think of the song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." She'll ask for a snack, and I'll say, "Have an apple." Then I'll remember that she can't eat them right now! *laughing to myself*

Snuggling with Daddy

We are blessed as a family to have David spend his lunch hours with us. Each day we anxiously await when Daddy walks through the door at approximately 12:10pm. It breaks up the day a little, and we--David and I--get to tell one another how our mornings have been going.

Today after he ate David went to lay (lie? I can never remember which is the correct word ☺) on the sofa for a little bit before going back to work. Abby and I came into the living room with him, and she went and laid by him on the sofa.

Shortly after this P&E came into the house, and they joined us in the living room. Emma crawled on top of Daddy as well.

Then the three of them had a tickle fight. ☺

Miss Goo-goo

Abby was grumpy this morning. After I took her out of bed she walked around the house crying off and on for about a half an hour. But when we went to wake up her big sisters she suddenly snapped out of it, and then she was happy for a moment. I took advantage and got a cute picture of her.

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Gooby is a big snacker. She goes to the fridge and the pantry constantly! She pulls the cereal bags out of the cupboards and walks around with them, eating straight out of the bag. Or she'll hang on the handle of the refrigerator and make noise until I open it up. Then she'll point at the drawer with the cheese sticks or the apples. She was at it again the other day so I took a picture of her. I think she looks just like my brother in this photo. Sorry, it's kind of blurry.

Yellow dress courtesy of Grandma Lori. I love it on her!

Missed one

This was a leftover photograph from our Valleyfair trip. I found it last night on my camera phone. This ride is called the "Monster", and that's appropriate given it A) looks like an octopus, and B) will give you a MONSTER of a stomach ache afterwards. ☺ You can just barely see Paige peeking her head out from the car. This was one ride that Mom and I opted not to partake in.

Every child does it at least once...

Paige was taking a bath that was "supposed" to have been by herself, but then Daddy opened the door, and Gooby saw her big sis enjoying herself in the tub. So Abby had to get in, too; clothes and all.

Fun in Sanrio store aka Hello Kitty store

Today my mother-in-law, the girls, and I went to the Mall of America. While there we stopped in the Sanrio store so Emma and Paige could look around. There is a playhouse near the entrance, and all three girls had to go inside it. Abby loved it most, of course. In fact she loved the plethora of stuffed animals in the shop even more. She'd grab the stuffed kitties off the shelf and hug them, all while laughing hysterically. It was so comical. Then she'd say, "Ooh!" And hug them and laugh again. She had to bring a few of them into the playhouse.

Emma ended up getting a Hello Kitty bag, and Paige got some lip gloss. Unfortunately Abby ate most of P's lip gloss on the ride home. *chuckling to myself*

I entertained Abby with sunglasses at the Claire's store so Paige could look for new earrings.

♫ With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you. ♪

Whenever Dave comes home from work Abby greets him with a hug. Then she'll stay glued to his legs for a while.

Valleyfair pictures

As stated in my previous post, last Thursday my mom took P&E and I to Valleyfair Amusement Park. It was a beautiful day to be at the park--sunny skies and about 80°. We went to the water park right away and highly enjoyed the slides and tubes. After that we had a picnic lunch outside of the park in their picnic area. Then we headed back inside the park to enjoy the coasters and other dizzying rides. ☺

This first picture is of the girls and Mom. We had just gotten to the park.

Now we see myself and P&E. Super pumped!

This was P&E waiting in line for the wooden roller coaster. Emma sat next to me on the ride, and I wasn't frightened per se, but I was feeling a little yucky from all the jerking, and so Emma said, "It's okay, Mom. I'm right here." ☺ What a sweetheart!

After the roller coaster I made the girls go on this ride called the Frog Hopper (mostly because it was right next to the coaster). It was a ride only for children, and since the previous ride was so thrilling Emma declared that this ride "was the lamest ride EVER!" She kept that bored expression on her face the entire time. Later on the way home I asked the girls which rides they liked and which ones they didn't. Emma said, "I liked everyone except the Frog Hopper." Too funny! The Mild Thing--coaster for kids. The girls actually enjoyed this one, even though it wasn't as thrilling as the big kid coasters.

I don't remember what this was called, but the girls sat in a giant roulette wheel, and it spun up and down like a regular one would, except the girls rode backwards. It makes me feel woozy just thinking about it.

Instead of playing games and trying to win "useless junk" Mom let the girls get an airbrushed drawing on their arms. The pictures lasted several days, although at first the girls didn't want to swim in the pool for fear the image would wash away. Surprisingly they held up to the water quite well.

It was a memorable day!