Birthday Surprise

Tomorrow my babies will officially be big girls..... tomorrow is their 5th birthday! My mom saw a big birthday display out in her neighbor's yard a couple of weeks ago and decided to do the same for the girls in honor of this milestone. Until this Saturday, this is what our front yard looks like:

A local amusement company rents out the signs, and they do all sorts of occasions. My parents picked the girls up from school today to take them to my sister's Krewe of Aesclepius Mardi Gras parade at the Boardwalk, and they drove them by the house to show them the decorations. The girls love it! They like to talk about the different faces... the kissy face, the pirate face, the silly face, etc.
While their party is on Saturday, tomorrow we plan on taking them out to dinner as a family... just the four of us! I'll post pictures of the other celebrations later.

Lacie's and Leslie's Wildcat Soccer Team

For those of you who didn't already know, Lacie and Leslie signed up to play soccer for the YMCA this spring. They are on a team of six nearly-five year old girls - Lacie, Leslie, Emily H. from school, and Emily M. and Bella from church. When you create a team, the Y really likes for you to find your own coach, so guess who the soccer coach is?!?! None other than Del Johnson! I think Del was as excited as the girls were for the season to start.... He went out and bought each of the girls a ball, cones for practice, a clipboard, and.... a whistle. His favorite thing to do at practice blow the whistle. All of the girls - being avid High School Musical fans - named their team the Wildcats. And just like the real team does in the movie, before the game, they put their hands together and yell, "What team? WILDCATS!"

Their uniforms are so cute. They have a red jersey for home games, and a white jersey for away games. Here they are getting their pre-game instructions from the referees. I love this picture because they all look so little, yet so grown up at the same time.
Their first game got called at half time on account of rain, but they at least got a little playing in. Here's a great picture of Leslie running after the ball. She even scored a goal! Lacie also played very well. While she didn't kick the ball as often, she ran after it with gusto... and she didn't cry one time - which is a great improvement over their first attempt at soccer two years ago!

Here is a picture of 4 of the 6 girls on the team. Emily H and Bella are MIA at this point. Soccer lasts for 8 Saturdays, so I will keep you posted on the latest developments. While I don't anticipate any future soccer stars, they are definitely having fun and getting great exercise all at the same time!

Catch Up

I know... it's been a while... but to be honest, it's been pretty quiet! My last blog talked about Lacie's lost tooth, and her big tooth is already coming in. Her other bottom tooth is loose, and both of Leslie's bottom teeth are loose, so it looks like the tooth fairy will be making some frequent stops at our house in the future!

The girls are starting soccer in a couple of weeks. Del is coaching their team, which will consist of six 5 year old girls. Leslie has decided that their team will be called The Wildcats, in honor of her favorite movie, High School Musical. It is sure to be hilarious, so I will definitely be blogging once soccer starts.

Well, I know this isn't much of an update, but I wanted to let you know we're still here - even if we're boring!

My Big Girls, Part 2

If you haven't already, read the previous post for my explanation of why my little girls are no longer babies. Well, tonight we hit another milestone.......

TADA!!!! Lacie lost a tooth!

Most of you probably already knew that Lacie lost her top front teeth when she was 3 because she knocked them loose two different times. After the second time she fell on her mouth, the dentist said they wouldn't tighten back up and pulled them. Because she was going to be so long without them, he made her a spacer, or a pedo-partial, to prevent her teeth from shifting and to prevent speech problems. So, basically, Lacie has false teeth in the front that are permanently wired into her mouth, and they will take them out when its time for her big teeth to grow in.

However, sometime this summer, her bottom tooth became a little wiggly. She went through stages where she would wiggle it a lot, then she would forget about it. During the last month or so, she wiggled it all the time. She never would let me or her daddy pull it, though. She claimed she wanted it to fall out by itself. Finally tonight, she had it so wiggly, that it was literally twisted and bent down in her mouth, but it was so slippery that she couldn't grab it to pick it out, so Del reached in and..... out it came!

She is very excited about the Tooth Fairy coming to see her tonight. We put the tooth in a little bitty jar, and it is tucked safely under her pillow. The tooth next to it is loose also, but I think it will be awhile before it comes out.... at least another month or two. Leslie's not thrilled that Lacie beat her. Leslie has always been about an inch taller and a pound heavier than Lacie, so I think because she thought she was "bigger" that she should be first. Leslie's teeth are just a little wiggly, so it may be summer before those come out!

I'll leave you with one last picture of my snaggle tooth:

My Big Girls, Part 1

My children are officially big.... they are no longer babies. They only like to watch "Big Kid" Disney with shows like "Hannah Montana" and "Wizards of Waverly Place," they are in love with the Jonas Brothers, and just this past weekend...... they went to their first slumber party. Not just a sleepover with one friend. A real slumber party with five other kids.

My friend Shannon is apparently a glutton for punishment and for her daughter Emily's 5th birthday, she got to invite 5 of her friends to spend the night. They girls counted down for a week, and when Friday came, they were so excited they could hardly stand it. They've spent the night several times with grandparents, and just one of their friends, but this time all the little girls had popcorn, watched movies, and slept in their sleeping bags in front of the TV. We have had 2 extra children spend the night at our house once, but never 5! Shannon said that the first of the group fell asleep around 11, and the last sometime after midnight. The girls went to sleep when the movie was over around 11:30. All 6 girls were up by 7:30 the next morning. Needless to say, the girls had a nap the next day, even though they never take naps anymore.


Ask yourself.... how would you fare with all of these kids spending the night at your house... I know I'm not that brave!

Happy New Year!

We spent New Years Eve at our good friends The Hortons' house. The girls go to school with their daughter Emily, and they invited us and another couple, The Moffetts, over. We ate a yummy dinner, we popped fireworks, and visited until about 11:00. It's sad that a kids version of a New Years Eve party ends with everyone asleep by midnight!

When the girls were younger, they were terrified of fireworks. Fortunately, they have outgrown this fear! While the kids stuck to the safer things like Snaps and Sparklers, the dads all had fun making big booms! In fact, after about 20 minutes, the kids went inside to finish their movie, while the grownups stayed outside and finished the fireworks!

By far, the Snaps were the favorite!

Sparklers - notice the kids had on safety goggles compliments of Emily's mom, a pediatrician. Working in the ER made her invest in some goggles!

New Year's Day we got up at went to a brunch at our friends', the Englands. Then we took the girls to see The Tale of Desperaux. We have had such a great 2 week vacation, and we are not looking forward to going back to school!

Kansas Trip

We left bright and early the day after Christmas to go see GranNanny, my grandmother (dad's mother) who lives in Frontenac, Kansas. The girls love going to see GranNanny, so we try to take them at least once a year. Frontenac is a VERY small town, so there's not much to do there, but we did take the girls bowling one night in the neighboring town, Pittsburg. They actually bowled pretty well. You can see from the photo below their approach. Lacie rolled it down and danced/jiggled it down the lane, while Leslie preferred to wait for it on the ground. Any pin that was knocked over (whether it was one or ten) got a jubilant "YES!" and several high fives.
This one is one of my favorites. They are sitting and waiting their turn while their cousins bowled.

The other highlight of the trip was that they learned how to play Go Fish and Old Maid. Both of my dad's parents were big card-playing people, so I always remember my cousins and I playing cards whenever we visited. Well, this time the girls learned. My cousin Mindy pulled out the cards and taught them. While they got the point (asking for cards), they weren't quite ready for the whole idea of not telling everybody what card they had. Usually we heard things like this, "Ask me if I have any Js or Qs!" And more than once, each caught a peek at her sister's cards.

This is a picture of me, Mindy, the girls, and GranNanny.
We came back home on the 29th. It was a 9 hour car ride, so by the time we got back the girls were ready to play with their Christmas toys.