Easter 2011--The Dresses

 All the cousins--don't they look beautiful/handsome?

Aww--they do hug each other!

 Emma looks a little too grownup for me

 Brielle's smiles are never the same!

My girls are so lucky that their Grandma Becky buys them beautiful Easter and Christmas dresses every year. And every year as we find socks, shoes, bows and get them dressed up, I wonder where the last year has gone and why they look so darn grown-up! And I may be prejudice, but they are the most gorgeous girls! The funny thing is that they look nothing alike! Amazing how different they can look coming from the same parents. Their personalities are very different too as you can see from the pictures. Emma likes to be the boss (I think it is the "oldest" personality); she loves to plan parties and she acts very grown-up. She works hard in school, loves to read, and rewarding her with money or presents or "pom-poms" in her jar works very well for her. Brielle on the other hand is a complete ham-- she loves to have fun at all times, does NOT like to clean up or work no matter what bribery is attached. If you catch her doing something good and praise her though she loves it! She knows how to push her sisters' buttons, but can also entertain herself for a long time playing horses or Polly's or house. She makes us laugh with all the things that come out of her mouth and she can remember movie lines after seeing it once! They are amazing girls and I am so thankful to be their mother!

Easter 2011--The Eggs!

 the eggs from home

 our glitter eggs

 Grandma's eggs had candy, money, and sweets!

This year we colored "glitter" eggs. They turned out really cute and they even came with sequins to glue on after they were dry. Perfect for my crafty children! The Easter Bunny also left us a note that said there were 60 eggs hidden, but somehow the girls could only find 57! Maybe the Easter Bunny was up too late to count correctly? :)

Easter 2011--The Baskets and Bunny

The Easter bunny made an appearance at the city egg hunt, but Brielle would not get her picture taken with him. (She did this in Disneyland, too--avoided all of the characters except for Minnie Mouse).  He also packed the girls' baskets with fun stuff like: bubble wands, sidewalk chalk, play dough, a movie, Peeps, and a chocolate bunny. The Easter grass at the bottom did not turn out to be the best idea though because my girls (the horse lovers that they are) pretended it was hay for horses and put piles of it everywhere! Then, once we asked them to pick it up, Brielle had a meltdown that continued all morning over everything else until we finally put her down for a nap and Nick and I took turns with Emma at church! So much for the relaxing morning!

Easter 2011--The Hunts!

Brielle at her preschool egg hunt

 

 Emma at the city egg hunt

 the hunt at home

 one last hunt at grandma's house

We had lots of "firsts" this year: Brielle's first egg hunt with her preschool class, Emma's first egg hunt at the city park (Emma even won an extra prize there), the first egg hunt in our new house, and the first time one of my girls has found the "golden egg" at Grandma Becky's house! And of course they got lots of candy!

Randomness...

I was going through my camera and saw some pictures I had taken that had no relevance to each other, but I still wanted to post them (the truth being that I am putting off other things I should be doing instead of blogging.)  The first was our family picture taken on Emma's birthday. I thought it turned out cute and in the chaos of a party I always forget to take a picture of our family so I am happy we got this one of us.  The next picture is of Brielle painting her popsicle horse at Emma's friend party. She was so careful in painting her popsicle sticks that I think she did better than the 1st graders! And for days after, she kept asking me to finish it with her. (The finished horses still need a snapshot of them so I can throw them away.) The third picture is my first picture of Emma asleep with a book in her hand. I love these pictures. I'll be making a book out of all the book/sleeping pictures I have!  The last two pictures show some new jobs that my kids have tried. One night, I was lecturing them on the fact that they only have their rooms to clean and Nick and I have the rest of the house to maintain.  I also added that they could trade me laundry for cleaning their room. Brielle immediately liked that idea, so the next day she helped me with every step of washing the towels. The towel lineup was not what I had in mind but she was helping! Then, the girls jumped at the chance to help Nick with the dishes. It was cute watching them work together from behind them and they keep asking when they can help again! I just wish that they would get this excited for cleaning their rooms!

More Parties

The same week as Emma's program and Emma's birthday, I had also volunteered to be in charge of the 1st grade Dr Seuss party. Originally, I thought it would be fun to do it the same week as Emma's birthday, but later realized that wasn't such a great idea. Plus, she wanted to have a friend party so we planned that for the same night!  Nick was going crazy trying to keep all the parties straight! Luckily, 6 other moms had signed up to help with the Dr Seuss party so we got together to decide what activity each classroom would have and then all of the moms prepared their activities. In one room, the kids watched a short Dr Seuss movie with popcorn and goldfish snacks. Then, they made the classic red/white striped hat. The next room had "Pin the Green Eggs on the Ham platter" and rhyming Bingo.  The next room had the story "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" read to them and then they got to play with and take home "oobleck" (it is like a green slime--very cool).  The last room had two relay races: one where they pretended to be the Cat in the Hat that carries everything on his head and the other relay race was similar to the book "I wish I had Duck Feet" where the kids pretended to have duck feet, a lion's tail, a water spout, antlers, and an elephants trunk. The kids had a great time. We had a bunch of people volunteer so that helped, too. I'm so grateful that my schedule allows me to volunteer in Emma's class and help with parties--it is so fun to meet the kids in the first grade.

So, once the school party was over, we rushed home to get set-up for Emma's friend party. It was her first friend party and we let her invite 7 other friends (all girls). It was a horse-themed party (surprise). My friend helped me make some adorable invitations with horses on it. We ate chicken nuggets and fruit for dinner. Then, we had them paint some popsicle sticks for this horse craft I got out of a magazine. While the paint was drying, they played "Pin the pickax on the Gold Mine", busted open a pinata, and opened presents. Then, we went back to our crafts to glue everything together. I didn't take into consideration how much paint the girls would put on their horses so it was trickier to get everything to stick! They turned out cute though. While the girls were finishing, we cut the horse cake and served up some ice cream.  For party favors, we had a wood horseshoe to paint, horse Silly Bandz, Baked Beans candy and mint tied up in a bandana for all of the girls. There was a lot of girly screams during the party and it was fun to listen to them tell jokes during dinner. Emma really has some cute, fun friends and we had an exhuasting but fabulous party day!

March Madness

March started out like a lion for us. First, Emma had a patriotic program at Freemont High with the 1st-3rd graders from her school.  They sang patriotic songs together and as individual grade levels. In between each song 2-3 kids per class got up to share a tidbit about the U.S. Presidents.  Emma was chosen from her class to get up and say this line, "George W Bush headed the cheerleading team at his school."  She was so excited to get a part and she did an awesome job at the program. She spoke in a nice, clear voice and didn't act nervous at all. We were so proud of her! (We were too far away to take pictures, so we just videotaped the 1st grade portion.) The most exciting thing from the program was that a girl from Emma's class fainted while waiting for their turn to sing and another 1st grade boy threw up on the stage. That was all the kids talked about for 3 days!

That same week was Emma's birthday. She got to be the helper at school and pick two prizes from the treasure box.  We took Hannah Montana cupcakes to her class that afternoon (and dropped a bright pink frosted one on their carpet..oops!) After she got out of school, we went to pick up balloons for her party and then we ate at Chick-fil-a (her choice) for dinner. After that our families came over for cake and ice cream.  Emma got a book light (since she tends to stay up reading with only a lamp on), Polly Pockets, a jewelry-making kit, clothes, books, movies, a blanket pet, a window art kit and as you can tell from the pictures....lots of horse stuff! I can't believe she's 7!