Baseball

The girls have been playing baseball. Their dad signed them up and is their coach. I have been going to the practices and games the last few weeks after getting a copy of the schedule. I am not sure how the baseball skills are progressing but they are fun to watch. Alexa was told to cover 3rd base in today's practice.

To be fair the base is really well covered. Here is Chloe playing first base or working on her art skills in the dirt.

On the upside it wasn't raining!

Chloe's Class Song

Chloe's Concert

Chloe had a school concert last night. It went on so long that I was too tired to post the pictures last night. I am sure you were all able to muddle through somehow. The school had a local musician named Jon Gailmore visiting in a residency for the last two weeks. I think he is really only known around here for his music. he plays a lot of children's songs and thus performs in concerts for kids. He worked with all the classes to write and perform their own songs. They were really cute. All of the kids got t-shirts to wear to commemorate the night.


This is Chloe's class. If you look in the center of the back row under the sun, you will see her. She wasn't thrilled about performing, but she did it. She even smiled for the camera.

Happy Birthday

My birthday elves were at it again. The girls decorated my birthday cake again this year.

They had a good time. Chloe write a 39 on there somewhere and then drew a line away from it and announced, "There's your road to 40, Mommy." Thanks kid. Thanks a lot.

Chloe rounded up as many boxes of birthday candles as she could find, counted out a bunch, and announced that she had 39 and they were putting them all on.

It looks rather like a birthday porcupine

and the glow...well... what can I say about that. It didn't set off the smoke detector so that's something. Here is to year number 39- love, laughter, health, and peace.

Forever Sewing

I had my sewing machine out this week to make Chloe's poodle skirt. Whenever that happen the girls get the idea to ask me to create other things for them. We have a couple of bags of fabric scraps in the closet and they dig through picking out colors and fabrics that can be used in their creations. We were home together yesterday as Chloe was on the mend from a virus. This combination led to the latest mommy sewed creations.

Alexa wanted a penguin. Here is my attempt.

I thought it turned out OK given that I was requested to make a penguin free hand using fabric scraps and buttons. The Chloe asked for a cat. A CAT? I tried to point out that this was way harder than a penguin, who really looks like a fat bowling pin. She agreed to let me make non stuffed floppy legs to ease my suffering. In the end it turned out kind of cute.

Now, I shall go hind my sewing machine again for a couple of months.

Sock Hop

Tonight Chloe is attending a sock hop. It is with her Girl Scout troop. Troops from around the city are getting together. Originally her troops leader was going to have the girls make poodle skirts to wear. However, after talking to the woman who runs it she decided that the girls would get too hot in them She opted to have the girls decorate t-shirts to wear instead. This was a great idea. Everyone thought so. Everyone except Chloe. Who still wanted a poodle skirt. Sigh... So last weekend I spent my Mother's day (after calling my own mom to ask how) making a poodle skirt. I had her try the whole outfit on today before her dad picked her up as he will be dropping her off. There is also to be a swap during the dance. Where the girls made small items to swap with other girls. Chloe made these.

There are 20 of them there.

Each has a safety pin stitched to it. Chloe also begged me to make her a sash to pin the things she got in the swap to. So here she is outfitted with her sash.

I can't wait to see what she comes back with this weekend.

Happy Mother's Day

My Mommy

By Chloe

My mommy is special.

My mommy is kind.

She is nice to me all of the time!

I like my dog, my sister too,

But my Mommy is the best all the way through.

She is the best one-of-a-kind!

She'll let me play Webkinz a lot of the time.
My mommy is special.

My mommy is kind.

My mommy is nice to me all of the time.

I'm glad I have a mommy just like this!

Because when it's bed time

She will give me a hug and a kiss!

I hope all the mothers out there had a wonderful Mother's Day. A special thank you to Chloe's teacher for having them write poems to their moms for mother's day. It made my day.

Arizona Adventures Part 4

Finally we come to the Grand Canyon. Really this part of the vacation was much earlier, but I went about writing them up in no particular order. Uncle Ryan treated us to a train ride to the Grand Canyon. We caught the train in Williams, Arizona. If you drive straight to the Canyon from Williams it will take you about an hour... the train takes two. Which sounds kind of silly, but the train trip was half the fun. The kids had never been on a train before (they were very quick to tell me the the subway doesn't count) so they were really excited about it. The train company really plays everything up with an old west show and a very hokey train robbery on the way back.

Chloe poses with one of the actors and his horse. Alexa was too afraid to go meet him. Later Chloe offered this man a Cheeze It while he was "robbing" the train.

I found this sign funny. It was outside the station on the other side of the tracks.

Aunt Andrea would pose at the set. I was trying to get the kids to but no luck.

Alexa is wide eyed as the train starts off.

Chloe and Alexa at the Canyon. It was really windy!

Uncle Ryan amused the girls with a wrestling match while we waited for our table in the restruant for lunch.

Arizona Adventure Part 3

Slowly you will get the whole story. You can't rush me. These things take time people.

It was hot in Arizona. Like 88 or some such temperature, which was great by the way. I got home to discover that it had been in the low 40's and rainy all week. I was so glad to have missed that. The heat was a hard switch though. The kids had a play date at a pool the first full day we were there, but we couldn't keep mooching off these people everyday of the week. I created the idea of a squirt bottle battle and the kids loved the idea. We gathered up all of Aunt Andrea's squirt bottles (used for disciplining unruly pets), put the kids in swim suits, and sent them out into the yard to do battle.

They had a great time.

Even the bystanders were not safe so I grabbed a couple of bottles and fought back.

I didn't not have a swim suit on, but that is an advantage of hot dry air, you dry fast.