Springtime!

Oh, how we love spring!  Honestly, what isn't to love?  Besides todays insane snow storm and yesterdays hail storm and tornado sirens (fun times) I mean.  We love doing yard work

We love all these trees.  We're tree huggers here. ;)

And remember how much you loved dandelions as a kid?  We're discovering them.

Going on walks.  Summer walks are the best!

We've got lots of sisterly affection going on in this house right now.  Mady is in LOVE with Sydney and constantly says, "SYDNEY!" whenver Sydney comes in the room or leaves it.  The other day Sydney came up to me and said, "I love my sister!"  Melts my heart.  Hooray, I didn't ruin her life forever!

Oh, and all that summer fruit.  My kids ate half a watermelon (a good size one) in 2 days.  Pretty much by themselves.  Heaven.

Easter Happenings

My parents came to visit us 2 weeks ago and left on Sunday.  We had a great time while they were here and we have very few pictures to document the trip!  We hit the zoo (absolute madness), the historical museum, and the Wildlife Experience/consignment sale.  At the Wildlife Experience Mady and Sydney had fun in the butterfly exhibit.  Mady got stuck in the web like a little bug.

Miss Sydney had fun climbing "like Spiderman!" She really likes Spidey for some reason!

At the Historical Museum they had a working farm and blacksmith shop.  It was fun to see, but I think we were too early in the year for the animals and farming part and the blacksmith was only interested in the older kids and was kind of rude to poor Sydney.  We ate lunch at the park across the street where the girls had a blast chasing squirrels!  We don't really have them out by our house (we've seen 3 in almost 4 years!)  Mady is so happy to be a big girl and get to run around!

We also had some Easter fun.  Our HOA put on a little event at the clubhouse with a bouncy house, a petting zoo, pony rides, airbrush tattoos, and a visit from the Easter Bunny.  Mady wanted to watch, but Sydney was right in the thick of things.

The Easter Bunny was much like Santa Claus pictures.  Mady took the eggs he gave her, sat on his lap long enough for me to snap a picture and took off.  Sydney went back 4-5 times.  Not for the eggs either, she really liked that Easter Bunny and talked about him for the rest of the day!

And last but certainly not least, the pony rides.  Mady was fine if I was RIGHT next to her, but those moving things made her a little nervous (are you sensing a theme here?).  Sydney was in heaven with those ponies though.  There were never more than 3 people in line while we were there (they said we missed the huge line of earlier!) so Sydney got to ride each pony multiple times.  I lost count, but I think she rode 5-7 times.  One of the girls leading the ponies started calling her Princess Sydney.  It was very cute and fun. 

On Easter morning we had a little egg hunt at our house for the girls.  Sydney was a good sport and went hunting, but Mady found an egg with jelly beans in it and wouldn't budge until every last one was gone.

The girls got their first kites (a tradition in Aaron's family) and we went outside to try them.  They were both briefly interested and Sydney even took a turn flying her Spidey kite, but they quickly lost interest and left Aaron and I flying the kites alone.  We had fun though!

Happy Easter!

Something Fishy...

I've taken the girls to PetSmart frequently as a reward for good behavior on trips to Target (the stores share a parking lot).  Almost every time we have gone in someone has commented on Sydney's absolute love of all animals by saying, "You've got to get her a pet!"  At which point I usually smile politely and inform them that I have enough messes and bodily fluids to clean up with 2 toddlers.  Mady has really gotten into the animals lately too, but I still held with my firm resolve that my hands are just too full right now.  Then we met Pancake.  On an ordinary trip to PetSmart we met the most adorable little Dachsund/Boxer/Sharpay (i.e. MUTT) you've ever seen.  If he hadn't been a puppt in every sense of the word (the poop guy couldn't take a drink without tipping his water dish over), he might have come home with us.  As it is, my resolve just weakened a little.  When Aaron brought up getting the girls a fish tank a few weeks later, I thought, "that wouldn't be too bad."

We were thinking something small-ish but still bigger than our 1 gallon tank from college.  We started out with a 5 gallon tank.  The girls kept themselves busy during the set up.

Due to issues with filters, location, and I don't remember what else, we ended up purchasing 3 different tanks and keeping the largest - a 10 gallon tank.  This did mean we got to get some pretty things to put in it though!

Can you see the fishies?

Funnily enough, we originally though Sydney would enjoy the fish the most, but Mady is the one who loves them!  She drags a little chair over to the counter and watches the fish while she eats her snacks.  So cute.  Sydney prefers our frog and vacuum fish.

All in all, we ended up with 12 schooling fish (3 different kinds, 4 each), 1 vacuum fish (a corydora I think?  they clean the bottom, thus Sydney's name for it), and 1 African dwarf frog that Sydney named Rupert.

I think that's my favorite part.