A bunny and a birthday

To celebrate Grandma's birthday we went to her house to enjoy the day.

When we got there, there was a surprise phone call for the girls.  They got to talk to their daddy for a little bit. 

Elijah got a new bunny for his birthday and A really liked Sugarpuff.

We had a little birthday cake and everyone was all smiles.

Goofball A

After getting ready for bed tonight A wanted me to take some pictures of her.  She was wearing a very oversized t-shirt and she wanted to pose.  The t-shirt was because yesterday J got a Brewers t-shirt at school.  The first thing I though of when I saw it was that it would make a fun nightshirt.  It was a men's small so it was obviously way too big for her.  I don't know what they were thinking at school but I think that shirt would have been too big for even the biggest kid in her whole school.  Oh well, they thought it was fun to sleepwear.  Of course we had to find one for A to wear too.  We ended up with an ASPCA men's XL.  It was sufficiently big and she was happy.

Here's her goofball poses tonight:

Memorial Day geocaching

For those that don't know, this is from www.geocaching.com - Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

We spent a few hours geocaching in the afternoon.  We actually tried to find 11 different caches but only found two.  I guess having a GPS that is geared more towards this kind of thing would help but it doesn't really matter because we have more fun just searching.  I also love to get some good nature photos while we are out there.

S was with us and that was a good thing because she did the tree climbing when necessary.  I'll spare you the photos she snapped of me trying to climb.  Let's just say that those photos will provide some good motivation to lose weight.

S thought these mushrooms looked cool.  The big ones were each probably about ten inches around.

The girls were just happy to find sticks and to do their own exploring in the woods. 

S also was the best one to go crawling into the smaller spaces.  She found the box for this cache but it was empty.  Someone must have really wanted the silly peanut butter jar with the little trinkets.

There were tons of these trees with these weird web things around all of the branches.  Upon closer inspection we found the webs were filled with tons of baby caterpillars.

I was trying some features of my camera and got some great pictures of these bugs and some neat foliage.

Here's one of the caches we found.  

Here's the girls checking out some bugs they found.

The girls were a handful but we still had a little fun.  Next time I think it will just be S and me caching or else we'll have to drag another adult along with us.  

Budding photographer

So J got a new camera for her birthday.  She loves taking pictures of what is on tv but I thought I should expand her horizons a bit.  The girls took their cameras on our walk but J was really the only one interested in taking pictures.  It was fun watching her try to mimic me taking pictures.

She was taking pictures of rocks, trees and A.  :)

Exploring Nature

Besides going to the park, I think the girls favorite thing to do is going for walks.  Recently they discovered that they really like walking to the parkway down the street and exploring all the things by the river.  I like taking them there because I can get some really good pictures of them.  Today we went and they took along their cameras so they could be like me.  Too bad, I don't think they got any pictures and what they did get accidentally got deleted from their cameras. 

This is my view of them on this beautiful day:

J likes to pose for me.

A spends her time picking flowers.

This is about the only time I saw them anywhere near each other.

A seems to feel empowered and goes strolling around by herself.

J wants to spend time with A but can't ever seem to keep up with her.

Look!  What's that over there?

Every now and then I find some pretty flowers.  These are from one of our neighbor's yard.

The Hat Parade

As if Star of the week wasn't enough, because it's getting closer to the end of the school year, J's class is doing all sorts of fun activities. 

They have been studying paper so they made paper hats.  They really were pretty cool.  The funny part was that we got a note that they needed two sheets of wrapping paper to make these hats.  I took J shopping to buy the paper and she picked out this wild sparkly paper that was bright purple with gold and silver stars all over it.  When she brought it home to decorate we said it looked like a pimp-daddy hat.  It was so funny.  They brought them home with instructions to decorate it and bring it back for a parade.  Again, we went shopping for supplies and we found these big stickers that said beautiful with pearls and some other stickers.  While we were there we picked up a hat for A to decorate so she could participate too.  A got a cute pink cowgirl hat. 

I went to work late the day of the parade so I could go watch them march around.  It was really cute.  They all came marching out of the school and marched around the playground.  The nest part was watching A jump right in line with the other kids and act like she was a part of the class.  It was so unlike her but it was good to see. 

Here are a few of the pictures I was able to get.  The sun made the pictures pretty bad but I tried to make them a little better.

  

J's Birthday

J turned 6 this year.  She said she feels like she is bigger and she acts like she is better.  I don't know if either is true but I think she had a good birthday this year.  There was so much to do for her birthday this year because, you know, she is 6 after all and her birthday means the world to her.  I think we got a count down to her birthday for the last 3 months. 

Because it was her birthday she was "Star" of the week at school.  That meant that she got special privileges and she was able to share about herself with her class.  To me it just meant more work but it was worth it because she really did feel special.  We spent about a week before the big day preparing everything.

We needed to find presents and get everything for her treats so that meant lots of shopping.  Also, to start the week she had to bring in a poster that had picture all about her.  We had to get all the supplies for that too.  She did the cutting of the letters for her name and labeled all the pictures on her poster.  If it wasn't so big I could share a picture her but you will just have to come visit us so that you can see it for yourself. Ha-Ha!  For her treat we made rice krispie treats but we made them in ice cream cones with strawberry marshmallows.  They turned out really cute and from what I heard all the kids loved them.

After I got home from work we had dinner and headed over to Grandma's for a short while.  We had cake and just relaxed for a while.  Here's a few pictures from there: