Memorial Day at the Veterans Cemetery

Claire's Daisy Girl Scout troop, along with many other scouting troops in the area, placed flags on the headstones at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Cemetery here in New Jersey. What a wonderful way to help the kiddos understand the upcoming holiday!

Here's our little scout, hard at work:

And Maddie got to place some flags, too:

Even Colin got into the spirit!

Phil helped to hand out flags to the little girls in Claire's Daisy troop.

There were so many scouts there that the whole cemetery was completed within about 20 minutes. It was pretty warm outside today, but the kids all did a wonderful job!

Before:

After:

Let's Dance

We just got home from the girls' big dance recital. They spent the last year getting into the routine of a new dance studio, getting to know a new teacher and all of the girls in their classes, and (of course) learning new dance moves. Once again, they got to wear beautiful costumes and perform a dance on the big stage. They worked really hard on their routines and they both did a wonderful job up there!

There's Maddie in the middle

That's Claire 4th from the left

"Recital week" is a busy week. We had their normal classes on Monday and Tuesday. Photos (in their costumes) on Thursday. Dress rehearsal on Saturday and THEN the real deal on Sunday. I got pretty good at putting their hair into ballerina-esque buns by the time the big day came around! Note: there's lots of hairspray and bobby pins involved.

Getting prettied up

Yesterday the girls were upstairs playing and they were quiet. Too quiet, really, but I trust them not to do anything too awful and Phil's out of town so I chose not to check on them. I'm so glad I didn't! When they finally emerged from the bathroom (yes, they were playing in the bathroom and I still didn't go check -- did I mention Phil's out of town and I'm long overdue for a break?) they were SO cute! They had discovered all of their hair-do accessories and Claire put them to good use.



She combed out Maddie's hair (without any complaints from Maddie - that never happens for me!) and then completed this complicated coiffure. Such sweet and beautiful girls I have!

Longwood in the Spring

This weekend the weather was beeeeautiful so we packed up the fam' and headed back to Longwood Gardens to see the tulips in bloom. Boy oh boy were there a bunch of flowers! Side note: how cool would it be to be a gardener there and get to play with all of those pretty plants and make beautiful landscapes???



Maddie apparently observed her grandmother closely at the gardens and the flower show last month -- she knew just what to do! "Daddy, take a picture of that flower. Ooo and that one! This one too, Daddy!" and so on and so forth. I'm sure her grandmothers will be proud to hear of her love of plants.