Silly

Yep, my kids are silly. Maddie insisted on running around in this tutu all day long, and Claire rode to her swimming lessons all decked out in her cap and goggles. They were quite a silly looking pair. :)

Pretty Maddie

This morning Maddie finished her breakfast early and went to go play while Claire and I finished ours. Then I got Claire dressed for school (not her usual day, but they were making up a snow day today). Maddie came back once to tell me that I had left my purse out last night (I usually put it into the closet) but then she disappeared and was playing quietly by herself. In hindsight, she probably was playing TOO quietly. Here's what Claire and I discovered when we came back into the living room:

Isn't she pretty? I'm actually ducking a hug in that photo. Anyway, she managed to find the ONE red lipstick that I own while she was going through the contents of my purse. You know, the purse that I left out ONE TIME! I own several gazillions of tubes of light pink lipstick but there was a random red one in there. Fortunately, she was pretty neat with it, in that she only put lipstick on herself and didn't get any on the couch. Which was great, except that meant I wasn't TOO mad so I'm not entirely certain that she understood that she wasn't supposed to play with Mommy's make-up.

"This is harder than I expected..."

"This is harder than I expected, keeping track of a baby!"

This came from Claire's mouth, as she followed a 1 year-old around our house. We were babysitting a friend's baby this afternoon and Claire was a bit overwhelmed after about 20 minutes. In her defense, this little guy was REALLY exploring our house and finding all sorts of things to get into (guess we'll have to re-babyproof our house sometime in the future...). And she took it upon herself to watch his every move and 'keep track of him'.

Then, after she watched me give him his bottle and rock him to sleep she said, "Wow, I guess babies are a lot of work!"

Maddie discovered he was here when she woke up from her nap and spent the afternoon trying to keep him occupied ("Here is yo' toy, Baby! Baby, you want to pway, Baby? Baby, I find yo' stuffed anim-o!").

They were hilarious. I'm thinking this was good practice for all of us! Maddie and Claire are definitely going to be wonderful big and biggest sisters.

Happy Birthday to my Mom!!!

Because I love her SO much, I'm not going to say which birthday this one is. Suffice it to say, it's one that ends in a zero! We love you and wish we could have been there to give you a birthday hug and help you celebrate!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

School photos

Claire's school does their school photos in the spring and they just brought them home in their backpacks on Thursday. Here's a peek at Claire and her class this year:

For sale to a loving home...

 

Our trusty Hyundai Elantra is up for sale on Craigslist and at the "lemon lot" (used car lot) here on base. It has faithfully served us since January 2001, when I bought it new as a single gal. It traveled to Germany and saw many adventures in Europe. It then traveled to Washington, where it became Phil's drive-to-work car. Now that we bought the van Phil will be driving the Volvo and the Hyundai has found itself looking for a new, loving home. Hopefully we can find it one soon!

Easter egg hunts

As I mentioned before, the girls participated in four organized Easter egg hunts. If the Easter Bunny decides to hide eggs here at the house tomorrow they'll have hunted five times! I think it's a bit out of control but they seem to think it's great fun (and Altus isn't exactly chock full of other activities for the kiddos!). Here are a few photos of the festivities:

Easter bonnets

Claire's preschool had an Easter bonnet parade this week. The preschoolers were supposed to make a crazy bonnet at home and then they all paraded around the school to show off their neat hats. We managed to find some white hats at Walmart and Claire and Maddie decorated them with fabric paint. Their hats weren't very "crazy", but the girls had a ton of fun making them and I think they turned out beautifully:

By the time Easter rolls around, the girls will have each participated in no fewer than 4 egg hunts. I have never stuffed so many eggs before in my life! And their stockpile of candy is rivaling the bounty they brought in at Halloween. Good thing they didn't give up candy for Lent!

Snow!

Altus didn't get left behind by the cold snap that moved through the country. We actually got snow! My tomatoes, bell peppers, and annual flowers probably didn't appreciate it, but our little girls did. Claire got all bundled up and went outside to check out the fluffy white stuff. She even got down in the snow and made a snow angel. Maddie liked looking at the winter wonderland from inside the house but was totally uninterested in playing in it after she discovered that snow is, in fact, still a cold thing.

Snow Angel

Ice skating on the back patio

It was over 70 degrees today, so I would imagine this will be the last snow for us until next winter!

Maddie's haircut

Our little Maddie likes to suck her right thumb. This leaves her left hand free to do her OTHER favorite activity: twirl her hair. Unfortunately, she ends up making some pretty big knots in her hair with all that twirling and then she gets annoyed and pulls out the knots. This left her with a rather punk-rock sort of hair do, in which one side was significantly shorter than the other. I finally took her to the salon today to see what they could do, and the gal there evened it up nicely. So Maddie got her very first big-girl haircut today - a cute little bob.

What got her here:

Before - notice the one pigtail is longer

During the haircut

After - and they gave her Smarties candy (her favorite!)

It's a ... baby!

We had our chance and are keeping it a surprise! I went in for an ultrasound on Tuesday and got our first look at kiddo #3. Very cute, and pretty sedate for a 21-week old baby. The tech got lots of good looks and said that she knew in the first five seconds but didn't tell us (per our request).



All checked out well and baby's heartbeat was 150...

Trip to Chicago

So, what do you do when you get a new car? Well, I test that baby out! Phil had a two-week trip to Alabama so I loaded the girls into our van (with 76 miles on the odometer) and headed to Illinois to visit family. Because there's nothing quite so enticing as Chicago in February/March.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the military there is a certain rule of thumb. Whenever one's spouse goes out of town something major immediately breaks. I thought I'd duck that rule this time by getting out of town myself, but I was mistaken.

We stopped at my friend Sarah's house for the night on the way up to Chicago. Boy am I glad we did! In the morning we came out of Sarah's house and discovered one of my beautiful new tires was FLAT! She's pregnant and I'm pregnant and we were not going to be changing a tire. Thank goodness for USAA Roadside Assistance! They sent a very nice gentleman to change my tire and the lovely Honda dealer by Sarah's house patched up my tire for me that day. Broken thing: handled.

We were able to have a nice visit with them, in spite of the drama. In fact, Claire is STILL talking about Monkey Joe's bouncy house place.