Recital Weekend:)

We had a great, very busy weekend here at the zuge zoo.  Friday night we went to a little league baseball game for a few innings.  Ena is starting t-ball in a few weeks and she really isn't much into sports yet, so we wanted to expose her to a little bit of the game to give her a little background knowledge on the sport before she begins. 

Saturday was dance recital day!  There was an afternoon and an evening performance and she did great for both of them!  We were so proud of her:)  She seemed to really be comfortable and have a fun time being on stage and of course loved getting her princess bouquet afterwards:) 

Sunday morning we were up and at 'em early working in the garden getting a little bit of planting done.  Later in the morning we headed out to a local horse stable that was having an open house.  We got to watch a horse riding drill team performance and Ena got a pony ride!  Alton loved watching the horses and each one that would come and go he would say "Hi Neigh!  Bye bye Neigh!"

Athena after her second performance of the day.  Still smiling at 9:00pm at night after a long, long busy day!

Someone figured out how to open the spicket on the rain barrel...

Giddy up cow girl!

We ended the weekend with a trip to meet friends for some frozen custard.  A great ending to a super fun weekend:)

A Walk in The Woods

Athena got a cool nature scavenger hunt sent home from school for a family activity to do for Earth Day.  We had time this weekend and the weather was nice so we headed out for a hike this morning and had a great time doing the scavenger hunt with Athena.  The hunt included things like: draw something that you heard in the woods, draw something you smelled in the woods, draw an animal that you think might live in this area, find and draw one non-living thing, etc...  She loved it and I'm guessing we hiked about two miles when all was said and done. 

Here she is posing with her clipboard that we had the sheets clipped to for her for easy drawing. 

Only the finest hiking gear!  A pink plaid skirt, sparkling princess tennis shoes and a pink leopard print cap.  You can't really tell in any of the pictures, but those straps over her shoulders are her dollie carrier.  She has her baby doll strapped to her back just like the way daddy carries Alton. 

Check out this ham!  He was all smiles the whole time looking around at trees and hanging out content in the carrier.  He even dozed off for a while at the end. 

My two studs posing by one of the trail blazes.  Reminds me of the hiking trip John and I did in Maine the summer before we adopted Athena.  Couple more years yet and then we can get back into it again with the kids:) 

We were walking along and I looked over and noticed this funny tree.  I pointed it out to John and Ena.  She glanced at it and immediately said "It's a number 4"

The 3 girls taking a little rest on a bench that was along the trail. 

Happy Family Day Athena!

Happy Family Day to our sweet angel baby Athena!  Here is a little trip down memory lane back to April 11, 2007.  The day this precious, perfect, gorgeous 3 month old baby girl was placed in our arms for the first time and so began our new life together.   Athena wants to celebrate her special day with a fish fry, so family festivities are waiting until Friday.  We may just have to talk daddy into going for ice cream tonight to tide us over until then though;)

After we arrived back at the hotel from the orphanage we took some family pictures in the court yard.

While we were working on paperwork in the front office, our program coordinator took our camera into the back and took some pictures of Athena waiting for us. 

She already had a crazy amount of hair at 3 months old.  They said they had even trimmed it that day because it kept going in her eyes!

A piece of my own heart placed in my arms forever xoxoxo

Happy Family Day Athena.  We love, love, love you!!!

Eee Eee Ooo Ooo! Our Little Monkey turned 2!!

Alton turned 2 this month!  Can't believe what a big boy he's turning into:)  He moved into the 2 year old room at daycare last week.  Since he's moved into the new bigger room he's been starting to talk more:)  Might be a peer motivation thing.  Whatever it is, I'm happy about it!  He loves cars, tractors and anything with wheels that he can push around.   He's still a daddy's boy and is smitten with his daddy!  He loves mama, sissy and Amber too but we all turn invisible when daddy gets home from work and Alton sprints to the door to meet him and is glued to his side for the rest of the evening.  It's adorable to watch:) 
Alton's favorite foods are fruit, cheese and any kind of meat!  I can't get him to eat a single vegetable.  Not even corn on the cob which barely even qualifies as a vegetable.  Just last week we stopped giving him bedtime bottles and it was sad for me.  Bed time bottle routine is one of the only times that he sits still and lets you cuddle him.  We kept up his bedtime bottle until he turned 2 as part of the bonding process, just like we did with Athena. 

Here is a picture of him on his actual birthday morning:)  Looking handsome as usual!

His monkey cupcakes that mommy and Athena made.

He thought they were pretty delicious.  He mostly just licked the frosting off of his though because he loved all of the food we made for his party and he just ate and ate and was pretty stuffed at this point.  We had all his favorite foods-fruit salad, home made macaroni and cheese and brats. 

Him and daddy headed out the morning of his party to pick out some balloons and came home with this huge monkey balloon:)

This isn't the best picture, but the look on his face is hilarious. "Aww Yeeeahh.  You know I'm gonna look handsome in this;)"  He really likes clothes and each shirt he got he held it up to himself like this to show it off:) 

Trying on his new hot red car puddle boots. 

Very serious about his gift opening. 

He LOVED the car he got from Athena.  She picked it out for him by herself. 

He was pretty excited for the new John Deer wagon he got to go with his tractor too:)
Happy Birthday  Alton!!!!

Pancake art and a snowman:)

Athena and John had a great time building a snowman this morning.    She's been wanting to make a snowman for weeks now, but we just haven't had any decent snow on a weekend when there was time to go outside and build one.  With the snowstorm yesterday there was plenty of wet, thick packable snow today.  The snowman turned out so cute!

When I came outside to take a picture of them I brought Alton along and stuck him in for a picture:) 

Isn't it the cutest?  The eyes are charred chunks of wood from the outdoor fireplace.   The  arms are cat tails and the nose is a great big carrot.  We've had so many deer in the yard again lately, we're curious to see if the carrot is going to still be there tomorrow morning!

The father daughter snowman building team. 

We also had some fun today doing pancake art for breakfast.  Ena LOVES doing this.  I make a batch of home made pancake batter and we dye some of it different colors.  I put the colored batters into these piping bottles and let Athena 'draw' pictures on the griddle with the batter.  I didn't get any action pictures of her doing it though because I'm always busy hovering over her making sure she doesn't touch her arms to the griddle as she's drawing. 

Check out her flower pancake creation!  She was very proud of it and ate the entire thing!  It was pretty huge!  She also made some Packer colored footballs for daddy and Alton. 

Baby Girl is not so baby anymore!

Guess who has a wiggly tooth!  Last night at dinner I noticed one of Athena's teeth looked a little crooked.  I checked it out and it's totally wiggly!  Baby girl has her first loose tooth:)   It's pretty wiggly and I think it will probably be out in the next few weeks. 
I have to say, I'm surprised she has a loose tooth already.  In my early years of teaching when I taught 4K, I never had a 4K-er lose a tooth. She first turned 5 in December!

It's the bottom middle right one (her right)

I was further shocked when I looked closer and saw that the permanent tooth is already showing through behind this wiggly one!  See it back there?  

Here she is showing off the little wiggler, pushing it with her tongue. 

She's constantly wiggling on it now and feeling the new one behind it now that I pointed it out to her. 

She's pretty excited and has been asking a zillion questions about the tooth fairy now:)  I have several cute books at work about the tooth fairy that we use during our Dental Week. I'll have to borrow some to bring home to read to her. 

Playdough. Who knew?

As an Early Childhood professional I know what a great tool playdough is for helping to improve the fine motor skills of preschool and kindergarten age children.  When Alton's daily note the other day said that he had a great time playing with playdough at daycare that day though, I though "Yeah. Right.  Playdough with 1 year olds?  If I gave Alton playdough to play with right now all he would do is throw it and try to eat it."  Athena heard me tell John about it on the phone though and wanted to give it a try with him.  Alton's big sissy is always looking out for him:)  We gave it a whirl and I was pleasantly shocked!   


He had a great time ripping it all up into little bits.  Talk about a good fine motor exercise!  Expecially for a boy!

 


We had minimal eating attempts.

  


Of coarse banging the container on the table was great fun. 

 


Looking adorable while trying to get the lid back on the can:)

 


Dumping the pieces out of the can...

 


...and then loading them back in again and again  turned out to be tons of fun too:) 

 Now I"m a believer and realize you can do playdough with a rowdy, 'high energy' one year old boy.  He sat nice and played with it for at least 10 minutes!  We'll be doing it again very soon:)