Visit with Sophia

This week my brother had training in town. We were very excited that he brought Sophia with him. Jaime had to stay home because she is about 34 weeks pregnant.

The girls had a ball. They are exactly a year apart and every time they get together they have more fun than the time before. They are at an age where the age gap seems to be narrowing. Physically they are the same size and as Sophia gets older they are able to interact, talk and play more.

Both days Nana and Pops brought Sophia to our house while Uncle Will was at work. We have a lot more toys and toddler friendly food. The main activities were painting, playing dress up and playing outside in the pool.

At the pool the favorite activity was dumping a bucket of water on your cousins head. Even Caroline played along. The funniest was when Sophia dumped water on her own head over and over but looked shocked every time.

Will was able to join us each evening for dinner. I wish we could have had more time with him but when your family lives out of state you are appreciative of any time spent together.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth

I have mentioned before that Katherine loves to play dress up. Basically from the moment she gets up until the moment she goes to bed she is wearing dress up clothes. Her new thing is to put on pieces of several outfits at one time. She often has layers of dress up clothes. We were lucky that we were given a huge box of dress up clothes from a friend in addition to several birthday presents and garage sale finds. She has plenty of dress up clothes and has no problem sharing with all of her friends. If you come to our house, you better be ready to dress up.

Every day most of the dress up clothes end up on the floor like in the photo above. This was taken tonight after 4 girls were here for the evening.

We have had to institute a few rules for dress up. The main two are that you must take off your dress up clothes when we eat with the exception of your tiara (it was our compromise) and you must take off your dress up clothes if mommy asks you to when we leave the house. Again, I usually still allow the tiara and sometimes jewelry.

Overall I think it is really cute and it is a lot of fun to see her using her imagination. She acts out all kinds of stories.

We have been having a little problem though. With all of those princess clothes on it is a lot harder to use the bathroom. Plus when you are having so much fun, who wants to take a break? So, Katherine has been having more accidents than usual. I am learning how to wash dress up clothes. So, today I told her that the next time she had an accident we were putting up the dress up box for a few days. Her reply was that she did not want me to do that. Well, when friends were over, she had an accident, right in front of the toilet. She did not allow herself enough time to take off her costume. So, I have put all of the clothes in a box in the garage. Since we had friends over, she does not realize this has been done yet. In the morning she will not be happy. I plan to keep them hidden until Sunday after church if she has remained accident free. I am hoping that this is a good motivator for her since it is one of her favorite things.

Spraypark

We had our first trip of the season to the local spraypark. Katherine is still pretty timid and does not get soaked but she likes to splash around. Caroline had a lot of fun playing with the water squirting out of the ground. I enjoyed it more than swimming because it is easier for me to keep up with them and make sure everyone is safe. That may change when Caroline starts walking but maybe that will hold off until after the spraypark closes for the year.

Playing with Ben

One of Katherine's BFF's is Ben. His family has a lot going on right now. They put their house on the market and were surprised to sell it really fast. They close this week while his dad is on a youth beach trip and his mom is taking a 1 week class at seminary. So, they were hurrying to pack things up. We invited Ben to spend the day with us at the last minute. It is always a lot of fun.

As the kids get older the differences between boys and girls and how they play get more apparent. You see that Katherine is always dressed as a princess. Ben wore his bike gloves the entire day. While painting you can see the difference.

No matter who comes over to play, Katherine directs them to play dress up. I am trying to accumulate some boy dress up clothes but Ben had to settle for fairy wings, a flower bracelet and Fancy Nancy shoes to go with his bike gloves. You can see that Katherine has had a wardrobe change as well.

I let them play outside unattended and found that they spilled bubbles and then played in the sandbox. They were very dirty. I was not sure if I had hit the age where they should stop taking baths together (what do you all think) so I just let them play in the sprinklers to clean off.

They had a ball and both took nice naps.

Thomas the Train

I bought 4 tickets to see Thomas the Train Live at an auction for the high school from which I graduated. We had not taken Katherine to any plays or musicals yet, mainly because they can be pricey and I was not sure if she was ready to sit still and watch. This was a great way to try it out. I paid $33 for 4 tickets where they were usually $45 each. She was able to invite one friend to go with her. Katherine loved it. She sat at the edge of her seat and watched intently.
Caroline loved it too. I had thought I would probably end up nursing Caroline under the cover to keep her quiet but we watched the entire thing.
Unfortunately Katherine's friend got scared at the beginning by a clown that was in the aisle entertaining the crowd. She ended up in the lobby with Sam for the entire show. I was really sad that she missed it but Sam said she seemed to have fun out there. No one had any idea that she was scared of clowns. Since Katherine and Caroline did so well we look forward to going to more plays and musicals in the future, especially if they are a little more girly!

Memorial Day

I am a bit behind in my blogging. Sorry about that. This year for Memorial Day we spent the day as a family at a park that has a nature preserve. We started off by going on a "hike". It was a very wide, paved trail but it was through a wooded area with a creek.
Katherine decided to take photos again. She actually got me in the frame. We found another beautiful patch of wildflowers. We have taken enough photos in wildflowers this spring so that every time we see even the smallest weed by the side of the road Katherine says, "mom, a flower. Let's take a picture."

Over the river and through the woods. . .

This weekend Katherine went on her first overnight trip to Grammy's house without me or Sam. Really, this is the first time we have all been away for this long and this far. Sad that she is 3 and we have never left her except when we were staying at a hotel in our own city. Anyway, she has been excited about her trip to Grammy's house with her other girl cousins Emily and Hannah. Yesterday we met Grammy and Grandad half way for lunch and to send off the girls. Katherine was so excited I think she would have forgotten to say "Good-Bye" if I had not come to her to give her a hug and a kiss. I did not call and talk to her last night because I did not want to make her miss me if she was dong OK without me. I did talk to her this morning. She is having a ball. They have been playing dress up and having tea parties. I can't wait to hear all about it and see the pictures that Grammy has been taking.

Sam has been wanting to go visit a college friend to work on some projects so I told him to go this weekend. That has left me home with only Caroline. I have had a fun weekend with just one child to love on. I have also been able to be a little more productive than usual. I am in the middle of reorganizing all the toys in our house, I finished sewing a dress for Caroline, I found a swimsuit that I am moderately pleased with and I bought some great deals at a garage sale.

I can't wait until we are all reunited tomorrow.

Guess which baby

The girls look more and more alike the older Caroline gets. My mom sent me these photos today taken of the girls at about the same age, in the same chair with the same doll. Sam and I can easily tell them apart but I think they look more alike than ever. I am curious how easy it is for others to tell them apart. So, leave a comment on which you think is Katherine and which you think is Caroline. If you saw the girls today and know what Caroline was wearing then you have quite an advantage.

The Best Board Books

We love to read at our house. We have over 500 books that are at the level that one or both of my girls enjoy currently. That does not include all of the books I have that are in the garage for them to read when they are older. In fact, about a month ago I did a major book organization where I divided the books into 8 magazine file boxes to be rotated. We just had too many books out so it was overwhelming. We decided to keep all Bibles and Bible stories out all the time along with the over sized books and some of Katherine's favorites like the Fancy Nancy books and princess books. But, the other books get rotated about every 2 weeks. The funny thing is that she did not even notice that about 75% of her bookshelf was put away. She had that many books.

I buy most books from garage sales, thrift stores and consignment sales so I often wonder if I am hitting all of the best books or if I am missing some classics. I would love for my readers to leave a comment on what your favorite childhood book was and what your children's favorite books are. As a child I loved the Saggy Baggy Elephant and my Disney book of the month books. Katherine's favorites as a younger toddler were all of the Brown Bear/Polar Bear/Panda Bear books by Bill Martin Jr. and anything by Sandra Boynton. Now she has so many books that she does not have favorites that she requests night after night with the exception of her princess stories.

School Library Journal posted the Top 100 Picture Book Poll of 2009. From that fabulous list, The Bookworm's Booklist has created some more fun for all of us! Here's the scoop:
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Below is a list of the top 30 Picture Books according to School Library Journal. Copy and paste this post and create a post of your own with it. Then, go back and highlight the books you and your children have read! After you post, leave a comment at The Bookworm's Booklist to let her and others know that your post is up. If you do this, I would love it if you left a comment here as well so I can check out your list.

I have highlighted the books we have read in red. In green are books that I have read in the same series but not that exact book. It appears that I now have a list of books that I need to take with me to the library. A lot of the books that my children have not read I remember as a child and we will probably hit next year when we go through Sonlight's P 3/4 program.
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#1: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)
#2: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)
#3: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1979)
#4: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)
#5: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (2003)
#6: Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1941)
#7: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (1955)
#8: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (1939)
#9: Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (1928)
#10: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems (2004)
#11: The Story of Ferdinand by Monroe Leaf, ill. Robert Lawson (1936)
#12: Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann (1994)
#13: Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (1948)
#14: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, ill. Lane Smith(1989)
#15: Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes (1996)
#16: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (1987)
#17: Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina (1947)
#18: In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (1970)
#19: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (1982)
#20: George and Martha by James Marshall (1972)
#21: Bark, George by Jules Feiffer (1999)
#22: The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone, ill. by Mike Smollin (1971)
#23: Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban (1964)
#24: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, ill. Lois Ehlert (1989)
#25: The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton (1942)
#26: Corduroy by Donald Freeman (1976)
#27: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (1902)
#28: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, ill. Ray Cruz(1972)
#29: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (1969)
#30: Brown, Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr., ill. Eric Carle (1967)