Who is Ready for Summer?

....My girls are!

The sidewalk chalk has made its way out of the garage and the Slip-N-Slide has had it's inaugural use. Summer, here we come!

Biscuits and Buttermilk

Last weekend, we went to see The Biscuit Brothers perform at The Domain shopping center in Austin. Uncle Brad, Aunt Nicole, and Cousin Celeste invited us, and we had such an awesome time listening and dancing to the music of the award winning group. The girls always have adored Buttermilk Biscuit, and at the concert they got the chance to meet her up close and personal. Now, Genevieve only wants to listen to Biscuit Brothers songs that feature Buttermilk! If you get a chance to see this group perform live, you have to go. What a great show and a fun morning with family.

Parkside Elementary Fit Kids Day

Olivia's elementary school held a fun run and fitness fair a few weekends ago. Olivia participated in the fun run and had such an enjoyable time running with her friends. One of her favorite events at the fitness fair was a heart obstacle course, where she held "blood cell" balls and ran through different parts of the circulatory system made with tunnels and tents. She is also an awesome Hula Hooper!
As a mom, I love that Olivia can have so much fun doing healthy activities that are good for her body.

Batty About Bats

This year, Olivia's QUEST independent research project was about bats. She specifically researched the Madagascar Rousette bat and made a poster detailing characteristics about them using many different styles of graphic organizers. She also sent a plastic bat she named "Watson" on a flat traveler's trip, where family and friends took a picture of the bat at a significant landmark and then logged information about the site before sending Watson on to someone else. Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bill, who live on the island of Sardegna, hosted Watson for several weeks and sent pictures of many lovely places. Then Watson headed to London, England where he "saw" such amazing sited as "Big Ben", Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London. Watson made it back to Georgetown, TX just in time for Olivia's QUEST presentation. She did a puppet show to explain about all the neat places that Watson saw and things he did. The following week, Olivia participated in the QUEST fair at her school where she shared all her bat research with all the school kids and parents.

Olivia's is complimenting her friend on her QUEST presentation. Olivia is sharing information about her bat research with her school principal.

Another Fun Saturday with the Family

We love going to the new Cedar Park Farmers' Market in the 1890 Ranch. The vegetables, eggs, cheese, and yogurt are great quality AND they are produced without pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics. The word about this great food option is spreading and each week the crowd grows. I like to give the girls $5/each to pick out a healthy food to bring home; they pay for it themselves and Olivia helps count the change. Sometimes it ends with an interesting assortment of goodies; once we had chocolate goat's milk (Olivia) and chive cream cheese (Genevieve) and another time we had green onions (Olivia) and garden tomatoes (Genevieve). There is even live music and "Twinkle Toes" Genevieve came ready to rock it.
The Saturday of before my birthday, we went and Brian had the girls pick out something we could take on a picnic. We went geocaching to a beautiful spot, had a picnic, watched the sunset,
and then ran around like kids. It made me feel so young and happy! :)

Spelunking in Inner Space Caverns

Olivia had her first grade field trip to Inner Space Caverns in early April. The kids made cute tie-dyed T-shirts at school to wear the day of the trip. Genevieve and I drove over to meet the class as they arrived on the bus. They ate a picnic lunch, mined for semi-precious stones (which was Olivia and Eve's favorite part), and then it was off to the cave. Olivia came prepared with her head lamp and although Genevieve was not allowed in the cave, she wanted to wear her head lamp too. Olivia counted 5 bats when she was inside the cave, and on the way home she quoted much of the tour, so I know it was quite interesting to her even though we have been on the tour before. While we were waiting for the tour to wrap up, Eve made a discovery of her own. :)

Tea Party Playdate

Genevieve has a new free she met at the YMCA, and she simply adores her. The other morning, we had her friend over for a tea party. The girls made flower arrangements, and decorated muffins that they ate with their "tea" (juice). After ward, a stellar dance party was held by the little ladies. We will be sad when the friends will move to Seattle this summer. They will surely be missed.

Home Improvement

We seem to be going to our local home improvement store once a week these days either for garden supplies, window coverings, or weed eater string. The girls love looking at the flowers and plants in the outdoor nursery; they pretend to be bees and actually pollinate different varieties of flowers, so we apologize to all those people who bought petunias that look are now looking a little like snapdragons! ;) The first Saturday of the month are kids workshop days, so we take the girls to do a little project and make a fun and free morning out of it. (Well, the workshop is free, but we usually end up buying something while we're there. It's funny how that works! ;) ) Uncle Brad and Cousin Celeste met us out there the first weekend of April to do a little planting project. Of course, no trip to Home Depot would be complete without a pretend "tractor" ride.

Moms

Moms-
You've got to love them.

I sure love mine.

Happy Mother's Day!