My Performer

I'm not sure where these songs come from but I love how they make me laugh- 

I hope they make you laugh too.

Her favorite "Aladdin" song

My Little Rock Star

Talking with Lillian

I'm a stickler for chronological posts but my videos will always be a little behind because it takes me that much longer to upload and publish them. My appologies. 

Birthday Week Continues

Monday:

Sporting some new birthday items.

Head-to-toe cute.

Thanks Gramma!

Wednesday:

We were eating strawberries and Maren tells me this one looks like a (rotisserie) chicken. Yup, I guess it does. She is so observant.

 It's really hard right now to take Maren's picture. She doesn't want it taken and then when she allows it you get closed eyes. So I tell her to open her eyes and I get more of an open mouth:

 "No, close your mouth."

 "No, Maren, smile for real."

 Oh well, never mind.

Wednesday:

 Check out the super flouncy skirt she got yesterday! So cute, and guess what, it's reversible. 

Lilly really likes it too. 

I tied a ribbon in her hair 

- that didn't last long but the skirt made it almost all day. 

We have ECFE class on Wednesdays and since it was her birthday she got pancakes for breakfast. I volunteered to bring snack for the class and Maren wanted to bring pizza, maybe not for an 11am snack, so I made fruit pizza instead. It was a big hit.

I didn't ask her what she wanted for dinner on her birthday since I knew she would choose crab legs and I didn't want to drop that kind of cash. 

Friday:
Great River Water Park
We've been before but I always forget the camera. This time I remembered but I didn't remember to check the battery... almost dead. Too dead to take a photo with a flash = blurry photos. Bummer.

You wouldn't believe how happy this baby is in the water. She'll scoot on in until she is up to her mouth in water. She'll roll over and splash around. No fear here.

 She must get that from her sister.

Woo hoo!

Party!

The night before we went to Sam's Club, which our family considers quite the outing.

When we came home we saw these five deer across the street. They use our yard often (you can tell by the beaten path) but it's the first time all winter we actually got to see them. We spent a long time waiting for them to brave the back yard. Then they went on their way. You'd think we lived in the country.

Then it's party day.

Maren woke from her afternoon nap asking if her guests had arrived. We got ready while she watched out the front window waiting.

Gramma and Grampa arrived first to help (thank goodness, no matter how much you plan and prep the last minute things always seem to overwhelm). The most helpful is entertaining Maren and holding Lilly. Gramma and Grampa are experts at that.

She asked for chocolate cake. We made her marble - everyone likes marble. She wanted a grey horse on her cake, like Dawn. Gramma obliged.

 Gramma also let Maren pick out exactly what part of the cake she wanted to eat. Maren picked the horse head with the mane. It must have been the part with the most frosting.

 On to presents. She was very intense.

 After the guests left it was playtime. This is the farm we got her from IKEA. Lilly likes it too.

Tumble Together

We enrolled Maren in community education gymnastics for 2 and 3 year olds called Tumble Together. It's been Saturday mornings for the last 8 weeks (although we missed week one and took a sick day one other time). We're there before 9am just Maren and me. Last class was this weekend and Dad came too. He took pictures - for the scrap book of course. Before class starts she runs around the common area outside the field house with the other kiddies.

This type of setting is not Maren's strong suit. It involves two circle times to stretch and that is not her thing. She is very active and lets face it - stretching requires sitting still. She enjoys the circuit of tumbling but gets bored with that too. It's a challenge for me to get her to participate.

We did it though. All 6 times. Only twice did I end in tears and twice there were time outs and threats to leave but we made it. Why do I even bother, Matt asks. I don't know I guess. This is something the other kids in class can manage so I will continue to enroll Maren in hopes that school will be a lot less of a shock by the time she gets there - and God help me, it better come quick.

(Lilly got to come too since Dad was there)

Learning to walk

Lilly walked this shopping cart all the way from the kitchen into the living room by herself. 

Dad followed closely but didn't help at all.

She may have conquered three steps at gramma's house this week but she still does the army crawl to get around. We may go straight to walking, skipping an actual crawl, on this one.

Spring Fever!

Go Twins! I can't wait to start watching games!

(too bad the focus is off in this shot)

Two layers of Twins Spring Fever.

Maren slept in her Twins jammies last night too but she isn't currently a fan of having her picture taken-

Lilly on the other hand, gives big smiles for the camera.

Snow cute!

That is what these cute, super-soft, fleece jammies say.

Snow cute!

Thanks to Great Aunt Donna and Great Uncle Dave for these beauties.

And Lilly couldn't be happier.

snack time

I'm not sure why I got the camera out for this one, but apparently I saw something at the time that was photo worthy. Too bad I can't remember what it was (five days later).

None the less the photos are worth sharing.