Big Girls' First sleepover

Oh my.  One day, you are trying to convince your child to pee and poop in a toilet bowl and the next day, you are sending them out for a sleepover.  Where has the time gone?

According to Ginny, they never missed their Mama once and had a ball.  The next day, when I came to pick them up, I believe they were asking to sleepover again!

Reston National

This picture is from Ginny's camera - taken of all of us - at Sydney's Birthday party!

Kiki

Celebrating 35

I had such a nice birthday weekend!  Arturo and the girls surprised me Sunday morning with breakfast in bed (besides letting me sleep in!).  And while I was out to brunch with the Ladies, Tessa cooperated by taking a nice nap - and the big girls made and decorated a cake for me.

Note, the cake is half chocolate frosting and half vanilla frosting because Alexa loves chocolate and Emma does not like it.  My Ying/Yang girls!

If you look at the picture below, you will notice two things:

1) I am wearing the birthday crown that Ginny made me (Thanks Ginny!)

2) Emma put the candles in for me.  She cleverly made "35" out of the candles we had at hand.

SHMS Spring Concert

Last Saturday was Alexa's annual Spring Concert at school. 

The flyer sent home stated the concert would begin at 3 pm, but that "doors would open" at 2:30 pm.  Like the good, fanatical mom that I am, I arrived at school at 2:10 pm, ready to get in line and make a dash for the seats when they opened the doors.  I wasn't even there first - I was probably the 5-6th family in line. 

But my years of training with Ginny for Dani's Duds had prepared me well for this moment.  Friendly, casual banter with fellow moms ceased about 5 minutes prior to said "door opening" time.  We all had a tight, strained smile as we tried to focus on the task at hand.  The doors opened, I warned Alexa to hold on tight; I was in the zone.  I was in it to win it.  And indeed, I brought it home.  I remained cool and collected, yet secured front row seats for my family. 

Ok, enough about me.  This is about Alexa and her Spring concert.

I had to include the following shot, because it is one of many that I have of Alexa being the social butterfly that she is.  She sures loves her friends at school and isn't shy there!

  

  

Tessa loved the show and her newly acquired clapping skills came in handy! 

The Great (Grilled) Zucchini

I sure do love this little one....

Here she is enjoying some grilled zucchini.

Reston Fine Arts Festival

It's been so long since we headed out to Reston Town Center - it's changed a lot over the last year or so - but the kids still love that fountain!

Mmm, Queso...

Sometimes, I worry that Tessa will look back on all her baby pictures and wonder why we only seem to pull out the camera when she has food all over her face.  Here she is eating a quesadilla, I think.

Strawberries by the Gallon

The strawberries were ready early this year - each year that we have gone, we have had the luck of choosing the hottiest, steamiest day of the  year.  We have memories of keeping little toddler Alexa in the shade so she wouldn't over heat and pouring bottles of water over her head.  So when this year, we got the news that the strawberries were good to go - AND - that the weather would be a comforrtable 70ish, we buckled Tessa into the carseat and headed out into the country for some juicy yummyness.

The weather WAS perfect.  The strawberries WERE delicious.  And we were so glad to have dressed Alexa in red.

Which looks more delectable?  Ripe juicy strawberry, or fat little baby feet?  It's a tie in my book.

We've always known that Emma and Alexa's personalities are polar opposites.  Their strategies for picking strawberries was proof of this.  Emma, in her haste and exuberance, would pluck strawberries of varying degrees of ripeness and literally bring back bucketfuls to me every few minutes.  I learned to carefully sift through her berries to find the truly good ones.  Alexa, ever the calm and methodical child, probably picked total 1 bucket in our 45 minutes out in the fields.  She carefully surveyed each one on the plant, made sure it met her quality standards before picking them.  (Then again, maybe Alexa also spent more of her time consuming the berries a la "Blueberries for Sal!)  So funny to observe these two children!

In the end, we picked 8+ pounds of strawberries, and actually ate them all within one week.  YUM-O.

Sunset Hills Montessori - Mother's Day Party

Alexa's preschool class hosted a lovely Mother's Day party for us parents at a nearby park.  The kids started off serenading us with a Van Morrisson song, "Crazy Love."  In our year at SHMS, Alexa and her friends have learned to sing songs by Van Morrisson, The Beach Boys, and Jason Mraz.  How can you go wrong with this school?

Alexa and one of her best friends, Madeline.  Being silly together.

Not on Arturo's list of favorite things

I've posted about Margaret Thomas' gardens before - the lady is not getting any younger - and so far, no historic preservation association has stepped in. So another year of her beautiful blooms have to be enjoyed!  Arturo is usually pretty accomodating of my whims - but there are two things he really hates doing with me:

1) Go for walks

2) Visit flower gardens

I forced him to go this year - thinking he would be overtaken by the beauty and number of flowers.  Didn't happen. 

Love this shot of Alexa running happily amidst the bursts of color:

At least he smiled for the camera, right?

8 months

Bridging to Brownies

In the beginning of May, Emma officially bridged over to Brownies.  They are so proud to "officially" be Brownies now!  There was this big ceremony - a big to do - where they made a "bridge" out of all the different colors of their petals with balloons.  Each girl had to cross the bridge from being a Daisy to being a Brownie.  Afterwards, we had a little reception with treats and yummies.

Here they are, starting wtih the Girl Scout pledge:

I got a kick out of this shot.  This is Tessa's view of the world - I let her crawl around the school cafeteria floor while the ceremony was going on.  Oh, to be a 3rd child!!!

Emma, crossing the bridge: