Jogathon

Crossfield has a yearly PTO Jogathon where the kids spend 30 minutes running as many laps as they can.  It's usually a lot of fun - a local radio station DJ comes and MCs the whole thing and the kids and parents get really into it.  This year, Emma ran 11 laps in 30 minutes which came out to be just over 2 miles!

She's in the middle, ready to go:

With her friend, Abby:

 And she's off!

 

 

They all got popsicles afterwards to celebrate.  Here she is with Carly.

If I hadn't mentioned this before...

Emma adores Tessa.  At school, she draws pictures for Tessa.  At home, she writes cards and letters to Tessa, telling her how much she is loved. 

The other day, I was in the kitchen, looked up, and found Emma playing with Tessa patiently and lovingly.

I love eating

Tessa loves to eat.  Let me repeat that.  Tessa.  Loves.  Food.  In fact, even if it isn't food, it goes straight into her mouth!  This works well when you are following BLW, but not so good when you  have two older girls who leave everything lying around the house.

Here she is stuffing her face with Broccoli.  Girlfriend loves it.  Her mother and father do not love cleaning up after her.

She also loves Mary Kelly's famous pumpkin muffins.  She loves the feeling of crumbling then in her fat little hands and feeding the ants on the kitchen floor too.

Syd Golf Party

The weather was a little chilly and breezy, and there was a tooth debacle with Emma right before Syd's party, but the party was still a success!  So cute to see all the kiddies teeing off - and all the proud dad's watching said kids tee off.

7 months

The weather was warm enough on Tessa's 7 month birthday to eat dinner outside and celebrate with an ice cream cone.  Note two things about this picture:

1) Arturo is holding back Tessa's hand - her new game is to swat/grab/attack anything within arm's reach, so we were worried that she'd get either a handful of ice cream of burn her fingers on the candle...

2) See her crumpled birthday crown.  It was a victim of aforementioned swatting.

Great Falls with Puo Puo

We had originally planned to head down to DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival, but balked last minute.  Instead, we went over to Great Falls which turned out to be a great outing.  The weather was sunny but not too warm, and the girls got to run around quite a bit. 

Swings

Another milestone to check off for Alexa: She has figured out how to pump on the swing by herself.  She still gets a little lazy once in a while, but it's so nice not to have to stand there and push her... and push her... and push her...!

We put Tessa on the swing for the first time too.  She loves it, as you can see from her expression below.

Future Wendy Wellesley's

Wellesley friends: Can't you totally see Lex in 15 years during her homework on Severance Green or in the Quad?

I don't know where Emma comes up with these poses, but they crack me up:

April Fool's!

On April 1, the girls and I planned a fun little trick on Arturo.  When he got home from work, we told him that for dinner that night, we would be eating sushi.  Arturo does not like seaweed.  Arturo does not like raw fish.  Hence, Arturo does not like Sushi. 

When we brought out the plate of sushi... surprise!  We had actually made Rice Krispy treats look like Sushi.  I used Frut-a-Bu for the seaweed, Rice Krispy treats for the rice, and Gummi Worms for the raw fish.  The girls helped me with almost everything and they were very proud of themselves for playing that trick on Daddy!

Meadowlark

During my mom's stay in April, we got a couple of beautifully sunny days, so one afternoon, we packed up the girls and headed off to Meadowlark.  It's still a little early in the season for the flowers to be in full bloom, but something about that garden always immediately lightens my mood.  The girls always love it too.

Two wheelin' Lex

Alexa is officially on two wheels! I spent some time with her last week in the afternoons - running up and down the street - with Tessa in the Angelpack - bouncing up and down as we ran alongside Lex. (Actually, I think the running lulled Tessa asleep, because she took a little snoozer right before dinner!) After that, there has been no stopping Alexa. Well, she actually still has trouble getting started - and her braking is a little rough - but as long as she doesn't stop pedaling, she's good to go!

Asparagus!

Our experimenting in Baby Led Weaning (BLW) continues - with some successes.  Tessa loves gnawing on lots of stuff - here we gave her the asparagus we all were eating for dinner that night.  She promptly double fisted it and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth.

Vitamin D

Last week, we had sunny and warm days - such a wonderful change from the rain and gloom.  For many of those days, I spent the whole afternoon out with the kids, soaking up the sunshine and getting tons of Vitamin D.  Before having to get the big girls, Tessa and I enjoyed some quiet time on our front lawn.  Ah, heaven.

Luck o' the Irish

I'm not sure why the idea of a little man dressed all in green coming into our house at night and playing tricks doesn't scare the girls, because it scares me!  Nonetheless, the girls really wanted to try and build a leprachaun trap so we went ahead with the plan.  The trap has a trick top which collapses if a leprachaun steps on it - ensuring that the green guy is snared. 

Emma declared that she was going to put the leprachaun in a "cage" if she caught it, which seemed to us to be missing the point, but oh well.

The next morning the girls excitedly got dressed, ready to see what kind of leprachaun they had caught.  Instead, the critter left us a note to the effect of, "Ha ha, Good try, but you can't catch me!"  And to their surprise, the leprachaun had turned their milk green!!!  AND the little imp switched up all our coats so that they were in the wrong places.  I tell you, there was some serious havoc in our house that morning!

New Do

I finally admitted that Alexa's hair has been a mess and took her to my hair stylist.  Alexa was very bummed that she couldn't go to Cartoon Cuts (where they have no clue what they are doing, but turn on a fun video for the kids) but liked all the special attention she got at the salon!  She emerged looking absolutely adorable!!!  I took some shots that day of her hair: