Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Our little lovers of ballet







Taryn and Haddie LOVE ballet. I had no idea that they would catch on to it so quickly!
Haddie wears her ballet uniform (even though she's not in a class yet) almost every single day. If it gets even the tiniest stain on it. she is completely heartbroken. Both Taryn and Haddie talk about ballet a lot now and Haddie is always twirling. 





Their teacher is amazing (that's Eva on the right, Taryn's friend) and the girls love their teacher. 

Every once and awhile, I catch a glimpse of Taryn and sometimes she breaks from her "ballet" form and just starts dancing. It's hilarious to see her move and grove out of the normal forms of ballet. She's totally that girl that just wants to have fun and make others laugh. 


One of my favorite moments was when Haddie peaked in on Taryn during her ballet lesson. She wants so badly to join in the class. Somehow, she understands that it's not her turn yet and she has been waiting ever so patiently. I'm shocked! 

I'm happy that Taryn was excited to try ballet and that she is open to trying new sports & activities. 





Friday, March 25, 2016

Taking advantage of all the sun! Walks to get Daddy after work


With the days getting longer, we've been taking advantage of all the extra day light. We take walks right before or right after dinner to meet Tyson half way as he walks home from work. Tyson walks 20 minutes each way to get to the metro (40 min of walking each day!) so meeting him half way is a perfect way to get the wiggles out of the girls before bed time. I love that when they spot Tyson walking towards them from a distance, they immediately run down the sidewalk to jump in his arms :)


Sometimes we have dolls and strollers on our walks and sometimes I put the girls in our double stroller. 
Seconds after this photo, Taryn went running down the side walk to catch her stroller heading down hill!



On this day, the girls were happy to give me some smiles before we headed out.




Oh man Haddie- sometimes it's so hard to discipline a face like that!


Taryn LOVES babies. She is the best at making babies laugh and helping them with what they need. She's also the first to tell us about spit up. She thinks it's super gross and wants it removed quickly. She often tells me she is "babysitting" her dolls- all 8 of them at once! :)


"Mama! My dress has pockets!!!" 
After discovering this, she had her hands in her pockets all day long. She's in a "church shoes, pink bow and dresses" all day every day phase right now!


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

A tour of Great Harvest Bread Co. with some of our little friends.


Our playgroup went to Great Harvest Bread Co. last week and toured the facility. Taryn had done this tour just a few months prior with her preschool so I knew that Haddie would love it just as much as Taryn did. We learned about wheat flour, how much honey a bee makes in it's life (less than 1/4 tsp!!!!), and the kids got to feel wheat, dough, and freshly ground flour. They also let us peek into their giant chocolate chip bin! 





My sister Brittany joined us with her twins. I know she has her arms full! I tried several times to hold one of them but they are in the stages of "stranger danger" and screamed the second I tried to hold them :( That Brittany has a lot of arm and back muscles!







The facility was busy making Easter goodies. I LOVED this little guy, fresh from the oven. 




Each person had a chance to eat a slice of delicious wheat bread! The kids were so quiet when they ate :) Happy tummies!


At the end of the tour, they gave each child a mini honey wheat loaf and a giant oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Haddie busted open that cookie as fast as she could.


I bought a loaf of Irish Soda bread when we left. It was huge ( the smallest one they had) but I wanted to buy some for our St. Patrick's dinner the next day so I bought it anyway because they had given us a great tour and were super nice with all our little kids. 

We have such a fun playgroup. There is always something going on and it's easy to join up with people or create an event where people tag along. I love where we live! 

Friday, March 18, 2016

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 2016


Happy St. Patrick's Day! 
We got all dressed and ready for the day, wearing our green all except Tyson who had forgotten until I said "Happy St. Patrick's Day." He looked at what he was wearing and said, "Oh well." Haha

Haddie had mixed feelings about wearing he green dress which she loves to wear any other day. So we compromised and she wore her princess dress over (her idea!) 
She's been very grumpy lately but who can blame her? She woke up at 4am Wednesday throwing up (just two hours after I had gotten home from work and fallen asleep!) It was an eventful morning and gratefully there was a big nap hours later for her. Poor girl has been off ever since. We're hoping to have our happy girl back soon!



Taryn was ready for preschool and super excited to celebrate St. Patrick's day. She asked me to curl her hair just like I do with the stick and it looked super cute.  After she got home, we picked up some skittles and I had the girls sort them, count them, eat them and make rainbows out of them. 


Haddie warmed up to the idea of "green" as the day went on :)

We spent the day outside playing and even planted our starter seeds for our garden. The girls were super eager to help and excited to water them!

We ate Corned beef and cabbage & carrots for dinner but I have to say that I'm more excited about the Reuben sandwiches tonight as an automatic leftover dinner :)



Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Some of my favorite pictures of the girls from the last few weeks


I love Taryn and Haddie so much! They bring so much life to our lives. I really love to take a bunch of pictures of them because I want to remember these moments in life! I'm always having to clear my phone and back up my photos! 

I found a stack of papers with quotes from the girls (some probably from months back!) and I wanted to share some on this blog along with their funny little pictures! 

Taryn loves to play pet shop. "Who wants a pet!?" She screams to me and Haddie or friends. 
Then she goes into detail about what makes the pet we chose a great one. 
She will also tell us their names. 
Taryn:" His name is Faster, Lemo, Goloboahkah, Cheater (Cheatah), and Fancy."

Sometimes Taryn will tell me stories about her animals adventures. 
"A little baby turtle climbed up the mountains and then I caught him so he didn't die."


Last summer I told her to jump in the pool. Taryn responded, "It's going to hurt my bones!"




I love the peaceful times of when these two play together. Honestly it's mostly a battle of learning how to share, talk nicely, and learning to play together, but there are moments where my heart could just burst when they play nicely. Like right at this moment, the girls are playing map believe, asking each other questions and being so sweet to each other. I LOVE IT! 

An early memory I have of them two together was from awhile back in the early morning when they seemed to be speaking their own language, jabbering back and forth, gathering up their toys and playing so nicely together. 


Us two at Institute (which is so great!) on Thursday mornings after we drop Taryn off at preschool.  






Taryn loves to "text" her friends on Tyson's old phone. She also loves to pretend to FaceTime with cousins and Grandparents. She brought her phone into the store with us one day and pretended to take picture of everything. 

Taryn really wanted some toys I showed her online one day. I said we wouldn't be able to get them yet because it would take awhile to get them by mail if we ordered them. Taryn: "We can put the money in the computer, then the toy will come out!" (one day Taryn…one day!)







Haddie loves to play with water. I gave her an eye dropper and a tablespoon and she was happy for 30 minutes !



One of the last snow falls of this winter! Haddie loves to shovel that snow but hates her gloves.




Tyson and the girls were ready for our family movie night with popcorn and blankets. 



"Mom, why are you making me go to sleep?" said Taryn one night at bed time. 




Taryn wants to know every dogs name.
She loves collecting rocks so we've started a few rock collections outside of the homes we've lived in over the past years. It starts growing with sticks every once and awhile too. It's not uncommon for me to find a rock in my purse after being at the park. 


"Mama, take a picture of me in my polka dot drwess"
She loves that polka dot dress, that actually fits Taryn better but oh well.




Her little friend Olivia thinks her expressions are crazy too. 




Haddie is learning about eyebrows and is very aware of them. (See expression above!) 
When she really wants something, she will stop what she's doing and focus on looking right at me while moving her eyebrows as far up and as far down as she can, as if to say, "Oh ya mama! That sounds good!" She's a crack up!



We made a quick stop to the Air and Space museum two weeks back. The girls kept asking all day, "Are we going to the museum now?!!!" Haddie and Taryn love the adventures that take us downtown to DC and the museums are perfect for their ages. We hadn't been to this one in a long time so the girls ran around gasping and pointing out airplanes as if they had never been there before! 




Scootering- as they do best!

Me: "Taryn, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Taryn: "I want to be Goldilocks. I want to be a giraffe!"


Taryn: "Mom, I spelled my name with pretzels! Take a picture of it!"


Taryn can move on that scooter. It's her favorite toy and she can zip so fast with it. 
She's also our climber of the family. She fell last week off the top of a slide (like 7-8 ft high) and it terrified me. She recovered quickly but man, stuff like that really scares me. 


Taryn: "Ahhh…. this is the life! I cool down and play in the grass. I dream about Mac & Cheese." Haha!!!!

Taryn hit her funny bone at dinner. Me: "Taryn, You're suppose to laugh! You hit your funny bone" Taryn; " Let's call it the hurty bone!"

At dinner, Taryn is becoming super adventurous with her food. We always make the girls try one bite of what we're eating. Taryn tried a bite of pulled pork. Me: "What do you think? Taryn: "Umm… Just a minute….I'm thinking….It's a little good" she said with a growing smile on her face!


Spring is here and we're loving the time outside with all the sun. We've brought out the sunscreen again - tis the curse of the blonde hair and blue eyes! (well….mine are green but basically it's the same)
Those red cheeks tell me my girls are tired and that they've enjoyed their time outside. 


I asked the girls to clean up the toys while I washed dishes in the other room. When I came back into the front room, I found Haddie in the toy basket and Taryn was seeing how many toys she could stack on top of her. A very creative way to clean. 

While FaceTiming my sister Mackenzie and the girls' cousin, Margot, Haddie dressed up as a super hero and showed them how she could fly. I love her little mask on at the top right. 

Never a dull moment with Taryn and Haddie!

Monday, March 14, 2016

Family outing to Rock Creek Park Nature Center




A few weeks ago, we started our Saturday off with an adventure to the Rock Creek Park Nature Center. Driving through Rock Creek Park is so fun. We've seen deer multiple times and I have to say it's most beautiful with the color changing leaves in the Fall. Inside the nature center they had displays of all the birds you can find in this area, along with fish, turtles, and animals you can find throughout the Park. The girls ran from display to display saying, "I've seen that!"  or "mama, Daddy! Look at this, look at this!!" They were able to feel a rabbit's fur, squirrel fur, and many skeletons from animals found in the Park.  Those girls love their nature!
 It was still pretty chilly outside but we took a small trail walk and snack break outside. The girls' hands were red and frozen by the time we got to the car but they loved it. 



I snapped a picture of this Hawk, a perfect resemblance of my high school mascot. We've kinda taken a hobby of bird watching lately. We pulled Tyson's binoculars out of storage and now we take along Taryn's child binoculars which makes sightings that much better. We've spotted many Great Blue Heron's, a bald Eagle along the Potomac River, and more cardinals, blue jays and American orange breasted robins then we can count. Tyson chatted with a professional "Birder" while we were on a walk at Long Bridge Park. It was really interesting to see how much money he had put into his amazing equipment. He showed us pictures of a juvenile bald eagle that he saw pick up a fish from the river and carry it away in it's claws. We live in such a great area to observe wildlife.