Gymnastics

Madison started taking a parent and tots gymnastics class when she was 2 years old. She has been in gymnastics ever since. Molly started when she was two as well. We have been fortunate that they girls have their classes on the same day and time. We usually go to gymnastics, then go out for a family dinner every Wed. evening. They go to a christian based gym called Twigs. It is a little bit of a drive, bit it's worth it. A friend of ours manages the place and we like their philosophy. Some programs are very competitive and push the kids a lot. At Twigs they are learning a lot but in a more relaxed setting. Madison is hard enough on herself. The relaxed setting is great for her. When ever she does something well, she looks up at us and gives us the thumbs up. Next year she might start competing at meets. We have really loved all of their teachers. They have come so far! We can't believe the things they can do now. Duane and I can remember chasing them both around during their parent and tot class. I think I was pregnant during both of their parent and tot classes. That made chasisng them around all the more challenging. We didn't think they would ever get into a routine, sit still and listen to the teachers instructions or take turns. But in time they both did. It was another parenting lesson learned for us. In time things will eventually fall into place. Last week we noticed that Molly was with a different teacher. After class the teacher told us that they wanted to move Molly into the five year old class since she just had a birthday. We explained to the teacher that she just turned 4. The teacher was surprised because of Molly's size and the fact that when they asked her if she was 5 she said yes! She can be such a stinker:) She actually did really well with the 5 year olds so we all decided to keep her there and see how it goes. She blends right in. When she was in the 4 year old class, we noticed that she was being a mother hen to the smaller girls. She has the need to take care of them because they are "little" to her. In actuality they are the same age. She just seems so much older. I think it's the same case in her ballet class. Duane and I take turns chasing Mallory around in the observation room. We are enjoying the fact that we can both be there together to watch their class. On occasion when Mallory lets us, we actually have an adult conversation. We know the older they get, the more we will have to divide and concer with their activities. They have five more weeks left, then we'll take the summer off. We all like gymnastics, but we're willing to trade it for Wed. evenings at the pool for a few months.

Live on Stage...It's Molly Scott!

Molly had her first live performance last week! Her preschool had a family spaghetti dinner and several classes did a little performance. As usually Molly really put on a show for her family and friends. She had the whole crowd giggling with her animated performance. After Molly practiced her song at home for us the night before, Duane put in a request for pig tails. You'll understand why when you watch the clip. Duane spent another special event surrounded by girls:) We all really enjoyed the evening. It seems like yesterday that Madison was up on that same stage singing with her preschool class. Now it's already Molly's turn. In the blink of an eye, Mallory will be there too.

Not So Tiny Dancer

Molly started Ballet lessons at the rec center a few weeks ago. I think she has found her calling. She loves wearing a tutu and ballet slippers. She was so excited for her first class. I thought she did pretty well for a first timer. Our girls always seem to have their own agenda, but Molly did her best to pay attention to the teacher for the most part. It is a real challenge to sit behind the glass or on the side lines and not interceed when you think you're child is in need of a little redirection. I guess that's all a part of helping them gain independence. She is one of the tallest kids in the class. She seems so much older because of her size and her endless vocabulary. They started out with some stretches, then practiced a few moves. Molly's class went from 3:30-4:15. Madison had religious ed. classes at St. Charles at 4:00. I actually thought I could slip out to drop Madison off and get back in time to watch Molly for a few more minutes. Traffic was crazy and I barely made it back to Molly's class on time. It was an extremely stressful 30 minutes to say the least. I felt so guilty not being there to watch Molly the whole time. I am so conscience of the fact that Molly is the middle child. We spend so much time with activities and school work with Madison because she is older. And Mallory gets so much of our attention because she depends on us more and she is meeting mile stones every day. It's so important to me that Molly gets her fair share of attention and praise too. She is so smart and funny. She keeps us entertained constantly with her wit and charm. We get a kick out of her never ending ornery side. Even when we have to act disapproving:) It means so much to her to have her time in the spot light too. So with the help of a few great friends, I don't have to take Madison to St. Charles and I can watch the whole class. She is so animated! When Duane gets home from work, she has to show him all her new moves and tell him the names for each. You can't get much cuter than a blue eyed, blond haired little girl in a pink frilly tutu. Check out a few of her moves!

Mallory's Extra Curricular Activities

Mallory is changing every day. She looks more and more like Madison all the time. She is a happy girl until she doesn't get what she wants. I think that's a great way to describe all of the girls in this house. She has started giving hugs sporadically throughout the day to everyone in the house. She'll just run up to you, wrap her arms around you and bury her head in your legs. It is so adorable. She has really taken to a teddy bear blanket that the Ackleys gave her when she was born. She has to have it before she will go to sleep. His name is Mikey. She still loves her pacie. We try to only let her have it in the car or when she sleeps. Hopefully we will have her broken of it by the summer. Her favorite toy right now is her stacking blocks. She loves to stack them up and knock them down. It surprises us how long she will work on them. She also loves filling things up like her shape sorter. She has taken up singing. Duane and I sit in the living room and listen to her sing in her crib for a while after we put her to bed. Her father taught her how to climb up the ladder and slide down the slide on their swing set. If it were up to me, I would have held off on that lesson for a while:) She wants to eat with a fork now. She has gotten pretty good at it. She loves to run and is working very hard on figuring out how to jump. She's very close. We really have to be on our toes because she loves to jump off of things into our arms with little or no warning. Her vocabulary is constantly growing. Here are all the things she can say. mama, dada, papap, Sara, Molly, Maddie, no, yes, dog, bird, sock, shoe, up, get down, knock knock, mine, big girl, please, thank you, drink, milk, snack, ouch, hurt, woof, meow, tweet, ball, outside, why, more, night night, what's that, nose, teeth, eyes, car, beep. I'm sure there are a few more I'm forgetting. She is a girl on the go. I really love the stage she is in. They learn so much so quickly. This is such a great way to document our kids lives!

A Goalie in the Making

Madison started soccer a few weeks ago. This is Madison's 5th soccer season. Her team color is orange and they picked out the team name Orange Crush. She has practice on Monday evenings and games on Saturdays. Every other Mondays she goes to a skills camp with other teams. Duane is unofficially assistant coaching. It's just as much fun for me to watch him out there coaching a bunch of first grade girls as it is watching Madison play. I think it gives him a little taste of what my job is like. Madison loves playing goalie and she is pretty great at it. She saved about 9 goals at her first game. She was a little out of shape and got wore our running around on the field. I think she likes goalie partially because she doesn't have to run around as much. It's so great to be doing things outside again. Although it was cold, cloudy and windy at her first game. The girls were troopers. It was still better than last year's first game. We had freezing rain. When my umbrella was not turning inside out, freezing rain was dripping down the handle and into my shirt sleeve. It was not a pleasant experience. She also figured out that she can save more goals than she can score them. She likes to show that she is good at something. We are really trying to convey to her that soccer is a "team" sport and how important it is to work together. As the season is progressing, she is getting more confident and more in shape. At last week's game she scored 2 goals and saved 10 goals as goalie. The coach from the other team coached her in the fall. He joked with her that he was trying to get her thrown out of the game by the third quarter. She had a good game today. Mallory sat in her stroller yelling "Go! Go! Go! It was adorable! Molly is a good sport about going to the games. She'll get her turn to play this fall. Madison played really hard and scored another goal. Every seasons she learns more and gets a little better. We are just happy that she is having fun and still enjoys playing soccer. She plays until the first Saturday in June. Hope some of you can make it to a game this season!

Spring Break

We had a fun and busy spring break. It worked out that the girls and I had the same week off. Duane took a few days off too. We started the week with a trip to Sweet and Sassy. The girls got their nails painted with glitter and sparkles and made their own lip gloss. I was very proud of how well Duane handled the experience. He only cringed once. Poor guy! He is stuck with all these girly things. Later that week Duane took Madison to the rec center to use the rock climbing wall. He took a brief training class so that he can help her without an instructor being there. There are some non-girly things he gets to do to:) Good thing for dad he has some pretty tough girls. We went to the rec center the next day to go swimming. Mallory is more and more comfortable in the water all the time. Molly can go down the big slide now. She does her famous high pitched scream all the way down, but the truth is she is not one bit afraid. She loves doing things like the big girls. At the end of the week I took the girls and their good friend Lola to afternoon tea. There is a quaint little place in Oakwood called Central Perk that's run by a British couple. I started going there several years ago with my great friends Joey and Samantha. We've taken aunts, cousins, moms and grandmas many times too. I have a lot of fond memories there. We had a blast playing beauty shop and fixing our hair and nails before we went. They looked so adorable in their dresses! Duane and I ended the week with a night out with no kids. He took me to a little restaurant near where he works called Bears. They have great food and the best blackberry cobbler on Earth. We were so stuffed! As always spring break flew by. But now we can start the count down till summer! We are all ready for that!

On the Trail Again!

We have finally gotten a taste of spring thank goodness! Last Sunday we had a beautiful day. So after we took care of some errands and chores around the house, we packed up the bikes and headed to the trails in Spring Valley. It was Mallory's first biking adventure. I can remeber the first time we took the other girls biking for the first time. She was very content riding in a seat on my bike for a while. Then we put her in the tow-behind with Molly. We were hoping she would konk out for a nap, but she didn't want to miss anything. Molly is still happy to hitch a ride in the tow-behind. She is doing a great job on her big girl bike riding around our neighborhood. But she is not quite ready for the bike path yet. We are thinking about getting an attachment that hooks to Duane's bike for her. She isn't going to fit in the toe-behind much longer. Madison impressed us with how well she did on her bike. She set the pace and never complained once about being tired or sore. We made it about 9 miles. For the second time on the trail, I rode over a snake! Anyone close to me knows how I feel about snakes. Even if they are only 12 inches long. YUCK! We had a great ending to our trip. When were were packing up the bikes, we almost got to see a hot air balloon launch. They were just about ready to go and decided the wind wasn't quite right. What we did see was really cool! We're looking forward to many more bike trips this spring and summer.

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter this year. I was thinking back that a year ago I had to go back to work after a long maternity leave. Mondays are one of my days off so this year I was much happier this Easter. We were all happy to have my dad and Aunt Susan here with us for the weekends. We did all the traveling for so many years over the holidays. Now that we have three kids, we really enjoy being in our own home for the holidays. It means a lot to us when our family can come here to visit. We wish they could come more often. It is very important to us that the girls share their experiences with the family. The day before Easter we decorated place mats, colored eggs and made sugar cookie cuts outs. The girls wanted to leave the Easter Bunny some carrots and a few of the cookies we made. They were so excited to find their baskets! Mallory is a big fan of candy. It has been impossible to keep it from her with two big sisters around. She is a jelly bean monster! We got the girls all decked out in their Easter dresses and we all went to church. Last year they had matching dressing. Since Madison is getting older, it's more of a challenge to dress them a like. But they all wore blue. They looked like adorable angels. The weather was a little chilly, but the sun was out. The girls had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard after church. Later that afternoon we had a beautiful family dinner. Both of the girls said a special blessing and we went around the table sharing something we were thankful for. It was truly a day to be thankful in so many ways!