In a previous post I mentioned that we had taken Katelyn to the church parking lot on Tuesday night to try to ride her bike without training wheels. This was her first attempt and I think she did pretty good. Here are a slideshow and a few videos from our evening.
Once again, I'm a little behind in my posts! Just lots going on! My last post was from last Monday when the girls got their back-to-school haircuts. So here's what we've been up to since then:
Tuesday: We went to storytime at the library and took Kylee with us. Afterwards, we went back to Kylee's house and played, had lunch, and then played some more! The girls had lots of fun playing with Kylee and Jacee!
Wednesday: The girls and I went to the gym to work out. They got to do a class too called Kick Start. They really like it when there are special classes for them too! Afterwards, we went to Mamaw & Papaw's house to swim. Lots of fun!
Thursday: I bought some flowers and we worked outside in the yard planting them. I also pulled weeds and trimmed the weeping mulberry tree. The girls watered most of the flowers for me, but decided they'd rather play! Thursday evening I played tennis and Robert & the girls stayed here and played out in the backyard.
Friday: I had a tennis match Friday morning, so the girls stayed here with Robert. After tennis, Robert & I mowed the yard. We've got it down to almost a science now! You should see us out there with both of our push mowers!! Katelyn woke up with a snotty nose and sore throat, so she just wanted to hang out here Friday night. Mamaw & Papaw and Lloyd & Wendy came over and we all had pizza. Katelyn started feeling better after playing with Lloyd!!
Saturday: We were all supposed to go to Puddin & Papa's house to visit with Robert's cousin who was in from NYC, but Katelyn & I didn't get to go. She had a very rough night Friday with all the congestion and mucus. She did not feel like going, so Robert & Rachel went down for the day. Robert's cousin has 2 kids - Lucille is 6 and Grant is almost 5. I think Rachel had a blast playing with her 2nd cousins that she had never met. They played all day! Katelyn & I hung out here for most of the day playing games, reading books, and watching a movie. We did venture out to Wal-Mart for grocery shopping and to Zaxby's for supper. Katelyn likes Zaxby's but Rachel doesn't, so we try to take Katelyn sometimes when Rachel isn't here. Since Katelyn was feeling better Saturday evening, she & I went out for a Mommy & Katelyn date to Zaxby's! How exciting!!! Robert & Rachel got home shortly before bedtime - Rachel was worn out from all the playing!!!
Sunday: We had a good morning at church until Katelyn ran into the door facing! She hit her head pretty good, and had a little knot and bruise, but she's fine. We went to Mamaw & Papaw's house to grill burgers and swim after church. Katelyn just keeps doing more & more!!! She is now able to swim to the bottom of the deep end (8 feet deep!) without any help at all!!! It's tough for such a lightweight to get down that deep!!! But she's doing so well!!! And Rachel is a total fish in the water!
Monday: Since I had a lot of stuff to do here (payroll and bills for Dr. Puckett and lots of emails, forms, and paperwork for my volunteer position as the traffic nazi at school!!!), we just stayed around here. The girls had fun playing and using their imagination. They love making stuff with tape, glue, scissors, and paper. They decided to make a caterpillar and named her Sovy. And you can't have a caterpillar without a cage, so they made a cage too! It was quite creative! I have a video I'll have to post later. Here are two pictures:
Tuesday: Tuesday morning was more work around the house, and then I took Rachel to Mamaw & Papaw's house to spend the night. A couple of weeks ago both girls had gone to spend the night, but Rachel got a tummy ache at bedtime and ended up coming home. Mamaw told her she could come back and spend the night one night before school starts. So that ended up being last night. While Rachel was at Mamaw & Papaw's house, we took Katelyn to the church parking lot to let her ride her bike WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS!! She had been asking us to take them off, but we hadn't. Robert took the training wheels off last night and Katelyn had her first attempt at riding a bike without training wheels. She did pretty good for her first time. I do have video, but I'll have to post that later also.
That's a brief recap of our not-so-exciting lives!! Check back in a day or two to see the videos!
Rachel and Katelyn had both been saying that they want their hair cut. Rachel would change her mind everyday. One day she would say she wanted it cut off to her chin, and then the next day she would say she just wanted a trim. Katelyn said she wanted hers all cut off too! I told them we could get some cut off, just maybe not quite to their chins!! For those of you who knew Katelyn when she was a baby, you'll remember that her hair went every which way! She had some crazy hair!!! Instead of growing straight down, her hair grows in a variety of directions! For that reason, a hairdresser told us early on that it would be best to keep her hair fairly long so that we could pull it back, and so that the weight of it would pull it down. I forgot to take pictures this morning before their haircuts, but here's a picture from last week-end when we went to see Beauty and the Beast. You can see how long their hair was.
Today is actually my Mom's birthday, but we celebrated it on Saturday. We went over to Mamaw & Papaw' house and grilled steaks! Yummy!!! Wendy made a strawberry cake which was delicious! She also made brownies for those who might not want strawberry cake. After stuffing ourselves, we let Mamaw open her presents, and then we all headed outside to the pool for an intense game of Marco Polo!! It was soon time to head home and get ready for bed.
Here are some pictures from the celebration:
I didn't think about candles though, so we pretended that there were candles to blow out!!! I don't think Rachel went along with the pretend candles!!!
I thought it was funny that all 3 of them have the same expression on their faces!
Mamaw reading the card that Katelyn made.
Mamaw reading the card that Rachel made.
Rachel & Katelyn with Mamaw
So what have we been up to this week? I'm so glad you asked! I'll give a recap:
Monday: I went for a walk here in the neighborhood while the girls stayed here and played while Robert worked from home. After that, the girls and I did some stuff around the house. I worked on payroll and bills for Dr. Puckett. I also brought up the Rubbermaid bins from the basement that have clothes that Rachel has outgrown and Katelyn tried on everything! Some stuff is still too big, but we did find some stuff that fits! That's the great thing about having two kids of the same sex! We love hand-me-downs! Katelyn was excited saying she had new clothes!!! I hope she's always so eager to wear Rachel's old stuff!!! Monday evening I headed to Bobbi-Jo's house for an Uppercase Living open house! Yes - I bought some more stuff! But I didn't just get stuff for me! I bought gifts too!!! While I was gone, Robert & the girls played outside and had a fun kickball game with our neighbors, Lily and Holly.
Tuesday: I went to the gym to work-out while the girls stayed home with Robert. He has worked from home a lot this week, and the girls are usually really good about playing well together and leaving him alone so that he can work. I came home for a few minutes, then the girls and I headed to storytime at the library. This week the storyteller told us that people from Kenya (where she's from) have lots of goats, and that they drink goat's milk. After the story, guess what was available to try? Yep - goat's milk! Katelyn and I didn't try it, but Rachel did. She didn't like it, but at least she tried it! After that, we all went outside the library and saw a real goat! The librarian had worked it out to have someone bring a goat for the kids to see. From the library the girls and I headed straight to Mamaw & Papaw's house to eat some lunch and then swim!!! It was a beautiful afternoon and the pool water felt so good!!! We got home in time to eat some supper, and then head to the local pool for a birthday party!
Wednesday: I had a meeting with lady from the school about the traffic flow problem. At our school, lots of parents bring their kids in cars. In addition to that, the elementary school and middle school are on the same campus, so there's a lot of traffic. At the end of last year, the PTO had some parent volunteers help out for a few weeks with the traffic flow. We didn't do anything major, we were just there to make sure everyone pulled up as far as they could and we helped open car doors. It was amazing how these small things made such a big impact! It was decided that we would continue this for the upcoming school year. My name was mentioned as someone who might be willing to be in charge of that, so I thought about it a few days and then agreed to accept the challenge!! It'll be a lot of organizing, scheduling, etc. but I enjoy that kind of thing. The plan is to assign 2 classes traffic duty each week. There are enough classes where I think each class will only be responsible for one week in the fall and one week in the spring! I'm hoping we have lots of parent participation. At our school, parents are very involved and are encouraged to be actively involved, so I think this will be successful if I can keep everything organized and running smoothly!!! The rest of the day consisted of stuff like laundry (lots of it) and random other things around the house. That evening, we went to the school to let Katelyn play on the playground. We thought it would be good to let her be familiar with it before she actually goes to school and there are 100+ other kids playing too!!! She & Rachel had a fun time, and then we went to get ICEE's! YUMMY!!!
Thursday: We started out our morning by going to the gym to work-out. The girls went to the kid's program while I sweated! After that, we headed to Wal-Mart to pick up a few items. After getting home and eating some lunch, it was time to tackle Rachel's closet!!! She tried on EVERYTHING in her closet and in her dresser!!! Now she has a stack of clothes in her floor that are too small for her!!! She has grown!! Some things that I bought her in the spring she has already outgrown!! Now the next step is to see if any of that stuff will fit Katelyn now. Probably not much unless it's a shirt. I'm sure the pants are all too big. I've still got to have Katelyn try on all of her stuff. After supper, Robert went to play tennis and I took the girls to stay with Lloyd while Wendy & I went to another Uppercase Living open house!!! Yes - I placed another order there too!!! This order was a gift for Katelyn's new kindergarten teacher - I hope she likes it!!! After the open house, the girls and I stayed at Lloyd & Wendy's for awhile longer while the girls took turns playing ping pong with Lloyd.
Friday: This morning I played tennis in the interclub league. It's a league where the various tennis facilities around town play each other. My partner and I won in a LONG 3-set match. While I was playing tennis, Mamaw came by the house and picked up the girls to go and spend the day with her. After I got home from tennis, I ate a quick lunch and then Robert & I push-mowed the yard. Can you say HOT, SWEATY, and STINKY!!!! I desperately needed a shower after that!!! Looks like Robert & I will be picking up supper and heading over to Mamaw & Papaw's house in a little while to eat supper and go swimming!!! Hopefully, Lloyd & Wendy can come too!
No pictures this week. Can you believe it? I guess I could've taken some pictures of all the stacks of clothes that the girls have tried on this week, but that's not very exciting!!!
Here's a recap of our week-end:
Friday morning I played tennis while the girls stayed at Mamaw & Papaw's house. After I got home from playing tennis, Robert & I mowed the yard. Let me tell you - I was not smelling too nice after all that sweat, dirt, and grime!!! Friday evening we went over to Mamaw & Papaw's house and ate pizza and went swimming. After we got home and got the girls in bed, Robert & I watched the movie "Vantage Point." It was pretty good - definitely worth the $1 Redbox movie rental fee!
Saturday morning I played tennis again while Robert took the girls to IHOP. Rachel has a new favorite place to eat! She loved their strawberry syrup!!! After pancakes, Robert took the girls to hit a little bit of tennis, and then he worked out a while and they went to the kids' program at the gym. He was just going to come home, but they wanted to go to the kids' program! After we all got home and ate some lunch, we went to Mamaw & Papaw's house to swim some more! We had a few good hours of swimming! Katelyn is becoming quite a little fish just like Rachel! She is swimming so good and doing more each time we go. Rachel swims like she's been in water all her life. After we got home, we ate some supper and then headed to the backyard to play. One of our neighbors was out walking with her 2 year old son, and the girls asked if they wanted to come play. So we had a good time visiting and playing with our neighbors.
Today we had a good morning at church and then took the girls for a special treat! We took them to see the play "Beauty and the Beast!" They really like the movie, and when we heard the play was going to be nearby we decided to take them to see it. We had 3rd row seats, so we were up close and personal with the actors! It was REALLY GOOD! The girls really enjoyed it! Katelyn was a little scared at times, mostly because of the Beast's loud roar, but she did fine. She would sit there with her fingers in her ears when she thought the Beast was going to roar! Rachel was mesmerized the entire time. The play was almost 3 hours, and I think Rachel sat on the edge of her seat the entire time! It was a fun time for us! The only bad part was the drive. There was a bad accident on the interstate between here and there yesterday, and the interstate was and is still closed. So we had to go back roads along with everyone else in the Southeast!!! Luckily, we were able to avoid most of the bad traffic and we made it there in plenty of time. I'm just glad we checked the news and knew what was going on and could plan accordingly. Here are some pictures from after the play:
Rachel & Katelyn with Belle
Rachel & Katelyn with the Prince/Beast
Rachel & Katelyn with Gaston (he had to show how strong he is by picking up both girls!)
Rachel & Katelyn with Mrs. Potts
On Thursday, Rachel, Katelyn, Mamaw, Papaw, and I went to Dollywood again! When we were there the previous week, there was a show that we didn't get to see because they were off that day. We decided to go back and have some more fun!! We got there shortly after the park opened and got to ride lots of rides with absolutely NO LINES!!!! Rachel even tried out a new ride that she was finally tall enough for - The Dizzy Disk. She was so excited and seemed to enjoy the first few seconds of the ride. However, she quickly realized she DID NOT LIKE THE RIDE! The operator was very nice when he saw that she was extremely unhappy and he stopped the ride to let us off, and then continued the ride for the rest of the folks. Rachel calmed down pretty quickly though, and was ready to ride other rides. Both Rachel & Katelyn rode the Ferris Wheel for the first time that day. Around noon, it started sprinkling, and Robert called to tell me that we were fixing to get a downpour. So we decided to head indoors to see the show that we had missed the previous week. It featured the Kratt Brothers, who host a TV show on PBS that the girls have watched before. The show at Dollywood was really good and we got to see a porcupine, 2 snakes, including a Burmese Python (YUCK!), a beaver, a baby kangaroo, a baby zebra, and another animal that I forgot what it's called, but it's a cousin to the raccoon. I think all 5 of us really enjoyed that show! When we came out, it was POURING!!! We had decided it was lunch time, so we took off to a place to eat. Mamaw & Rachel had an umbrella, and Papaw had an umbrella. I put Katelyn in the stroller and took off running as fast as I could! When we got there, I was dripping wet - partly from the rain and partly from sweating!!! Katelyn was pretty wet as well. She said she got to ride the "Mommy stroller water ride!" Of course, we dried off fairly quickly while eating our lunch, and by that time the rain had pretty much stopped! We were able to continue our fun! Here are a few pictures from Thursday. Since we had just been there the week before, I didn't take a lot of pictures.
Watch out! Young driver on the road!!! Katelyn driving Mamaw
Katelyn driving back into the "station." She made it safely!
Rachel driving Papaw around
Rachel & Katelyn posing
The Dollywood photographers took pictures of the girls sitting on this prop. They had Katelyn hold her hands out like she's holding something. When you went to look at the pictures, they had put a butterfly in Katelyn's hands. The pictures were cute, but they were $15 for one! So we just let the girls pose for me using my camera. Katelyn asked if she could hold her hands out like she did for the photographer. I told her she could, but that there wouldn't be a butterfly there!!!
Here are a couple more pictures from Fall Creek Falls (compliments of Steve). This first picture is of Rachel & Katelyn with their cousins, Kayla & Brittany. Kayla & Brittany left on a mission trip to Canada the day after they got back from Fall Creek Falls. They had a good week and arrived back home safely. We're proud of both of you!!
This is Katelyn feeding a deer.
As part of the video scavenger hunt that I described in an earlier post, you had to get a video of one of your team members playing tennis. I thought this was a cute video of Katelyn playing tennis with Robert.
Today we had another playdate!!! We met our friends Catherine, Virginia, and Mrs. Alison at the movie theater this morning to see a FREE movie!!! Regal Cinemas has free family movies during the summer. It's a different movie each week. Today's movie was Charlotte's Web. Even though we had all seen it before, we thought it would be a fun thing to do, especially since it was FREE!!! We enjoyed the movie and the time visiting and talking beforehand. Then we headed to Mamaw & Papaw's house for lunch. We had packed a picnic lunch, but actually ate in their dining room!!! The plan was to go swimming after we ate. However, we had to resort to Plan B since it started thundering right after we finished eating. It never actually rained or even really stormed at their house, but it thundered for a couple of hours. And like the weather channel says "if you can hear thunder, you're close enough to be struck by lightning!" We tried to wait it out by letting the girls play inside for awhile. But it became evident after a couple of hours that we were just going to have to give up and try it another day! The girls had fun all playing together, but they were disappointed that we didn't get to swim today. Thanks to Mamaw & Papaw for letting us invade your house this afternoon! I'm sure it was quieter after all of us left!!! Catherine & Virginia - we'll have to try again soon!
Yesterday we went to story time at the library and then some friends came over afterwards to play! Katelyn's good friend Kylee, along with her little sister Jacee and her mom Christy, came back to our house after story time for a playdate. We started out playing outside for a while. The girls played on the playground - swinging, sliding, playing on the trapeze bar, and playing in the sand box. After a while, we were all getting hungry so we headed inside to get lunch. We had planned on going back outside after lunch, but the girls had other plans! They decided they wanted to go play in the play room and play dress-up! They were hilarious!!! They were changing clothes faster than we could even pay attention! They even danced for us! Jacee even got to get in on the action! We had two little tutus that were about her size! She looked so cute in them and I think she liked being able to dress up like the big girls!! Here are some pictures from our afternoon (I didn't have my camera outside to get pictures on the playground).
This is a video of Katelyn playing on one of the playgrounds at Fall Creek Falls. She is quite a character! She was constantly saying "Mommy - get a video of me! Mommy - get a picture of me!"
This is a video of Rachel, Jessica, and Robert playing baseball out in front of our cabins.
This is a video of our friendly deer who visited everyday. You could tell this deer was used to being around people. It had actually been even closer than this before I got my camera out! It seemed to like Rachel best and would get closer to her than anyone else.
Robert & I had worked on putting together a video scavenger hunt a couple of years ago for our trip to Fall Creek Falls, but that was the time that we were there for just a few hours before having to take Rachel to the ER for an asthma attack, so we weren't able to do the scavenger hunt that year. And then last year we forgot to take the lists with us. This year, we were finally able to do the video scavenger hunt! We had 3 teams of 5 people each. It was a blast!!! I'm sure others at the park thought we were crazy!!! One of the rules of the hunt was that you couldn't tell people what you were doing until AFTER you got the video! Some of the things we had to video were: 1. One of your team members going up to strangers who were having a picnic and asking for something to eat! 2. All of the team members saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the flagpole in front of the Inn. 3. One of your team members going up to a stranger on the driving range and asking him/her if you could borrow one of their golf clubs and hit a ball!!! 4. Find a park ranger and ask him where Yogi Bear is. 5. Get a video of a deer, rabbit, turkey, and/or squirrel. You get extra points if a team member is in the video with the animal. 6. All of the team members singing God Bless America at the main overlook of the Falls. There were a lot more things on our scavenger hunt, but this gives you an idea of some of the things we did. Here's a video of the rabbit Rachel found - pretty creative, huh!!
Here's my team singing God Bless America at the overlook. (It was me, Jessica, Rachel, and Connie. Phillip was the one behind the camera.) Yes - we were rushing through it because we had a time limit on our scavenger hunt and we got points deducted for every minute we were late, and this was the last thing we did so we had to hurry back to the cabin to check in! We ended up being 2 minutes late, but that wasn't too bad.
Katelyn posing on our hike
Rachel posing on our hike
Rachel, Katelyn, Puddin, & Papa in front of one of our cabins
Rachel & Katelyn hanging out with Puddin & Papa in the yard in front of the cabins
Playing UNO with Puddin & Papa
Robert, Rachel, & Katelyn hiking through the woods
Rachel skipping rocks
Katelyn skipping rocks
Kate & Katelyn having a water gun fight with those in the pool
Brittany, Rachel, and Steve on the paddleboats
Katelyn on the paddleboats
Rachel, Katelyn, and Robert by the lake
Rachel having fun with bubbles
Katelyn having fun with bubbles
Ready to race
Who will win?
The raccoon that was off our back porch begging for food
Begging for more food
Baby deer
Mama deer and two babies
Rachel and Katelyn at the bottom of the falls
Looking at the top of the falls
Looking at the bottom of the falls
The creek that runs away from the bottom of the falls
Katelyn climbing a rock wall
Katelyn playing on the playground
Rachel having fun on the playground
Rachel's almost too big for this slide
A hike through the woods
