Girl Weekend

A couple weekends ago my future sister-n-law Sarah and I went up to visit my other sister-n-law Kristin. Kristin lives in Chicago and works as a nurse at Northwestern. For the past couple of years I have gone up in the spring for a mini-girls weekend. Usually consists of shopping, dinner and of course cocktails. This year will be the last in her current apartment as she will be moving in lat summer. Still in the Chicago area but not her current ultra-chic location, which is about 4 blocks from Lake Michigan. I had intended to take a lot of photos but we were so busy shopping away that I only got a few.

This was one of our first stops. We were waiting in line and so what a better time to start snapping away.

This was a self-portrait we took before going to dinner.

We really had a great time, as always. I was glad Sarah was able to join us this year, we had lots of wedding discussion in the car on the way up, since the boys weren't with us we could discuss as much wedding as we wanted. I can't wait to do it again next year, even if the location is slightly different!

A Little Gardening

A couple weeks ago Brad and the girls went to the store to buy some soil and seeds to plant. The girls love gardening and since the weather is getting warmer it seemed like a good time to start back-up with this beloved past time.

Brad used his truck bed to set the pots on during the planting. Ainsley opted to sit-up on the bed of the truck, while Kaylee decided to stand by Daddy. Below the pots are filled with soil and ready to be used for planting. Brad is reminding the girls of the seeds they picked.



Brad handing Ainsley some seeds to put in the soil.

Brad and Kaylee working on her pot. They poked holes in the soil to put the seeds in.
Kaylee watering her newly planted pot. I think the watering is their favorite part. It could be raining for days and they would still want to go out and water the plants. We are working on learning that too much water is just as bad as not enough.

Whew...all this gardening wore me out. Just kidding, I was trying to get a photo of the girls by their pots. Ainsley had to have a chair to sit in, but was complaining that the sun was too bright to look up at me. Kaylee was not so into it, as you can see she's in the background on the porch anxiously waiting to put her pot in it's new spot.

Easter! Easter! Easter!

So I have been procrastinating posting for Easter as there are A LOT of photos involved. I debated how I should approach this; do it in parts or one big post. I opted for the one big post! So I will try to keep the verbal part of this post short. Here is a snapshot look at Easter 2010:

The Thursday before Easter the festivities began with egg coloring at our house.

Ainsley was very excited when we would take the eggs out of the color.

Saturday morning it was off to Grandpa and Grandma Duffy's for a waffle breakfast and Easter fun. All of the grandkids together anxiously awaiting their baskets.

Kaylee going through her basket.

Ainsley going through her basket.

Kaylee coloring eggs.

These next few photos of Maddox and Ainsley make me laugh! It appears they are having an in depth discussion over their mini-M&M's.

Here they have finally appeared to resolve their issue and enjoy the M&M's.

Saturday afternoon we headed over to Mee-Maw and Paw-Paw's house. The girls looking over their Easter bounty.

Kaylee trying out her new scooter.

Ainsley trying out her new scooter.

On to the egg hunt, Kaylee went the opposite direction with Mee-Maw and I stayed with Ainsley, which is why I have a couple of Ainsley looking for eggs and none of Kaylee.

Easter morning and the bunny had come.

Trying to get the sillies out.

The best we got. I could do a post on "out-takes".

Easter afternoon we headed to Grandpa and Grandma Busing's house.

The girls checking out their Easter baskets.

Ainsley did a wardrobe change. Brad's mom got the girls each a dress and shoes. Ainsley wanted to wear hers right away!

Aunt Kristin and Ainsley looking for some eggs. Abby was enjoying rolling the grass.

The girls playing with their new rocket balloons. You pump them up and let them fly. Everyone had a great time with these.

All in all it was a busy, but fun, weekend. The weather was great! We hope you and yours had a Blessed Easter too!

Dinner Date

Last month my Dad and Sallie came over for dinner. The girls love going to visit their Grandparents but get equally excited when someone is coming over to see them! It was a nice afternoon and we got to spend some time outside. Grandpa and Grandma brought the girls some new bubbles so they were super excited and eager to try them out.

Ainsley getting ready to use her bubbles.

Kaylee seeing how high she could make her bubbles go.

Knock-Knock "Anyone home?" Actually, I think Ainsley was taking food orders for her restaurant. It has a limited menu as most things you ask for she will say she doesn't have.

Getting some refills on the bubble blowers.

Come back and visit again soon!

Happy Birthday Mee-Maw!

Last weekend we celebrated my mom's birthday, A.K.A Mee-Maw to the girls. It was a beautiful day out so we spent much time outside at her house riding 4-wheelers, swinging, fishing, doing balloon rockets, and so much more. The girls love it there because there is so much to do and so much open space to run! Abby enjoys the running space too :)!

My mom is such a great mom and Mee-Maw. She is always there to help whenever needed and LOVES spending time with the girls. I'm so happy they are making so many fun memories with her!!

Ainsley helping Mee-Maw open her card.

Kaylee getting in on the action. This was the card they gave her and then each had a small gift to give her in bags they decorated.


This was a card my brother and his fiancee gave my mom. Kaylee thought it was pretty cool and wanted me to snap a photo of it.


Here are the girls helping Mee-Maw blow out her candles. The girls picked out the cake decorations and decorated it too! They did a fabulous job!

When Mom's away the "kids" will play!

Last week after bath time the girls went downstairs to see Daddy. I stayed upstairs and cleaned up the bathroom. I'm not sure about your bathroom, but mine looks like a typhoon went through it by the time bath time has ended. When I was done cleaning up I called the girls back upstairs to get ready for bed.

Once the girls were in bed I went back down stairs and found my camera had been moved. I picked it up and Brad indicated they may have used it earlier. In reviewing the photos on my camera here are some of the ones I saw. Apparently Ainsley was the eye behind the camera on these.

Kaylee and Daddy

Close-up on the big sister!

Quick shot while they aren't looking.

Show Your Work Night

The other night was Kaylee's school annual Show Your Work Night. This is an evening when parents get to come into the classroom and watch their children do their work. We basically follow our child's lead around the room as they choose different pieces of work to show us. The children get to play the roll of the teacher and "teach" their parents.

I always enjoyed this night when I taught at Montessori because I loved watching the parents faces as they saw what impressive things their child could do. As a parent I look forward to this because I enjoy seeing how proud Kaylee is to show us what she does at school.

Here are some of the things Brad and I learned:

All of the children have name signs. This allows for children to be dismissed to the next activity while marinating the calm and quiet of the classroom for that particular activity. Kaylee dismissed all the children this evening by using each of their name signs.

Kaylee showing us the Tri-nomial cube. This is a pre-cursor to Math that involves formulas. Brad was a quiet listener as I was asking a lot of questions. Kaylee told us that Daddy was doing a good job and that Mommy was not doing such a good job. Brad was very proud of himself for this.

Putting all of the pieces out onto the sheet. Once that is completed the child is to put the cube back together. Each piece of work has a control piece to it for errors. So for this if she didn't get the pieces back into the cube correctly she would not have been able to put the lid on the cube.

Here Kaylee was showing us some subtraction work. She has really been into addition and subtraction lately. She will get a paper with some addition or subtraction problems on them, do the problems and then the teachers will check them for her.

She loves school and continues to impress us with the amount of things she learns, and also scares us with her freakish memory. I'm happy she has a love of learning and I only hope it continues to grow with her.

Miscellaneous Monday

Just a quick post to say "Yes, I'm still here". I do appear to do many updates at once and then disappear. I guess based on my posts you can tell when I'm busy and when I'm not...HEHE!!

What posts will I be soon (I hope) catching up on:

• Easter....that came and went quickly, didn't it?
• Some randoms through this busy month...various activities and such:)

I'm currently in major planning mode for the girl's upcoming birthdays. There are definite pros and cons to having them both in the same months. It takes lots of work as they have their individual days, joint family party, and Kaylee's friend party. I do enjoy planning these and we always have fun, but getting to them, and through them, takes lots of work, and making lots of lists (which Brad points out).

On a different note, Kaylee went to the dentist this morning. I was SO dreading this appointment. I'm not a fan of the dentist myself and all morning had the pit in my stomach, even though it wasn't my appointment. Last night before bed I told her we would be going today. We have lots of dentist books and have read them numerous times. There were some tears last night, but we talked and talked and Kaylee gave me her "I'm over talking about this" vibe so I said good-night. This morning she was ready to go. Even telling Ainsley to hurry up and eat her breakfast because "I have a dentist appointment. I'm serious I really am going to the dentist today." We dropped Ainsley off and stopped at the store. I told her she could pick out a snack to take for her friends at school and if the appointment was a success we would take the snack today.

The dentist office is right next to her pre-school, so we parked at school and walked over. Everyone was REALLY nice! Kaylee did AMAZING! I was so proud of her and happy for her, because I could tell she was really proud of herself. She got to watch Dora the whole time, got a goody bag at the end, got to pick out a toy from the treasure cabinet and a certificate for free cookie dough from PaPa Murphy's. She had no cavities and all was well. We walked to school afterward and she took her snack, as well as her dentist goody-bag. I was so excited that she did so well! It's just another sign to show she's growing-up.

Anyway, that's just a small part of our miscellaneous Monday so far.