first haircut and more

I had the girls both get haircuts to be ready for Uncle Ryan's wedding. It was going to be Willa's first "real" haircut (I've trimmed her hair a few times and Larkin took the scissors to her a few months ago, but that doesn't count!). When I told them that they would be getting haircuts, they seemed excited. Then one day out of nowhere Willa said in a mad voice, "I don't WANT to get a haircut!" When I asked why she said, "Cause I'm SCARED!"

So on the way to the haircut I stopped at a convenience store and grabbed some lollipops, and that did the trick--no tears for the haircut as long as she could get a lollipop at the end!

She started out on a booster seat but was still too small, so we moved her to the countertop!

Here's some pics from the trail near our house. Joel likes to run the bases with the girls (and Harley!) and they all pretend to hit home-runs.

If you look closely you can see the scars from Willa's run-in with a wall. She tripped and slid her face down the wall, and ripped her nose right open!! Her face looks much better now but her nose has not healed as well as we had hoped. She has a little tag of skin that hangs down on her nose. She loves to tell people that she "broke her nose."


And finally here's a pic of us on a carousel. We went shopping with my friend Melissa (or Falissa, as the girls call her). We stumbled across this carousel in Lakeline Mall. The look on their face when they first saw it was priceless--they had only ridden one of those small carousels that are sometimes outside of grocery stores that cost 25 cents, so this one seemed gigantic! For days afterward they were telling complete strangers, "Guess what! I rode on a merry-go-round with Falissa!!"

Art

Here's a few pics of some recent artwork. I moved all their art supplies onto a bookshelf in the kitchen and also moved a kid table in there for them--so now they have their own little art studio to work on things whenever they want. They spend hours in there everyday and love being able to just grab whatever materials they need without asking. Well, everything except the scissors!

Here's Willa painting an outline of herself. She was so excited about this and kept squealing, "LOOK! I'm painting Willa!!"

One day we were doing some marbling with shaving cream and paint. You are supposed to smooth the shaving cream into one flat layer in a pan, drip some paint onto the cream and swirl it into designs with your fingers or a comb, and then press some paper on top--and when you pull off the paper and scrape off the shaving cream, you've got a marbled design on the paper.

BUT, the girls thought it was much more fun to just rub the shaving cream all over their bodies! We did make a few marbled designs but they definitely spent more time painting themselves. My favorite quote was from Larkin--"Mommy, this was probably a bad idea but it sure is fun!"

Happy Birthday, United Texas!

We had a fun 4th of July weekend. Joel tried to explain to the girls that it was the United States' birthday, and as soon as the girls heard it was a birthday they wanted to bake a birthday cake! So of course we did!

All weekend they could not remember who exactly the birthday was for (some guesses: Cat Mama? United Texas? The Dentist?). I don't think they'd ever even heard the words United States (whoops!), so it was hard for them to remember! Larkin was very puzzled as to why we were celebrating a birthday for something that was not a person.

We went to our neighborhood parade--all the 5-and-unders were there! Larkin said, "Willa, aren't you so excited? I've never been to a parade before, have you? I just can't wait! I've only read about parades in books!"

They rode their bikes in the parade and loved following the fire truck. Anytime they saw a flower growing in the grass beside the parade route they both would immediately jump off their bikes, leave them in the road, and run to pick flowers! This caused a few near collisions with other bikers behind them! :)

Willa has been talking about the parade non-stop and keeps asking to go to another one. But she's made it very clear that she wants a big bike like Larkin's so that she can go fast!


We also went to Pedernales state park and Barton Springs pool this weekend. Here's some pics from the Pedernales River. The river was flowing very fast from all the recent rains but we found a nice shady spot that had a little pool-like area, and the girls spent lots of time swimming, tossing rocks and digging in the sand!