canoeing

A few weeks ago we took the girls canoeing. They loved seeing all the wildlife--we spotted tons of different birds, an alligator gar, turtles, swans, ducks, and even a few water moccasins in a tree! Joel steered our boat just a little too close to these snakes--I almost jumped overboard--my part of the boat was right next to them. They didn't move at all though and left us alone! If you look closely, you can see them in the middle of the picture.


Here's a pic of the girls using their field guides to identify birds. Willa kept insisting that everything she saw was a road runner. We tried to explain to her that road runners live near roads, but she wouldn't have any of it. "No! It says right here that it's a road runner so I know that it's a road runner. My book says so."

big sisters

About a month ago during dinner we told the girls some special news. The conversation went something like this:
Joel: Girls, we have a big surprise for you. Larkin, you know how you've been a big sister to Willa? Well now Willa is going to be a big sister too!
Larkin: Yeah cause she's getting bigger, so now she's a big sister.
Willa: Yeah I'm really big now! I'm not little!!
Jenny: Well no--Larkin is a big sister because she has Willa that's younger than her, and soon Willa will have someone younger than her too. (waiting for one of them to grasp what we're trying to say)
Larkin: Yeah, she's a big sister to Harley (the dog).
Joel: Nooo, not Harley. It's something else.
Willa: What is it?
(We continued to let them guess but they were totally clueless.)
Joel: Mom has a baby in her tummy, and that's going to be your little brother or sister!

(Both girls looked at me in disbelief and total confusion. )
Jenny: I'm pregnant.
Larkin: No you're not.
Jenny: Um, yes I am.
Larkin: No you're not!
Jenny: Yes, I am!
Larkin: No, you're not!
Jenny: Yes, I am!

This continued for at least 10 "no you're nots" along with a bunch of "well, how do you know?" followed by, "How does the doctor know?" Larkin looked totally floored. Willa began to grasp that it was true and started to squeal and pump her fists excitedly. Then Joel broke the news to Harley, and the girls thought that was so funny. They then went around the kitchen telling the chairs, table, plates, etc. that, "We're going to have a new baby!"
Then Larkin wanted to know who all knew about the baby already. "Does my friend Clay know? Does Susan know? etc." I told her that no one knew (not quite true) and she immediately wanted to run outside and tell the neighbors. They went to Susan's house next door and told her (she already knew but acted surprised), and then ran down the street and they beat Joel to Daphne's house. Daphne was already asleep and somehow (thankfully) slept through three doorbell rings and a bunch of tiny knocks on the door!

Needless to say, the girls are super excited. When I was putting the girls to bed the night we told them about the baby, Willa said, "Mommy, let's take the baby out tomorrow!" October 10th is going to be a long wait!

berry picking

Well I am falling terribly behind on this blog!

Auntie Laura, Uncle Matt and baby Ethan have moved to Austin! On one of their first few days here we took Laura and Ethan to pick strawberries. Ethan supervised on this trip but I'm sure that next year he'll be a picking machine just like Larkin and Willa!

From zero stars to four stars...

A few weekends ago we took the girls to Bastrop State Park for a weekend of camping. During the spring it's really hard to find state park campsites at the last minute, but we lucked out and grabbed the only campsite available in a 2 hour radius from Austin. Joel had a meeting in another town for work, and couldn't meet us until late that evening--so I packed up ALL our stuff, dragged along the dog, and even set up the tent by myself (a first!) because I was afraid he wouldn't arrive until after dark and I really wanted to go camping.

Once we arrived, it became obvious that the reason the site was available was because we were surrounded by boy scouts! Hundreds of them!! So needless to say we only suffered through one night of loud scouts and scrapped our plans for the second night. We were able to do some grilling, hiking, and lots of pine needle collecting though, and had a great time!



Picking flowers along the Colorado River. We went out to breakfast one morning and explored a fun playground next to the river.

Hiking in the state park

Larkin kept telling Willa that she would help her on the hard parts of the hike. Here's Larkin holding Willa's hand and guiding her--it was super cute.
Smores over a charcoal fire are just not the same. We're under a strict burn ban here with all the wildfires and drought, so no wood fires! You can see by Larkin's expression that she is not impressed with the lack of flames on a charcoal fire.
The weekend after the camping trip I met my good friend Suzanne in San Antonio. She lives in Del Rio (about 4 hrs away) so we met halfway in San Antonio for a trip to the zoo and a stay at a four star resort. Both our husbands had hog hunting weekends planned so we planned our own mini-vacation. We had so much fun we are planning to do this now at LEAST once a year! We stayed at the Hyatt and had such a relaxing time...floating down the lazy river, ordering dinner poolside, and going on hikes in the woods surrounding the hotel. The girls cried when it was time to head home and said they didn't understand why we couldn't live here. :)

Posing next to the lazy river.

Each night the staff lets the kids make smores. The staff provides all the goods and they even put your marshmallow into your graham cracker for you! And they had a REAL fire (not sure how they managed that with the burn ban, but the girls were excited!). All in all it was definitely a big step up from camping!

Roomies

About a month ago I moved the girls into the same room. I'd always wanted them to share a room someday-- I think it all stems from growing up and listening to my two brothers in the room next to me. They shared a room (I was in a room by myself), and each night I would hear them giggling, having farting contests, fighting over whether it was a "fan-on" or "fan-off" night, or waging stuffed animal wars where every stuffed animal in sight was thrown at the other person. I would slip into their room and try to be a part of all the action, but it wasn't the same when I was there-probably because I was a girl, or maybe because I wasn't their roommate and so was left out of all their inside jokes. One thing is for sure though- they did have a lot of fun together in that room!

So impulsively one day I asked the girls if they wanted to share a room. They said yes and were so excited, so I immediately started moving furniture around before they changed their minds. I set up a trundle bed in Willa's room and moved the beds along a different wall so it would feel "new" for Willa too. I moved Larkin's double bed out of her room so that she would not be able to wimp out and come to her old room easily. We renamed Willa's room the "Girls' Room." Willa had a hard time with it for a few days ("When will Larkin go back to her own room? This is mine!!") but now she cries whenever I talk about possibly moving Larkin back to her old room.

They don't talk or giggle as much as I expected them to (this is probably because I'm trying to get them to stop napping, so on most days they are so exhausted they just pass right out!). At night they sleep in just a t-shirt and underwear, and at least once each week they've come into our room exasperated because the other won't go to sleep, or so-and-so keeps talking, or so-and-so is scratching her pillow and it's annoying, etc. It's the cutest thing-- they just stand in our doorway in their undies with their hands on their hips while they spout out a list of complaints. They're usually half annoyed at the other person and half just stalling to not go to bed themselves. Overall though I think they are loving it!

Here's a video clip of them jumping on the beds. This has since been outlawed in our house, but I let them do it for a week or so to get it out of their system!

Springtime in Tx

We've been enjoying some great weather here over the past few weeks! Highs in the 70's and 80's---which the girls refer to excitedly as "A great weather day!" It's not even April yet and we've already been to the pool about 5 times, taken some runs down the slip-and-slide, and washed the cars by hand!

Joel and the girls "mouse hunting." We were on a hike and Joel saw some mice running in the brush, and these three sat perfectly still for 20 minutes waiting to see them again.

Larkin's writing

Larkin has taken off with her writing lately. She has all the letter/sound correspondence memorized and is starting to write her own text. She did this all on her own--she has always been interested in letters and sounds in words and is constantly saying words and telling us what letters/sounds she hears in them. Usually she likes me to sound out each word for her slowly and she writes down the sounds as she hears them, but more and more she is starting to sound them out on her own and not need me as much. She's getting faster at writing all her letters so that is helping too--she doesn't have to concentrate so much on the mechanics of writing each letter.

The first thing she ever wrote without any help was "Daphne." Larkin came to me and said, "Mommy, can you read this? I drew a picture of Daphne and wrote her name with my turtle talk all by myself!" (Turtle talk=talking slow to hear all the sounds in a word)
"DINEFN" = Daphne
When there's no lines on the paper, she mixes up the order of some of her letters--but I think this is pretty close for a hard name like Daphne! :)

Here's a cute note she wrote to Willa the other day. Willa was napping and she wanted to give her a letter when she woke up.

"Larkin and Willa. I love you Willa. Let's have fun together. I love you like a pickle." I'm not sure what the last part says. I am getting some stacks of lined paper ready for her because her writing is so much easier to read when it's written on a line!!

Here's one to Joel's Aunt Cathy. Aunt Cathy was in the hospital last week with some health problems, but is on the mend now at home and feeling better. Larkin couldn't wait to write her a letter and has been telling everyone (total strangers included) that her Great Aunt Cathy was in the hospital and that she wrote her a letter. The bottom of this one got cut off while scanning but the last line says "Larkin."




















Next week we're going to start a letter writing campaign, so check your mailboxes or get out a pen and write to her--and hopefully she will write you back!