Happy Birthday Cooper and Caroline

It was a busy weekend of birthday parties.  Dani went to Cooper's party at the Play Street Museum and made him this card, which I thought was pretty fantastic:

And Lily went to Caroline's painting party.

Charly, Caroline, Avery and Lily

Sleeping Beauties

I love taking pictures of my babies sleeping  . . . and since Dani has been sleeping in our bed every night, it's easy to get pictures of her!

Since she still squeezes my cheeks all day and night, I thought it was especially cute when I caught her squeezing her own cheeks as she slept.

Not sleeping, but still cute!  Instead of waking us up one morning, I found them in bed together.

Living Library

Third grade is such a fun year at Lily's school, they do so many fun projects.  The Living Library was by far my favorite!!  Each kid got assigned a historical person (some still living like Jane Goodall, and Steven Speilberg and some dead like Einstein and Elvis).  They had to research their person and write and memorize a speech that briefly told about their life and accomplishments.  Lily was assigned Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor.   The day of the presentation, all the kids dressed as their people and we got to walk around to each person and watch they came to life and recited their speeches.  The room was dimly let and you held a flashlight on the kids as they were talking.  I was just So blown away by the whole thing!! How hard these kids worked, how much they learned, how cute they looked and how well they did.  I loved every second of it!!  It was awesome.

My little Elizabeth Blackwell.

Dani listening to Lily's presentation.

With Amelia Earhart and Walt Disney

 . . . and Jane Goodall.

Elvis!

The class.

Bean Boozled

Lily got a Bean Boozled game from the store and it has been all the rage this week.  I don't dare play.  There are jellybeans like 5 or 6 different colors and you spin a wheel to determine what color you get to eat.  The catch?  You don't know if the pink jelly bean you are about to eat is tutti fruity or vomit flavored!!  They look exactly the same.  There is also chocolate pudding/dog food, lemon lime/boogers, licorice/ skunk, marshmallow/dirty socks and other such yummy/vile combinations.  The kids love it.  Even Dani gets into it.  But poor baby ate skunk and I thought I was going to die just smelling her breath. 

Charly, Lily, Abby and Harper

Sleepovers with Grandpa and Grandma

We are so lucky to have my parents around the corner.  Not just because they are nearby, but because they are so fun and so good for the girls!!  They are amazing grandparents and teach the girls things i wouldn't think of/don't have the time to do! You could never guess what you will find when you pick Lily and Dani up.  After this particular sleep over they made balloon animals and paper mache!!  

Dani's cat head.

Lily made the planet earth.

Girl Scouts Cookies

It's that time of the year again where we hit the streets to push our product.  This is Lily's favorite thing about girl scouts and sadly, this will be her last time selling cookies since she is not continuing on next year.  But she went out with a bang and sold over 100 boxes to neighbors and friends!!  

Oddly enough, this is one of Dani's favorite things about girl scouts too.  :)  She's got it rough.

Dani's Playdates

Dani is often upset that Lily has playdates nearly every single day.  So on Tuesdays we're been trying to get her together with Tatum who will be in school with her.  They have been having a lot of fun and are so cute together.

She also had her friend Isla from preschool over to play.  They are so cute!

Laundry Room

I knew once we had to put Britney down that something had to be done with the laundry room.  It held the litter boxes for the last 7.5 years and neither cat was that great at actually going in the box! The cheap linoleum tile was literally soaked in cat urine and obviously smelled.  So I decided I could tear it up and thrown down some new cheap flooring.  At this point, it didn't have to be great -- freaking anything was better than cat urine floors!!!  My dad, encouraged me to do it right and tile the floors.  Since he has all the necessary equipment -- all I had to do was buy the tile and do the work.  So I accepted the challenge.  

Before

The WORST part was getting the old floor up.  The sticky glue that held down the tiles was a freaking nightmare and took a whole day to scrape off.   I had to ask Dad to help me with this and we were both sore for days afterwards.

Before I put the new floors in, I painted the room.  I've never painted a ceiling before -- it went about as well as expected.

My old shoes are literally stuck to that awful floor!

Finally, new tile is in!!  Dad showed me the way and how to do it and I did the rest!!

Nail guns are fun.

We were in desperate need of new washer/dryers too since our washer was literally falling apart and had to be put back together after every spin cycle.  :)   Here's the finished product!!  I think I did a pretty good job!

My favorite part are these drying racks that I got at the Container Store.  No more randomly hanging clothes around the house to dry!!  They are awesome!!