Gardening

Abria carefully waters the grass.


My life outside is so much easier now that Alette can turn the hose on and off to fill her own bucket. I was waiting for her to turn the hose on her sister...luckily she stayed occupied in watering the plants.



This is my favorite time of the year-sunny, warm, no humidity, no mosquitos-perfect for being outside with the girls.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

For better and for worse, Abria loves to copy her sister.

They just look like ordinary shoes but....

clearly they are more valuable than gold itself. Abria is fast approaching the 'terrible twos' (not that Alette was terrible during her twos) but she is becoming more and more stubborn and more and more aware of what she wants and does not want. What she wants is to wear her shoes-all day everywhere. In the tub? Not a good idea but after a couple of minutes, all she does is cry 'shoes, shoes', followed by 'out, out'. In bed? Again, not a good idea but do you really want to hear 'shoes, shoes, shoes, shoes' while she should be napping? So, I'm a softie and let her wear them during naptime. Her shoe selection is very particular: she loves this pair of crocs and her pink sandals...and anything belonging to Alette. On Sunday morning I tried to make her wear a different pair of sandals(they were oh so cute with her dress) but after 20minutes of crying I finally caved and let her wear her crocs. Even her other pair of crocs do not make the grade...I'll try and slip them on, only to be shrieked at with a 'no,no,no,no....'.
This wouldn't be so bad, except Alette is steadfast about EVERYONE following the rules about no shoes in the house. Considering she is relatively shy, she is surprisingly forward about telling guests to take off their shoes. So far Alette has been gracious towards her sister and given her a bit of leeway.

True Love

The other night, Alette's prayers went something like this: "Thank you God for Java because after 4 years I finally have my own cat". I'm not sure that Auntie Laura will agree that Java is now Alette's, but it is hard to argue with the bond between them.

Easter

Our dyed eggs were nothing fancy: hard boiled eggs and food dye. They have now sat on our table for the past three days, I even found one on my night stand Sunday morning. I had planned on keeping them in the fridge but as Alette pointed out, no one could see them in there. If they stay out much longer we may have a serious science experiment on our hands.




Our morning started out with an egg hunt in our backyard. After church we went over to Pop-pop's and Grandma Terry's for lunch and more Easter treats. The girl's were lucky to have Andy's mom join us too-there are never too many loving grandparents around for them! The warm weather was perfect for bubbles and (another!) Easter egg hunt.





Andy and I have restrained ourselves (somewhat) and not eaten too much of the girls' candy. Good thing that Alette doesn't have a clear sense of different quantities yet.

The Egg Grab

It was pretty hard to consider this event an egg hunt as the eggs were strewn all over the church's lawn. Nonetheless, Alette was totally excited to jump in and grab as many eggs as possible. The guy cut the ribbon, the kids rushed forward and in about 2 minutes it was all over. Abria was a bit bewildered-she had to join us in the 4-6yr old category-and I think having all those loud, excited children around was a bit much. However, one little boy was kind enough to place a number of eggs in her basket.