Week 17 (April 24-April 30)

The girls dyed Easter eggs on Saturday.  Caroline was really excited about Easter this year.  It ranked right up there with Christmas in her mind.

It was cold and raining on Easter morning. I heard them awake around 6 am.  By 6:45, Kayla had given Caroline a bath and they were both dressed.  The girls did a little inside Easter egg hunt before we went to Church.

 After Church we go to my dad's house for Easter lunch and an egg hunt with all of the cousins.  The kids always have such a great time together.  The egg hunt had to take place inside at their house also.  It was still cold and rainy.  I think Sue had around 250 eggs for the kids to hunt.  There are just not enough places in their house to hide that many eggs.  I was tripping over them just walking through the room.  They all got a ton of candy and little toys.  It was a great day.

This picture just makes me smile

 All of the cousins

 My sweet girls (I stole these 2 pics from my dad)

Andy's parents came back up on Friday.  Kayla already had a dance thing scheduled so they got to go and watch.  I was excited for them to see her dance, but I wish they got to see her do her solo.  They did get to see her do two group dances (tap and hip hop).  They have not seen her dance since her very first recital when she was in pre-k.  We all went to Cherry Berry after the performance.  Yummy!

 And Caroline always insists on a silly face picture

We put them to work on house stuff for the remainder of the weekend.  We got a lot of work done while they were here.  I am so glad they were willing to make the 6 hour drive again to finish up some projects.

Week 16 (April 17-23)

This was watch week for the girls at dance.  I took a few pictures of Caroline, but I did not even take the camera with me to watch Kayla.  The poor older child.

Here is Caroline with her sweet friend Brigi.  They go to different schools so they don't get to see each other very often anymore.  I am so glad that they are in dance class together.  They are so cute!

Ballet

That is a flying leap

Tap time.  That little boy (Gabe) thinks Caroline is so cute.

On Friday morning as Andy was leaving for work he came and told me my tire was flat.  He has an air compressor that he plugged into the lighter of my car to inflate my tire.  He left for work.  I let that run for about ten minutes before it was time to take Caroline to school.  I got her loaded up and went to start the car.  Completely dead!  Not a great morning.  This is when it is so nice to live close to the school.  Caroline and I went on a nice walk that morning.  My dad came over and saved the day.  He pulled his truck up into my yard and jump started my car.  I took it to the tire place to get the tire fixed and then to the Honda dealership.  Kayla was reading in the car the night before and left the light on (I noticed that it was on when I picked the car up from the tire place.)  The air compressor probably drained what was left of the battery.  Anyway, I am glad there was nothing really wrong with the car.  I got it all fixed for less than $40.

This week was also the preschool field trip to the zoo.  We spent the day with Caroline's friend Acree and her friend Alex.  It was a great day to be at the zoo.  It was not crowded at all, and the weather was wonderful.

Caroline and Acree (silly faces)

Alex and Caroline

They are "fishing"

This girl could ride the carousel all day!

Week 15 (April 10-16)

 I have been working really hard trying to "declutter" and pack away some of our junk.  On Tuesday (4/12) we got a pod delivered.  This caused me to nearly have an anxiety attack.  Until now, the idea of moving was just that...an idea.  This made it real!  I don't do really well with change and the unknown so this moment was a bit much for me.  Anyway, the pod is here.  Whoever came up with the idea of the pod is brilliant.  It is pretty neat how they deliver them.

 Because I am going back and doing these blog posts, I can tell you that the pod did not stay this way for long.  By May 1st this pod will be completely full.  And what is worse is that the house is still full, and there is still stuff in the garage and storage shed.  We have way too much stuff!

Over the weekend we had an entire team of workers show up.  Andy's mom, dad, sister, and 1 of her boys arrived to work.  It is amazing what can be accomplished in one short weekend.  We should have been on one of those home makeover shows.  Jenny completely transformed the front of our house.  I knew the yard looked bad.  We did not take care of it at all.  But when I go back and look at these pictures the house looks abandoned.  It is awful!  Here are some before pics:  (don't judge!)

 And here is what Jenny and her team turned it into.  It looks so good!  She did an amazing job!

The kids made a sign for the flower garden.  "The Jim G. Honored Garden"  Sorry Jim, we took the sign down!

We also got a ton of work done inside the house.  Jenny and I painted Caroline's room.  The pod got loaded.  Light fixtures were hung up.  Furniture was moved around.  A TON of stuff was accomplished this weekend.  Andy and his family worked so hard this weekend and I am so grateful for everything they did!

Week 14 (April 3-9)

On April 3rd, Andy and I went to see Bill Cosby.  We had great seats.  We were right in the middle of row D.  He just sat in a chair in the middle of the stage and entertained us for 2 hours.  We really enjoyed it.

Most of you know that we are trying to get our house ready to sell.  We just need more space.  We went a few weeks ago and ordered new counter tops.  I know that these are pretty but....

We went for a neutral laminate.  It was difficult to not order granite, but since we are just trying to sell this house it did not make much sense to make that upgrade in this starter home.  The guy came this week and measured.  He said they would be ready in 3-4 weeks.  I am so excited to get rid of this blue!

The other noteworthy thing that happened this week was kindergarten enrollment.  It just does not seem possible that my baby girl will be going to kindergarten already!  I don't know about her, but I am not ready for that!

Week 13

OK, I have five weeks of catching up to do.  I may as well get started...

We have a gopher problem.  Our yard has been completely destroyed by those small creatures.  Andy has tried a million different things to get rid of them.  Nothing has ever worked.  Until now.  A girl in our class at Church told Andy about an $8 trap from Atwoods.  He bought one and set the trap.  Less than 24 hours later here was Andy...

 That is probably the greatest moment for Andy for the entire year.  He was so excited!  We have not had any trouble from the gophers since he got that one.  It is hard to imagine that it was only one gopher doing all of that damage!  Andy would love to find another mound so he could kill another gopher.

I am not sure I could do a blog post without there being something dance related.  Kayla went to another competition on April 1st in Claremore.  I had to pull her out of school early so we could get there to get her ready.  I think Kayla danced around 6 and we had to wait until 10 pm for the awards.  Andy met us there after work so he could see her dance.  Here he is waiting for the awards.  It was a long day for everyone!

Kayla did really well.  She got an Elite trophy, which is the highest level.  She had the high score for her age group in the jazz category, and then she placed first in her age group overall (out of all of the categories for her age group in the intermediate level).  All of that means she did a good job.

Week 12

On March 25th Kayla had to take a volcano to school.  So the week before we started working on it.  I love how these school projects always require so much parent involvement.  Here are Kayla and Andy ready to begin.

They used a product called Great Stuff which required the mask, gloves, and eye protection.  Andy sprayed it all around the 2 liter of Diet Coke.

After it hardened it was time for Kayla to spray paint her project.

We did a trial in the driveway just so Kayla could make sure she was able to get it to work.  The girls enjoyed the left overs.

On that Friday all of the kids brought their projects to school.  Two of the classes took theirs outside to "explode."  They had a great time watching and cheering as everyone took their turn to show off their work.

Kayla was a little upset with her project.  2 or 3 of her Mentos did not fall in the bottle.  The explosion at home was so much bigger.  I think she still had to highest explosion of all of the projects we saw at  school.

Friday night Kayla's hip hop class danced at a Tulsa 66ers basketball game.  It ended up being a really nice family night out.

 It was not very crowded!

 

Caroline had a great time going up and down the stairs, and back and forth on every aisle around us. In that video clip she could not decide if she wanted to walk or dance.  At the beginning of the game they showed her up on the big screen.  She was at her seat dancing up a storm.  It was super cute.  And then I showed her that she was on the screen.  She quickly quit dancing and started crying.  She did not want her picture up there!