Gap Casting Call

Vote for our girls (yes I know I have two pictures of Madeleine and one of Lily. She hides too much).

http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/mmbench/

Weekend Update - Concert

The girls only have maybe 5 CD's of childrens music. One of the first ones we bought for them was They Might Be Giants' Here Come the ABCs. We listened to that CD in the car almost exclusively for a year and a half. Then they came out with the 123's, and that one's been in heavy rotation for some time.

So when I heard they were doing a kids concert in Raleigh at the art museum, I knew we should go. I was nervous about the weather and it being outside, but we lucked out. It was overcast but never rained on Saturday.

One of the benefits to it being a general admission show is that we could meet up with other friends interested in TMBG. Here we have Wendy with Elena, Hunte rwith Tristan, Mary with Newton, and Hunter's mom with Corinna.

The girls spent most of their time wandering around. They sang along to their favorite songs (Pirate Girls Nine, I Never Go to Work), but mostly preferred picking flowers or bothering the babies.

TMBG has a lot of Raleigh fans...

Weekend Update - Soccer

Lots of stuff happened this weekend, so I'll kind of break it up into separate sections.

Saturday was our first practice at Dream Sports. The girls were in the Hoppers division for 3 and 4 year-olds. We got there early to get our uniforms on, and the girls were quick to jump into the field. We were lucky that their Tumblebus teacher Amanda was also a coach for Lil Kickers, so they were more at ease than some of the other kids.

Very little of the 50 minutes was actually soccer. They did some kicking and stopping, but mostly they played games that help them with basic listening skills, like red light - green light. Most of the other kids did okay as well. There were a couple kids who just either sat there or cried the whole time, and another who was pretty young and decided he was going to do his own thing for the entire time.

It will be interesting to see if this is like swimming lessons where at some point it just clicks and they start working together. We watched some of the older groups where they actually split up into teams, and it looks like a long way from where we are now.

My girls - Lily the more serious and Madeleine hamming it up every chance she gets.

I am now a soccer mom

This weekend we took the girls to an open house at the Dream Sports Center in Apex. Eric and I played roller hockey there back when they first opened, but it had been probably 6 years since either of us had been.

The open house was great. The girls could try a variety of sports to see what interested them: soccer, baseball, cheerleading, basketball, and hockey. Madeleine liked soccer best, and Lily liked basketball. But, we've signed them up for the Lil Kickers program starting this Saturday. Noon was the only time slot they had available, although I would have preferred something earlier so that we could do more with the rest of our day. The program runs through December 12.

Neither girl particularly liked hockey. I think they try it because Mommy plays it. Lily got in the rink with some other little kids, but since she didn't really know what to do, they didn't really play with her. Plus they were older and boys. She was pretty sad about "no one wanting to be her friend," so I'm hoping things will be better for them in soccer.

Based on what I saw during the demo class, the girls should do just fine.

Camptown ladies sing this song...

This weekend the girls had their first "camping" trip. Uncle Mark and Aunt Laura had a large tent and an outdoor fire thing, so I volunteered them to host our first night in the outdoors.

We brought over our jeep that we got for Christmas since their yard is nice, flat, and fenced in. The girls are getting a little better at steering, but you still need to kind of follow them since they don't often turn until the last minute, if at all, before crashing into something.

We had hot dogs and squash from the grill for dinner. Then we roasted marshmallows and made smores. The girls each ate one, but I don't think they were super impressed. They just wanted more of the Hershey bars.

Once in our jammies, we sacked out in the tent. Aunt Laura was awesome and had gotten some camping-themed books for bedtime stories. We read them by flashlight.

Then the longest night began. Usually asleep by 8:30, the girls probably didn't go to sleep until 10:45. They did their usual procrastination routine (I have to go potty, I have an itch, etc.). It took forever to get them settled down. We were on air mattresses - Laura and Lily, and Madeleine and me. I think Lily would have fallen asleep sooner if not for Maddie.

I probably woke up 5 or 6 times with Madeleine trying to get on top of me, or headbutting me, or just doing the jitterbug or whatever it was. Finally around 4am I flipped positions with her so that she was more downhill and maybe would stop rolling into me. Laura said Lily hopped around in her sleep like a bunny.

But somehow the girls slept fine and were up by 6:45am. We tried to convince them it wasn't wake up time, but no luck. Laura fixed us a great breakfast, and I tried to get the girls out of there asap so she could get some shut eye!

Overall, a success. They weren't scared, didn't cry, and never asked to go back inside.

Long Weekend?

The girls were looking forward to the long weekend and many "stay at home" days. Madeleine's getting trickier though. Tonight she asked if she could have some extra "stay at home" days until the next real "stay at home" day.

Saturday morning we ventured out to the NC Museum of Life and Science in Durham. Again, I talked about it early and wanted the girls to be out the door by nine. They didn't want to go and just wanted to play more around the house, so we ended up not getting there until after 10. Most of the morning train rides were sold out by that point. The parking lot was packed, but I'm not sure where all the people were. Inside was totally empty.

By 11 or so we managed to get the girls headed out to see the new dinosaur trail. The girls were somewhat impressed. Their favorite was the dinosaur eggs and the fossil dig, even though we didn't find any cool fossils.

We headed off toward the bears, but the close entrance was closed for cleaning. We didn't get too far around the back side before the girls started getting tired and cranky. So we headed back and did a quick run through of the butterfly house and the farmyard. Lily screamed about halfway back to Raleigh that she didn't want to go home.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning they spent at their grandparents so that Mom and Dad could have a nice anniversary dinner out and sleep late. We picked them up Sunday morning, and they'd done all kinds of art projects to bring home.

Madeleine also got a purple sequinned dress she's worn for approximately 48 hours straight.

Sunday afternoon we went to Uncle Mark and Aunt Laura's house for a cookout. The girls had a good time and couldn't make up their mind between kicking balls in the back yard or running around the house. Aunt Laura broke out the "my first Craftsman" tools she bought them a long time ago.

Lily took to them right away and was even using the drill and saw at the same time.

Madeleine needed a little more finesse.

Monday was a rainy day. I took the girls to Party City to get birthday party supplies. After spending 30 minutes convincing them to go, of course they loved every minute of it. I got some excellent boy costumes from the clearance racks along with some hats. We're having Disney Princess plates of course.

Then I made the mistake of dragging them through Toys R Us (which sucks in terms of boy dress-up clothes by the way). Madeleine wanted every toy in the place. Lily's favorite thing was the wallpaper on the back of the iCarly display.