Today's Madeleine-ism

They have a new girl, Mila, in their class from Poland. On the first day, we asked the girls if they taught her any English. Lily said, "Flower."

"Did she teach you any Polish?"

Madeleine responded, "No, Mommy. She does not speak English, and we did not know how to say 'Can you teach us Polish?' in Polish."

Then and Now - Race for the Cure edition

June 2006 - Not sure what I was thinking here, but it was as important to me to go then as it is now. I dressed the girls in pink and slathered them in sunblock hoping they'd nap along the way.

This was our first year stroller-free, and the girls walked most of it on their own. Thank you to Ms. Sharon for helping out with some of the carrying!

I hope when they're older they'll come to appreciate the reason why we do this every year and how important it is. I've been very thankful to have them on this journey with me.

Dancing Queens

The girls have taken dance lessons before. When we were three we did a Town of Cary "ribbon dance" class, and then they took ballet at our gym for 6 weeks or so. This year their daycare participated in a Tap and Tumble program, so they worked with a teacher for a whole year and then put on a recital.

The theme of the program was "Toy Story," and the girls' class performed two numbers: one ballet and one tap.

They were very happy, excited, and proud to show us what they learned this year.

Today's Madeleine-ism

If you know Madeleine, you know one of her favorite songs is Copacabana. She's very proud of the fact that she can sing the WHOLE song.

But she sometimes gets the words wrong. I finally corrected her this week, but instead of Lola and Tony working from 8 til 4, they've been working for "Asian Thor" this whole time. :)

Going to the Lodge

Over the weekend, we paid a visit to the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, NC. We went down on Saturday and came back on Monday to possibly avoid some of the Friday/Saturday weekend crowds.

We got a "Wolf Den" suite, and the girls were excited to sleep in their very own cave. Lily had the top bunk, and Madeleine the bottom. They counted 16 painted wolves on the walls and only woke me up once each night when they forgot where they were and were scared.

Saturday afternoon we got there around 2:30 and were able to check in right away. Down at the waterpark by 3, we spent a few hours there before dinner. Lily was more tentative and preferred the baby area, whereas Madeleine and Eric took off for some of the bigger slides.

We had dinner at their on-site restaurant, and the girls were excited to get their very own set of wolf ears. We caught a magic show before the 8 o'clock storytime as well.

Sunday morning we participated in the Jr. Lifeguard class at the Cub Club, and I highly recommend it. Only 3 other kids came, and they got in to the water park early to learn about the whistles and how they save people. It definitely made them a lot more comfortable around the lifeguards in the park as they felt like they knew them.


They got to lead the lifeguards in their wake up howl and be first in line when the waterpark opened at 9am on Sunday. We spent all morning there, taking a break to eat lunch back at the room before heading out again in the afternoon. We also visited the Cub Club where Madeleine painted a jewelry box and Lily colored her own t-shirt.

We went to On the Border for dinner Sunday night, and the girls barely made it through dinner they were so tired. Somehow they managed to stay up for the 8 o'clock storytime again. This time, the crowd was much younger.

Monday morning we hung around the room and went to the Wolf Walk activity at 9:15. They played I Spy with the animals and made an origami wolf. Then we hit the waterpark and stayed until noon since we had a late checkout. We had a snack, visited the Cub Club once again, and headed out by 2pm.

The girls liked almost everything and are really unable to name anything that was particularly their favorite. The wave pool, playing basketball in the water, and walking on the floating lilypads were all favorites.

Gone Fishin

We spend Memorial Day weekend in Oak Ridge with Grandma and Poppy Goodman. They have a pond out behind their house full of carp and other assorted aquatic life. Poppy also has fishing poles and the knowledge of how to put a worm on a hook, so the girls love to go fishing with him when they get a chance.

Here the girls take their turns holding the poles.

Carefully watching Daddy's bobber.

The second fish of the morning. We caught some fairly quickly, but mostly the fish were able to get the worms off the hook without being snagged.

Madeleine touched it eventually.