On this Saturday morning we tried out a new outdoor play spot – East Cobb Park, and it was fantastic! We really enjoyed the overall feel of the park – it was spacious, had a large playscape, walking trail, grassy knolls ideal for a good game of chase and much more. Scarlett really enjoyed this little car on springs: Read the rest of this entry »
A few different movie theaters near us run free kids movies in the morning on certain days during the summer. I really liked the idea of taking the girls, but with the absolute knowledge that we would be lucky to make it through 20 minutes, I felt like overall the undertaking would be too much of a hassle to bother with. Read the rest of this entry »
Thursday was Collin’s first day back with us in a week, as he and his parents had been in Orlando for the past 5 days or so. Both girls were beyond excited to see him! Victoria was already down for her morning nap and after waiting for a while I decided to see if Grammie would be willing to hang out with our sleeping beauty while I went ahead and took Scarlett and Collin to the park (she was). I had invited Erica and Elizabeth to join us and they did… it was such a gorgeous day – plenty hot, but breezy and in the shade the temperature was extremely comfortable. Read the rest of this entry »
Our playgroup had a get together scheduled for Friday at one of our favorite places – Little Bear Indoor Playground. We hadn’t been there in several weeks since our discovery of DACKids a couple of months ago, and that coupled with the beautiful park weather just hadn’t made visiting LB a priority. Only Loran and Mita (plus their respective kids) and ourselves showed for the playgroup outing, but we had SUCH a fun time!! Read the rest of this entry »
This post should be called “The Girls and Sparky”, since virtually every picture and video is of just that. But while Sparky is new, small and still interesting to the girls I thought I should capture the cuteness! Wednesday morning I had a somewhat long errand to run and Grammie offered to stay home with the girls so that they wouldn’t have to be in the car all morning with me. Read the rest of this entry »
Post church and afternoon naps, Jim and I did our now-usual routine of Toys R Us with the girls on Sunday afternoon. There was a clearance bin of various hats that I forced Victoria to try on for my amusement, but she really liked this one in particular and left it on for about 15 minutes: Read the rest of this entry »
Memorial Day was spent taking it easy. Jim went with the girls and I to do our big Publix shopping trip (they were having great BOGO sales, which when combined with coupons helped me save 73% off my total bill!) and when we got home, the girls were ready for their naps. When they woke up, we decided to take them over to Toys R Us for an hour of browsing/playing before dinnertime.
Now, Scarlett has always been a little freaked out by dinosaurs – at this particular Toys R Us they had a huge display with a large robotic dinosaur that you could make roar by pressing a button. She loved watching it… from a distance, and IF someone was holding her 
I think that toy has made her a little leery of all play dinosaurs, and so when we saw this 2-foot tyrannosaurus in the education section, she pretty much scooted past it with a wide berth and moved right along. Victoria, meanwhile, had a different approach and decided it needed kisses:
Maybe it wouldn’t look so fierce and scary if it just had some quality lovin’?? Soon, all the dinosaurs were coming over for their turn 
Seriously though, we are always so amused and interested with how quirky and unique they each are! They both agreed that this empty display shelf was pretty awesome, and spent a lot of time “hiding” towards the back of it:
While we were at Target (with Grammie) a few days earlier, I had decided it was time to buy Scarlett a baby-doll crib and changing table. She plays with her dolls each and every day and wants to be able to reenact all of the steps involved in taking care of them, which I just love There was a combo changing table/little sink at Target that she really likes playing which, but it was $60, bulky and still didn’t have a crib. I’d been pricing out some used items that were similar on Craigslist, but nothing was quite what I had in mind. Since we were already at Toys R Us, I figured it would be worthwhile to look and see what they had and at least have some better search terms for continuing my Craigslist quest. I looked and looked and found exactly what I had in mind – a set that came with a little rocking crib and a changing table too… and it was on clearance!! I was so excited, but there was no price, so I snatched one of the employees and asked her to check for me and was so thrilled that it was only $23! I hadn’t been able to find anything (even used) that cheap, so I went ahead and got it but didn’t tell Scarlett.
So that evening while I gave the girls a bath, Jim snuck downstairs and put the crib and changing table together and Scarlett was SO excited when she saw them! It was so fun to watch her using them and just how much she enjoyed her new additions
On Tuesday, Grammie and I took the girls up to DACKids and had a really fun time. Grammie had never been, and of course Scarlett had her running through all the bounce houses and nearly injuring herself in a tunnel built for 5-year-olds!
That evening after dinner, the girls “reorganized” my tupperware cabinet – an activity Scarlett loved at Victoria’s age, and apparently something she has renewed interest in doing now that she has a partner in crime.
It’s worth noting that Victoria DID manage to climb up onto that second shelf inside the cabinet and wedged herself in there so good Jim had to go in after her!
By Wednesday afternoon, a WalMart trip had become necessary for a couple of baby items. Grammie and Scarlett took off for the carousel first thing upon arrival, while Victoria and I went to grab a few essentials and then locate our friends Erica and Elizabeth who were there as well. Victoria *loves* the new captain’s position she’s occasionally allowed to assume in the cart:
After catching up with the rest of our crew and chatting with our friends, we finished up in the produce section where we taste-tested some cherries and bananas:
I don’t know how it is that I ended up not taking any pictures that evening – possibly due to the fact that Scarlett was being especially testy and pushing the limits a LOT. Aside from that though, we had a really good time stopping by Erica and Elizabeth’s to exchange some muffins (us to them) for some delicious homemade Indian food (them to us), and then inviting them to join us for a work-widow’s dinner at Moe’s. We got to sit outside, eat Mexican and enjoy the beautiful weather!
Thursday morning we headed over to the Cook’s house for some fun with Carter, Sydney and baby Camelia. Loran had some rice and beans for the kids to play with by pouring them into empty baby food jars, which was a very creative playdate idea:
I mentioned to Loran how weird it is that Victoria and Camelia always end us sitting THIS close to each other – almost on top of one another! Camelia for her part has started crawling and pulling up to furniture all within the last week or so. She’ll be running laps in no time I’m sure
The kids also got to help make their own rolls to bake for lunch. Scarlett, Victoria and Carter mostly just ate huge chunks of the raw dough in between attempts to pretend they were punching it down and rolling it, but Sydney was very attentive to bringing her dough under subjection with her fist:
Scarlett realized this little mallet was on the table (for unrelated purposes) and decided banging on the dough and table would be much more fun than trying to shape it into little balls:
I typically dread the drive home from the Cook’s because both girls inevitably fall asleep, and for Scarlett a 20-minute car nap means she’ll lay down in her crib at home but not sleep anymore than that. But pulling out every trick in the book (i.e., babbling nonstop at them, promising an extra “Super Why!”, etc.), I managed to keep both of them awake – and that is a stretch, truthfully they were more or less sleeping with their eyes open by the time we pulled into the driveway – and both girls had a great nap! Nana came over that evening and had dinner with us and the girls loved that, as did I
On Thursday I spent quite a bit of time purging our toys from all of their various locales around the house – Scarlett’s room, Victoria’s closet (and no, I don’t know how they got there either), the living room, the kitchen, the playroom. It was definitely needed and I ended up getting rid of a lot of junky items that add up over the course of 6 months, and also pulled aside about half of the remaining toys and hid them in our bedroom. Now, the idea is that in a few months I can purge again and bring these “new” old toys back out (and put some of the current ones away) and they’ll actually get some play time. We’ll see how all of that goes Read the rest of this entry »
Since Wednesday was such a big, full day, I decided we would take Thursday “off” completely and aside from a couple of minor household things, we did absolutely nothing but play. I can’t quite explain why I *love* pictures of the girls sitting together at the picnic table, but I do! I think it’s fascinating how even though this is a brand new thing for Victoria, Scarlett seems entirely unsurprised by it, as though it was something she had been expecting to happen any second now Read the rest of this entry »
After picking Jim up from work on Wednesday evening, we headed out to Toys R Us so that I could purchase a few things I’d had in mind. Essentially I had been eyeing one of those Sand & Water Tables that have become so popular, but frankly even the cheapest ones are $60, with the nicer ones running upward of $100, and I just couldn’t see myself spending that. So I had concocted an alternative that I thought would be even MORE fun, and needed to go price out my idea and possibly pick up the supplies. Read the rest of this entry »
