Easter til the End of School

I feel like we have settled into a pretty good routine here in our new life.  The girls are really enjoying school - primarily the kids in their class as I am not sure a ton of actual work is being done.  But it is Kindergarten and I think it is great!

I have been volunteering at school - primarily in the library (which they call the LMC) and in Audrey's class.

I have met a group of girls who are all there at pick-up. They are all very nice - seem like a close knit group which makes it a little difficult to squeeze my way in.  They almost all have kids in kindergarten which is nice as well.  I did get invited to go out for one of the girl's birthday and that was a ton of fun! (I am now writing this in July and this group of girls are really the only group of people that I hang out with.  Still trying to work my way in more though!)

It has been a big change to go from a place where we had a bunch of family friends to a place where we have only one family friend (and they are super nice - but we just met them!!) 

School up here got out late (in my opinion) on June 6.  Apparently they had to add 4 days to the school year due to the freezing weather that they had before we got here.  The day before the last day, they had Field Day.  Kindergarteners were assigned to wear yellow.  I volunteered and had Popsicle duty (easiest job!)

 At home before field day.

 Eating popsicles with their favorite Reece (who was in Brooke's class and lives about 10 houses down from us)

 Action shot of Audrey

 Brooke with her teacher Mrs. Yore

Audrey with her teacher Mrs. Alley

 Last day of Kindergarten!!!

 Last day of Kindergarten!!!

 They were so cute walking in that last day!!  They love to dress matching and the last day was no exception. 

After school that day, I picked them up and told them that we were going to a party at the playground.  Little did they know, that the moms had filled up a ton of water balloons and were ready to attack.  It was adorable!  Though they really did not end up that wet as we then let them throw the balloons themselves....I think that I was more soaked than them.

Flowers

I think that I may be turning into an old person....I have really gotten into looking at plants (and I am a little weather obsessed which also points toward getting old.)  Of course I know absolutely nothing about plants at all, but I am trying to learn....at least so that I know what we have in our yard (though really our yard is in some rough shape...I am blaming the previous owners)

So in keeping with getting old, we went to an arboretum  (back in May over Memorial Day weekend) when it was a nice warm day.  The girls were good sports, but it really was not that exciting for them.  Fortunately the weekend we went the arboretum was also having a big thing for people to bring their dogs and that was super entertaining for us all.

Here are some nature pics from the day....

 Where we went

 The girls being super sweet sisters while doing the maze.

 Artsy shot of some pretty flowers

 Love this picture of me and Audrey!

 Brooke being a diva - it was not a stretch.

 Audrey loved this little bed of yellow flowers

 Trying to get an artsy shot of the girls

Another attempt at artsy - this one was more successful!

Easter Shenanigans

Here are some pics and a few words about Easter:

 Dying our confetti eggs - though we do them with birdseed rather than confetti to make the clean up easier!

 While confetti eggs are our family tradition, our friends the Kuntz family has introduced us to a whole new tradition: Egg Fighting!  It is super fun.  You basically slide two eggs toward each other until they collide.  One will crack and be the loser and the other will remain intact to fight another egg.  Above are the kids holding their fighting eggs and then Audrey is fighting Cappy.

 Traditional Dad and girls Easter picture.

 Followed by Mom and girls Easter picture.

 Of course the whole family - via a self timer!

 And the sweet girls with their new lambs and sunglasses from the Easter Bunny

 Ready to hunt some eggs.  I will comment that it was one of the lone warm days before the end of May!

 This picture is strictly for the purpose of showing Audrey that she is wrong.  She says that she does not hold her hair out anymore....clearly the two pictures above refute that statement.

Brooke enjoying her loot!

These last pictures are from the neighborhood Easter egg hunt the weekend before Easter....though the girls informed me that this was not the real Easter Bunny but just a man in a suit.

Random Cuteness

 The girls got some manis and pedis before we left Zachary (had to use up a gift certificate!) - they had a ball!

 Sending a snow ball back to their friends in LA

 I am sure that one day I won't think that they are so cute in all of their winter gear, but as I am Southern through and through, I am not sure when that will be!

 Some days I just let them do what ever they want.  They wanted to wear dressy clothes and do their makeup.  And we actually left the house like this!

 We have a dart board in our basement, left by the previous owners.  And we LOVE it.  For some reason the girls sometimes like to play darts without their clothes....hope they outgrow this by the time they are playing darts in bars!

 They had Dr. Seuss week a few weeks ago.  This was Wacky Wednesday - backwards clothes and crazy hair

 Crazy sock day - the girls thought it was so fun to be matching with the socks but pink and purple shirts.  Now that we are out of uniforms, there is a great deal of thought that goes into outfit selection each day.  This would usually annoy me, but school starts super late here so there is plenty of time (we don't leave our house until 8:48 each morning!)

 And the conclusion of Dr. Seuss week was PJ day.....the day that you realize that your kids PJs are really inappropriate for school and scramble to find something that is OK!

 Audrey with her Dad - they are doing some project at school where they needed a picture of just them and the dad.  And of course we had none.

 And here is Brooke with her Dad picture also for some unknown project

Me and my girls - all wearing our orange stripes.

St. Patrick's Day

Our second weekend up here was St. Patrick's weekend.  And I have learned, belatedly, that it is a pretty big deal up here.  Something to do with all the Irish Catholics that settled here :)  So next year, we will really do it up right.

This year, we went into the city on Sunday to sightsee and then go to a Blackhawks game.  Unfortunately it was FREEZING and super windy.  Oh and did I mention that since St. Pat's is a big deal it was super crowded too.

 Our first view of the city

 We just thought that these signs were so funny.

 A family selfie.....really we were just trying to stay warm

 We stopped for some goodies at Starbucks

 Audrey thought it was hilarious to walk around with her "coffee" and her "broken arm"

 In front of the Bean...the girls could not believe it when they realized that we were walking all the way there just to take some pictures of the bean.

 The girls were trying to hold the bean but we just couldn't get it lined up right....I blame my frozen fingers!

A family picture in front of the river (dyed green for the weekend!)

 We were up in a suite to watch the game....what a great way to watch our first NHL game.

 Audrey is straight-up Gangsta!  Well a gangsta that wears kitty cat shirts.

 At home for St. Patrick's day breakfast.  The girls were thrilled that a leprechaun had dyed our milk green.