maple syrup weekend

sorry for the side view, but this is a pic of the girls dancing/wiggling to one of the songs today.

Maple Syrup Weekend in New Hampshire

We headed out this morning to try some syrup along with some other maple flavored foods. YUM!! Of course the girls loved it, I mean samples of pure maple syrup (sugar)...who wouldn't love that.  We stopped at 4 sugar shacks and called that enough sugar for the day. The one had a live band which the girls loved to dance with. We then had waffles for dinner with some of our syrup we bought. Mmmm....good. If you've never had pure maple syrup on your pancakes you don't know what you're missing. :) Not surprisingly, but they were both in bed and asleep tonight by 7:15pm.

Loving her hot dog

 Dancing

If you look closely the lady is tapping on a board to make a wooden man dance and was all done to the beat of the music. I was impressed.

Loving almost 90 degree weather!

We took full advantage of our few 80+ degree days and spent most of the time outside. As you can tell they love to swing....anywhere! We went to a big playground where they couldn't get enough of the BIG slides and chair swings.  Now today we are back to the 50s, still nice but not 80. 

 Playing music

 Moving bridge

 Loved this huge chair swing

 Alaina actually went down this slide first. Lily was too scared to go until after Alaina did. :) My little thrill seeker!

Swimming lessons

Lily started swimming lessons last week. My big hope was that would at least get in the water. YAY! She has no problem getting in, but we really don't like to get any part of our face wet. This means even when kicking our feet it can't drip in our face...also means we don't even try to blow bubbles. :) They do wear lifesaver b/c they're in 4 ft of water so she can't touch. A little scary for her first class but she's doing pretty well. She does love her teacher though, that's a plus.

Throwing a toy and then going to chase after it.

Reach and dig with those arms.

Not thrilled about being on our back.

getting ready to jump in.

picture is out of order....waiting for the lesson to start with the other kids.

Alaina is 18 months...last week!

Wow....time is flying by! Alaina is 1 1/2, and I'm sure she'll be 2 before we know it. She loves being outside, even more than lily. I usually get screaming and kicking when we have to go inside after being out for hours. She moves very well for her age, is trying to jump, but just can't quite get her feet off the ground. She runs almost as fast as Lily....depends on if she's being chased. ;) She loves to eat pretty much anything, but lately some of her favorites are cottage cheese, yogurt, green beans, and ham. She still only has 5 teeth and I'm pretty sure more are soon to pop through. She's been keeping her hands in her mouth all the time lately. She usually sleeps very well, 10 hours a night, but b/c of the teething has been waking up once a night, but with a quick rock she's back within 15 mins.

We love to eat cereal with milk now. She's great with a spoon!

This is how we'd prefer to eat all meals...sitting in a big girl chair.

Warm Weather is Here!

It's funny to see that my last post just a couple weeks ago was filled with snow pictures and here we are now outside in shorts and tshirts in 70+ degree weather. Daddy decided to chip around the yard and the girls wanted to "help".

Teaching lily how to swing. Alaina always seemed to get a little close.

Great day for picnic...we've now had lunch outside the 3 days. They love it!

1st Snowman of 2012

Thank you Grandma Small for the snowman making kit. We finally got the chance to put it to use.

One of our favorite activities. Throwing snowballs on the driveway.