Recent Activities

We recently pulled some random pictures from the phone that I thought we would share on the blog, as well as pictures from our normal camera.  

The girls went to a fairy-themed birthday party a couple months ago and the theme was a hit:

When Karina finished pre-k, there was a 'graduation' ceremony at school with families invited.  The hats and certificates were a little over the top in my opinion - it's not like finishing pre-kinderarten is some difficult task.  

For a while we had thought about going to a build-workshop hosted by Home Depot at their store and we finally made it to one.  Karina and Lydia built a mini bowling alley.  The got nails, a hammer, and wood glue to get the pieces together with help, and then painted the whole thing.  They got mini versions of the characteristic orange aprons that workers in the store wear, and that made them feel like real builders.

Karina and I went to a creativity of art workshop at the library in the style of author and illustrator Herve Tullet.  Karina wore the tie-dye shirt she made at school and was ready to 'dress for mess' with lots of paint.

Last weekend we made our annual excursion to the Howard County Fair.  Karina was chosen to be the cheer captain of one of the teams in a pig race. Our pig managed to lose despite Karina's cheering skills.  Afterwards, there was also a duck race that we watched.  

The baby animal section is always a hit.  Among the animals the kids got to pet were bunnies:

a kid (baby goat):

They got to see piglets:

They also pet sheep, chicks, ducklings, and saw others.

The cows in the back of this next photo were ready to be showed in competition.  It sure was easy to tell the difference between the dairy cows and the ones bred for meat.  

Karina and Lydia went on one ride and Karina insisted it be the tea cups.  Another little girl happened to sit in their tea cup.  They were all smiles before it began, and all three girls were crying and screaming for it to stop by the time the ride ended.  Since none of them were strong enough to hold the middle spinner in place, their tea cup kept spinning faster and they were terrified.  

We also saw a magic show at the fair.  For several days afterward, Karina described how she saw milk go into a little girl's head, followed by her wiggling to get the milk to flow down, before the milk was pumped out of her elbow.  Karina was quite convinced.

In other news, my little guy now has 3 teeth! His second tooth on the bottom came almost two weeks ago.  His third tooth is the exciting one and we didn't even realize he was cutting a tooth on top.  The exciting part is that Derek is going to be a vampire!  Like Lydia he is going out of order getting his upper lateral incisors before the central incisors.  I am hoping to get a good picture in a few weeks to document our little guys's vampire smile. 

Derek has also begun lifting his hips/butt off the floor when he is on his tummy - sometimes high off the floor and sometimes just a little bit in the air.  He often accidentally scoots backwards a couple feet too while his butt is in the air.  It won't be long until he is officially crawling!

A few more pictures from playing around in the house:

Last week we went to a special library show with "Mr. Jon" performing preschooler stand-up comedy and playing songs on his guitar and singing.  The kids were rolling on the floor laughing and they enjoyed dancing to the music.