Last week

I'm almost caught up!

No rest for the fun, so we had gymastics Tuesday morning after our weekend jaunt. This is lady lanes walking backwards on the beam. So talented!

Peekaboo!

Oldie but goodie - Johnna sent this one from jocies baptism. Every time Frankie sees Johnna, she asks about Landon, so she took this to send him. (:

On tuesday night I got to take the gang with me to Addie's piano. They are pretty noisy, so we stay outside while she's practicing.  The only problem is then I don't really know what Addie's supposed to be doing. :/

Frankie is maturing fast! I've been realizing how much more level headed she's been (for a 5 year old) and how sweet she's been lately. And this is a funny picture of us!

Matt and I were asked to teach Lindy hop at the combined activity on Wednesday, so we'd been dancing a lot, courtesy of YouTube. D-money likes to get in on that action. 

It's been so fun watching our tulips growing and sprouting! They're almost fully bloomed now and I love them so much!

The dance activty was really fun! I was super nervous about it, but it was great!

We had a group of about 4 couples that we taught a basic Lindy 8 step. Lindy hop is kind of a weird dance, but they all got it pretty well. (:

Delaney has been "winking" and I am pretty obsessed with it. Pre-wink....

And wink! It's always the same and I make her do it probably 20 times a day. 

On Thursday we went shopping and then to sweet emmas playgroup birthday party. We watched Emma for a few days when she was a baby and she's always had a special place in our family, even with grandpa and lexi, we all love her!

On Friday Matt and I cleaned out the garage all day. I got all the winter stuff vacuum packed into bags (latest obsession) and put away. Our garage looks great and there were no blowouts, so I call that a good day! As I've been cleaning things out lately I've noticed that even when our house is messy, it's clean at the core, which makes it easy to re-organize. That's what happened in the garage. (:

After the clean fest I took the girls to the park so Matt could rest a little and get ready for his navy weekend. 

The whole neighborhood was there on that beautiful afternoon! We had picked ashby up and then Laura brought maggie over, so the girls happily played all evening. 

We had pizza for dinner and then left to take ashby home right before a thunderstorm hit. Only we got sidetracked visiting with Lana, and got totally rained on. Thankfully they lent us an umbrella, but the rain was fast and furious, and we got drenched! We were all cracking up though, it was so fun!

Mags spent the night and in the morning asked if she could take the girls to the park. It's like, 5 houses away and she's almost 12, so I let her. And I got so much done! Laney had afull dressers worth of clothes + 4 boxes of size 3's that I was able to completely organize. I did dishes and swept, and vacuumed stairs, it was fabulous. 

After the park everyone came over for some dressup. That's a whole lot of high mantienence estrogen right there!

Before maggie left I gave everyone an ice cream cone (COH leftovers) for lunch. Because I'm awesome like that. 

And laney finally tried on one of the lego masks. #tempermental

Then, as if playing at our park all day wasn't enough, we met up with Johnna and grands at the wooden park. 

Group shot! Delaney had decided she was not happy and would not be in the picture. Shocking, right?

Frankie and Landon love eachother. (:

Home for dinner -homemade hamburger helper, (as in, not boxed, just kind of replicated) courtesy of Chris and brenna, and baths, and finally daddy came home. 

We churched it up today and then took naps. I wasn't feeling too good, so I tried to nap all afternoon. I finally gave up and the girls and I read some little town on the prairie. We have two more books in the little house series and I'll be so sad when we're done. Totes planning a trip to the real little house on the prairie! #earrings

And then telling addie off...

And then happy again. All.day.I.swear. 

We also assisted Chris in asking brenna to prom. He made letters on poster board and we went to the park and took pics of each of the kids holding them, then he sent that off to be made into a puzzle. What'll they think of next, right?

Sidenote - I've had so much extra time lately because one bright and early morning (5:45, ya'll) I logged in to my google work account and it reminded me that my temp work assignment ended April 6. I am done working! That's bad news because we've been able to save a lot of that money, but wonderful news for my mental health, home cleanliness, and kids summer outlook. 

Seriously, it was only 10 hours a week, but it has been so wonderful being done. Staying home with my kids is such a blessing and I'm so grateful to be able to devote fully all of my time to my family again. I've worked two jobs, full time, part time, and worked at home, and any way you slice it, it is hard to manage while raising a family. Anyhow, now I can coupon more and get these two big kids some scholarships! Happening!

Spring break - last day

After visiting fort mchenry and reading the book about it, we found out that the flag house where Mary pickersgill had sewn most of the infamous flag was just a few blocks from our hotel. So on Monday as we walked to the children's museum, we stopped by the flag house. Of course they are closed on Mondays, but we still got some pics and got to read the signs. 

Addie had me print out these pictures to take to school on Tuesday. Sweet girl. (:

Actual size of the flag. And three goofy girls with their dad. 

Hey, hey! Another historical marker!

We got to the port discovery children's museum around 10. This was after we'd enjoyed a complimentary marriott breakfast (thank you for honoring our military service!), checked out of our hotel room, driven to the museum, realized we'd have to pay for parking there, while we still had parking left at the Marriott, driven back to our original parking garage, and walked back to the museum. Phew. 

We played on their three story jungle gym for a few minutes until we saw this cute little gas station. 

She does say she's 16 years old half the time, so it's fitting that she'd be driving. 

Next to the gas station was a little grocery store that was so fun!

My girls could have played here all day!

They had all actual sized food and detergents, etc. 

Then they each took turns checking each other out. 

Then the parents would gather up all the groceries and put everything back. I restocked a lot of shelves!

After shopping we played a little soccer. It's poor quality, but this is an awesome picture. Frankie is mid kick, and delaney the goalie is about to get pelted by the ball, with a big old smile on her face! Hahahaha! (It was a super soft ball, fyi)

Addie did not want to play and she wanted to make sure no one mistakenly thought she did.

We can't resist 'em. 

Every.time. 

Frankie is generally a pretty good sport, and I've noticed had gotten stuck with the lame props all trip long. Sweet girl. 

We did some lego art. 

She was slowly coming out of the soccer pout. 

Frankie drew glasses on hers, love the little creativity.

The only one who would pose for me. I didn't realize it then, but hello weekend mvp! Another great benefit of blogging, a different form of retrospection. 

After the art, (we also made glow in the dark lego heads) we played with some live animals. 

Chicks, man!

Frankie pet the snake!

Laney, not so much. (:

Then I volunteered Matt to hold the snake. He's such a good sport. 

Laney was all over the hedgehog! She went right over and was the first one to pet her. 

Then we checked out the construction area. 

Busy little worker bees. 

Workin' it!

We played on the climbey stuff some more. 

We explored fossils. 

And shopped at another fruit and vegetable stand. 

They had some amazing lego displays. 

Then we checked out the diner. We figured since we were in Baltimore, we might as well have some chicken and waffles. 

It was a cute little 50's diner complete with a rotary pay phone. My kids had no clue!

I had to explain to them that there was a time, in the not so distant past, that no one had cell phones and you couldn't just push buttons to make calls. 

Frankie giving addie her order. 

I had like, a 12 course meal. 

More playing on the jungle gym.

I love that she loves pictures!

They had a fun water area, complete with  crocs and raincoats. 

Huge whiteboard to make sentences on. 

Franks and I went cruising. And if you think a stationary car that kids climb in all day smells bad, you'd be right. 

They had a whole huge medieval lego area set up, so Matt and I went jousting.  

He thought I was joking, but just check out my stance. Dead.serious. 

#winning

Addie wanted a turn too. 

(:

The jousting gear was too heavy for some people. 

Good thing she got over that one quickly. 

While we jousted, some people ruled. 

And the rule even shared. 

They also had a weird little mystery solving area that we checked out, but not all the parts worked in, so it was a little frustrating. It scared Frankie, so she and Matt left, but addie wanted to solve all 4 mysteries. And then for the next few days Frankie talked all about the mysteries. She asked me to tell her the stories so many times that I finally deferred her to the only other person home with us during the day, delaney. And then they'd talk to each other about how Constance lost so much weight that she lived in the doll house and how cousin ivy turned invisible after using her pimple cream. Told you they were weird mysteries.

We played all day at the children's museum. When we had told the girls we were going there, addie said "boring." And then after we went she said "that wasn't a museum!" I had to explain to her that's the point of a children's museum, to explore and have fun. It was a good and long day. 

After, we walked around cute little Italy looking for a place to eat an early dinner. 

We found a place with a world renowned chef and pictures of celebrities all over the walls of their bar. All the tables had these cool plates on them. Very authentic. 

We were the only people in the joint. 

Laney was not happy about something. And when our server came she said "I am not happy." She's gotten so sassy!

Ps - world renowned chefs make for expensive restaurants, just fyi. :/

We had lots of traffic as we left the city, and also lots of tired girls. They slept almost the whole way home.

And then went almost right to bed. 

We had a great, great weekend! It was so fun to take a quick jaunt to such a cool city. And now we're only 2 birthday trips behind. (: