Aloha!

Mom and David went to Hawaii over the weekend, and they brought the girls back some hula outfits.  To say they love them is an understatement for sure!

Joanna got to try hers on first, since Sister was sleeping.

The next day it was super gross outside, but I made the girls go out so I could get some pictures!

They haven’t seen much hula dancing, but I was trying to get them to do a bit anyway.

No, they’ll never be able to wear these “bras” (as the girls call them!) all by themselves, but I think they’re perfectly fine as dress-up over their clothes.  :)

And I’m IN LOVE with the flowers in the hair.  We need to do this more often.

Thanks David and Gran for thinking of the girls – they love their outfits!

Chocolate Comes to Stay

Joanna’s class has this stuffed dog named Chocolate (or, as I keep calling her this week, Cookie – I can’t get it out of my head!).  Chocolate spends each week at a different friend’s house in the class. 

She has a basket with clothes and a journal to keep track of her adventures.  The journal is another example of how I get to do homework for preschool.  (In case you weren’t sure how I feel about the subject, I detest when teachers send me homework.  I’m good, thanks.)

But Joanna is loving it, and that’s what matters at this time I think.  I sure hope she gets to do something like this in, say, first or second grade, as I think it would be a wonderful writing project for the kids – a daily journal one week of what the dog did.

Off my teaching soap box now… I have to go blog for Chocolate.  :)

James and Fashion

It is so good to have a baby brother around to dress up.  :)

James was given this super-cute tiger costume, and because of the hood, it’s very easy for the girls to put it on him.  It’s good he’s pretty easy going about these kinds of things.

Just FYI, he can get himself out of the side-table-jail, but I think sometimes he forgets.

It’s not considered child abuse when you take a picture of your child in slight distress before helping them, is it?

An aside: The shirt that James is wearing above may be my favorite of his right now.  I’m not even exactly sure what it says, but I just love the way it looks on him!  I think it’s partly the color (it’s a color I look good in, so my mini-me must also!) and partly the neck-line.  LOVE IT!

Day 47

Cracker!!

Day 46

Looking through all their valentines from school!

Three Sweet Valentines

I should have gotten a picture of all the kids before school on Tuesday, but we were already running late (and I just didn’t think about it!)  So this is what everybody looked like in the afternoon, after a long, hard day.  :)

Joanna got a sticker for having a clean area at some point in the day, and she wouldn’t take it off for the picture.  Natalie is actually in her change of clothes for the day.  I think it might be the only time this year she’s needed a change.  Fortunately, there was a rather Valentineish outfit in the bag!  The outfit she had on was soooooooo cute though, I will probably have to take her picture in it once it’s washed.

I was trying to be creative in getting the girls to look at me and smile.

I was less than effective, as you can see.

Awwwww!!!

This smile was for his biggest sis!

He was in quite a smiling mood, at least until I forcibly removed him from his car to head to Grandma’s.  Poor James.

He’s actually in his change of clothes too.  His outfit wasn’t super Valentiney, but it was a grey/red striped onesie and cute jeans.  Alas…

I was so glad to have enchilada night on Valentine’s!!

It was a very wonderful evening with family, one in which I did not have to cook or clean up my kitchen.  That is my idea of a Valentine!

Andy is so good to be covered up in little animals by a four year old.

It made her so happy.  :)

I’m hoping to get back on track with my blogging in the next day or so.  I’ve been super-obsessed with scanning things and cleaning out, to the detriment of all my other usual activities… and sleep.

Day 45

Natalie crashed on the way home from school and I just left her there in the garage to have a good nap!