Linda's Playhouse

Mom and I took the girls to Linda's Playhouse in Peachtree City over Spring Break. What a fun place! Linda has basically rented a building and filled it with toys for children. There's are places for painting, building, dressing up, having tea parties, playing musical instruments, reading, weaving...all sorts of things! Abby painted all kinds of crafts while we were there and Emily had fun playing in all of the different centers. It was a really fun (and inexpensive) way to spend an afternoon.

Happy Easter!

Emily has the sweetest blue Easter dress to wear this year. I'm all ready for Easter Sunday - tights, shoes, dress, sweater (it's always so cold at Easter!), even a pair of white gloves! Luckily for us, she went out and found her own Easter bonnet just lying around the house. Isn't she creative? Seriously...I need to start picking up after myself!

Afternoon Rollup

We do love our afternoon rollups at the White House, including T.C. By the way, a rollup is a nap in Emily-speak. Donald snapped this picture of all of us resting together in the recliner. See if you can count all the heads - there's me, Emily, T.C., and Lucky the Possum. It's actually WAY more comfortable than it looks.

Two Mariposas!

Donald and I brought Emily and Abby back two feathered masks from our trip to New Orleans (more pictures from that later). They looked so cute dressed up together in their favorite colors! Emily likes to put her mask on at home along with a set of butterfly wings and yell "Mariposa!" at the top of her lungs as she runs around the house. That's butterfly in Spanish to you non-bilinguals out there. Get ready for a purple mariposa butterfly party at the White House this year!

A Day with the Girls

Donald and I spent the day with Emily and Abby and had lots of fun baking Easter egg-shaped cupcakes together. We cruised through Target and bought all of our supplies then stopped for a peek in the Oh! Chocolate store in Peachtree City. Yum! Very expensive, but completely delicious. We headed home for a baking session which included a lesson on color mixing from Donald. The girls had fun coloring their frosting and then decorating their cupcakes. And by the way - the silicone baking pan? Total rip off! But Emily loved it because it was purple.

Seeing Double

Following in a grand family tradition, Abby failed her school vision test and had to go to the optometrist for an official visit. The verdict: nearsightedness, with a prescription for glasses. Fortunately for all of us, Abby was really excited about getting classes - and so was Emily. She told me that she hopes that she'll get glasses one day, too. I told her not to worry because if genetics are any indication, she'll probably be needing glasses some time next week. Abby came by to model her two new pairs of specs this week and Emily was so entranced that she put on glasses of her own (purple, of course - a Valentine's present from Mim) to follow Abby around the house. I found them looking at the laptop together and noticed Emily's getup just in time to snap a picture. And as a sidenote - Abby is lucky because glasses are WAY cooler than they were when I was her age. I remember one disastrous pair of glasses that had orange tinted lenses. Why would we choose those? It also didn't help that one of the lenses was so thick that it enabled me to see back in time. Abby just looks like a trendy version of Velma from Scooby Doo. That's a compliment, by the way.

Welcome to the Blog!

I've added a few new blog links to our list, mainly for my own convenience since I check them all the time. However, in case you're interested, I thought I'd introduce to you to some new friends. The Loons are friends of David (Donald's brother) who live near him in Oklahoma. They are awaiting the birth of their first baby, JC - named for a Jewish carpenter or an N'Sync singer. You pick. The Pragers are Dianne and Ken. Dianne was my long term sub while I was out on maternity leave. They are quite the traveling pair and I always enjoy seeing where they'll turn up next. The Dzenis family are relatives of good friends of ours who are in need of prayer as their young daughter is facing some significant health problems. She is close to age in Emily and I like to keep tabs on them. Add them to your prayer list if you have one. Hope you enjoy cruising around these new blogs!

Future Partridge Family?

Emily is a big fan of music. She surprises us all the time by the number of lyrics she knows to songs on the radio. It makes me aware that she's actually listening to what she hears on the radio and TV now - so we have to be extra careful! She and Abby love to get together and make some noise from time to time. This is a great photo of the two of them auditioning for future Partridge Family status. We're thinking of taking our act on the road in the near future. And to all members of the Farr House who may be reading this - don't even THINK about sending that recorder home with us! You buy it - you have to put up with it!

Callaway Gardens

We recently took advantage of the warmer weather and the free admission at Callaway Gardens for a short family trip. After church, we loaded up and caravaned behind Mimi, Papa, and Abby to Callaway for a trip to the butterfly house and the beach. Our girls really love to visit the Callaway beach and romp around in the sand. We were all covered in it by the time we got back to the car. Emily's pants were so wet and sandy that we just took them off and she road commando on the way home. Arriving home exhausted and missing her pants...must have been some trip!

Tea for Two (or five)

Emily was recently invited to what promised to be an absolutely fantastic tea party thrown by some friends of ours. However, on the day of the party, she was running a fever. I didn't want to be the Mom who takes the feverish kid to the party and infects all the others, so we opted to stay home and rest instead. Emily was VERY disappointed to have missed out on the fun (we had already packed a bag of dress-up clothes to take with us and a special animal to share her tea!), so we tried to recreate the fun a few days later when she was feeling better. Mom, and Amy, and I joined Abby and Emily for tea at the Farr House, complete with costumes and fancy food. Amy and I had a good laugh because the teapot we used is from Mom's old set of china. I saved it when she got rid of the dishes because Amy and I used to play tea party with it when we were little. They think it's hilarious that among my many sets of dishes I have a set (plus linens!) that are reserved especially for little girl tea parties. Any good hostess is always prepared for these things, right? At any rate, the girls had a good time together and refused to take their costumes off for several hours while they chased each other around the house waving their fairy wands. I'm looking forward to a repeat performance sometime soon!

Making Music

Emily and Abby were caught playing the piano the other day in this cute picture. Abby likes to give Emily "lessons" sometimes. It's very sweet, but it only takes a little while for the listeners in the room to get an earful of their musical creations! Makes for a sweet picture, though.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Emily came home from school on Groundhog Day with a very fun craft. The class made a groundhog puppet with a straw, paper cup, and groundhog cutout. They also learned a song to go along with their puppets and she was very proud of her new knowledge - she sang the song all night! Nothing shy about her. You can't see it very well in the video but her groundhog is...you guessed it! Purple! When I asked her about this, she told me that all the other boys and girls colored their groundhogs brown but she really wanted hers to be purple. I couldn't argue with that logic. I love it that she thinks outside the box! Hope you enjoy the groundhog song, as well as T.C.'s unexpected appearance. He was a bit of a camera hog during our taping session!

All the Ladies

Amy and I gave Mom a digital picture frame for her birthday this January and I loaded it up with pictures from both of our computers. This gave me the opportunity to hijack all of the pictures off of their hard drive and save them to my own. Turns out they have tons of fun pictues of our girls that I had never seen before! I love this picture of all four of us together. It was taken at Amy's birthday dinner back in October. It's rare to get a shot of all of us together with everyone looking at the camera and smiling!

Hanging out with My Valentines

While Donald was away at a soccer game this week, Emily and I traveled to the Farr House for some arts and crafts. Amy, Mimi, Abby, Emily, and I had lots of fun making valentines for our nearest and dearest. We had fun stamping, coloring, and sticking before bundling up to head back home. Will it EVER warm back up? Amy's "Friends in Any Weather" card wins my award for best stamp and pastel combo, but Emily's sticker and marker creations were pretty fantastic, too. Thanks to Auntie Yam for pulling out her fun Stampin' Up supplies. Our valentines are ready to be mailed, so be on the lookout in your mailbox for a fabulous hand-crafted creation! Happy Valentine's Day!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Because I cooked supper tonight, Donald was sweet enough to do the dishes while Emily and I had a little girl time together. By the way, you read correctly - I cooked supper! Don't be so surprised. Emily and I snuggled in front of the fire while I gave her a pedicure. While Donald and I were on the cruise at Christmas, she got her first toenail painting at Mimi and Papa's house - purple, of course! They've been redone several times since then, but were looking a little ratty so I convinced her to let me update her look. I don't have any purple, but she agreed to let me paint them pink - just until I can go out and buy some purple polish! We had a good time and stayed toasty in front of the fire - a bonus in this shivery weather!