The girls embraced their entrepreneurial spirit during the first weekend of sun this summer and set up a lemonade stand at the end of the driveway, in coordination with the adjacent neighbor’s moving sale. For over two hours the night prior, all three worked on customized signs, using lots of color and adding hand drawn lemons and cookies. My freehand bubbles letters are not great, but their tracing and coloring over them turned out nicely. If you look closely, stylistically all three signs are very different, with Reagan spending a great deal of time drawing patterns in the letters, Emerie w ..read more

What a whirlwind few weeks! The girls made it through their first year of elementary school and are already excited to claim first grade. While displeased that beloved Miss Tawni won’t teach them next year (since they assumed she moved up every year haha), they also contain excitement for Miss Kelly, who is just a couple doors down the hall. Looking at comparison pictures from day one to the final day, you can see how much everyone grew, not just in height! Kindergarten is always a significant milestone of achievement. Kids start as preschoolers, becoming comfortable out in the “world” and le ..read more

After months of inquiries as to when it would happen, the girls attended their spring dance recital earlier this month, for both tap and ballet. After Harper’s solo dance class last spring, Emerie and Reagan begged to join so they could perform on the big stage like Harper. Custom costumes for each routine made for some excited little girls, and the big evening happened on an already big day, the last day of school. Attending another ballet school’s performance the weekend prior also amped up the excitement. The Alice in Wonderland theme was really fun and everyone dressed up for the occasion ..read more

It feels like winter vanished and a switch flipped into spring overnight, and boy are we so thankful! After a long winter of significant snowstorms, cold spells and sicknesses, and cooped up kiddos, we welcome the warmer weather and additional outdoor time with open arms. What is one of my favorite new tasks when spring finally arrives? You guessed it…putting away all the winter gear and spending more time outside without tracking all that clothing down! The girls made it through a second winter using the same snow bibs and they are definitely ready for the donation pile, since they have grown ..read more

It’s that time again this year -well, it was a month ago when I actually started writing this- for the annual contrasting and comparison between our rapidly growing girls and what they were up to throughout age five, as we somehow transition to a house of six-year-olds! The past year was once again very busy, and included many more adventures and activities, as flexible schedules and unplanned events are easier to handle and jump into. As usual, narrowing down my favorite “triple photos” proved difficult from the massive amount taken over the past 365 days. I eventually settled on this collage ..read more

Death discussions continue to occur around our household since we told the girls about our beloved “senior” kitty Rory going up to heaven. It happened immediately after the girls’ birthday party a couple weeks ago and during our Monday Seward day holiday. He was likely deteriorating for a few days prior to us noticing, since the birthday hubbub kept us all pretty busy over that weekend. The random questions crack me up when I focus on how they are funny and not sad. For example: How does Rory get to heaven? What happened to his head? We need to bring a hair drier outside and melt the snow so ..read more

As amateurs to the concept of spring break, we jumped in full force this year to keep our first one with kids interesting. Thinking back to this time last year, I remember telling myself to enjoy my last spring break with childcare for the foreseeable future, and it’s crazy to think that was already a year ago. Grandma Sue was happy to come up early to help me with birthday preparations and child watch while Craig and I got a few (or more!) hours of work in over the two week span, and of course that comes with all the Grandma Sue benefits of toy sorting, house re-organization, and fun birthda ..read more

Another small life shift for our everyday household, that really only impacts me and Craig at this point, is the new and improved bedtime routine. Since the girls were getting out of cribs and into toddler beds, for more than three years, every single night either Craig or I have sat in the comfy sofa chair in their bedroom after lights out and until everyone fell asleep. We both had different music playlists and rotated through song requests until the snoozing began; sometimes when they were smaller it involved quiet singing as well. For at least two of those years, every time I sat we listen ..read more

Last week Craig inspired me to do a fun visit to the girls’ school for an educational work demonstration, to show off my office’s new Boston Dynamic robot dog. The dog’s name is Aurora, named after her custom northern lights inspired skin, and will be testing out airfield wildlife mitigation in Fairbanks under a research and development project. For folks my age, the creep factor is real when you are up close and personal with such a “creature;” and at the same time it is really cool what technology can do these days. At least ten parents have asked me questions the past few days about the vis ..read more

Life over the past month continues to stay very busy! I started writing small notes to myself of the latest with the girls, knowing I will forget what lovely life tidbits to include as I muse about our daily life. Since I last wrote a blog, 10 new Bluey episodes were released in the United States. This is clearly a worthy milestone to mention, since we marathoned them like an adult would for a new season of their own show, and within a few days the girls were already asking for episodes by name. No, we don’t watch television allll the time and yes, we love that the episodes are only a few minu ..read more