On Wednesday, Emily comes home early from school. This allows for a short nap for her and a joint craft or activity with Emily and Julia. This particular day they agreed to paint. They have Disney on the brain, not sure why that is, and picked out a Mickey and Minnie window art to paint. They had a blast! Just fun to remember.

We were invited to the wedding of someone we have known for years and Mama had babysat. The wedding and reception were a lot of fun and the girls enjoyed it a lot. It is hard to be with a bride in that big white dress and not captivate little girls. Our girls filled their bellies with more candy than food and then played with coloring, legos, crafts, photo-booth fun, Mad-libs (I hear Emily’s was awesome and she wrote it herself), and DANCING. There were some high school girls hanging out with the kids and they took them to the dance floor and set them loose. The girls have been making up their own line dances for weeks since the wedding. Their Daddy danced with them too before it got too rambunctious on the dance floor.

Our Friday morning playdate took us to the zoo. We were joined by our friends plus one who was out of school for the day. The weather was great and the whole trip was lots of fun. Here are some photo highlights.

"Hello little one, how about we play for the day?" She was a great sport, played in the sand, and took a nap during lunch time.

Introducing Mr. Bieber. He was awake and playing instead of his usual sleeping pose.

Mr. Giraffe was closer to the fence than usual. Actually, he was right up at the edge when we came over, but of course got shy for his photo op.

The three silly girls who just hatched from the super egg.

I like to think that Maeve is the queen of this nest.

The girls checking out the new lion exhibit fence-side.

Elena on her pretty pony.

Julia’s choice was the Red Panda. She appears excited with her choice.

Maeve’s choice was a Zebra, I wonder if her tights influenced her desire for a striped animal.

We spent a while in the sand. It seemed a fun activity and one that Thea could also enjoy.

Daddy was playing baseball with his girls after work and school one day. The girls had their turn at hitting, but decided it was Daddy’s turn. Before the photo was taken the ball had to be fetched off the roof twice. Not too bad for hitting a tiny ball thrown by little girls.

There are many seasons we celebrate, but around here we celebrate Consignment season twice a year. This is the time where we organize all the clothes, toys, shoes, and baby stuff that we have outgrown and sell it to other people looking to save money on seasonal wardrobes and other things they need. In return we purchase clothes, shoes, and toys that bigger kids have outgrown. Because of the time commitment required for working, shopping, and just getting ready for the sale there is no way to not involve our kids. In fact, when Emily realized that she would miss out on the main shopping day she was quite disappointed. This Fall’s sale went really well both for cool finds and sales. The girls did well in supporting Mama too.

At drop-off Mama ran into our friends. The kids checkout out some of the toys. We had fun playing while their Mama put away her sale items.

For all the good spirits and helpfulness, there was a bit of a breakdown after we missed our nap. At this point, Julia had thought sorting had taken too long and she would rather watch a movie. A photo of the stubborn little girl seemed like the only appropriate response.

Julia made a new friend while we were at lunch. Sweet Frog was a sweet frog. 😉

Julia eagerly volunteered to help Mama snap green beans. She also stuck with it longer than expected. On our first round, Mama took care of the ends and Julia just snapped them into smaller pieces. This was not enough on the second batch though. She wanted to try her hand at the whole process. She definitely wore out faster having to do all the steps, but it was awesome that she was so eager to help her Mama. The green beans are more fun to eat later if you pitch in to help in the process.