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I think this counts as the first time I’ve “fixed” Sarah’s hair:

She just about has enough to do something with! She wanted it down before very long, though.

As you can see, Anna decided to go all out and fix up her hair and her clothes:

She was getting ready for a party, she said. :)

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I sew sometimes. Not very well, and not very often, and definitely not very efficiently. But I had this idea to try to make a swimsuit cover-up for Anna out of a towel, and I thought certainly I wasn’t the first one to have this brilliant idea, so I went Googling… and I found a great tutorial! It’s even cuter than what I had envisioned, and the pieces are all rectangles and the seams are all straight lines, so that’s my kind of sewing!

Next I’m going to make one for Sarah from the other end of the towel. Maybe I’ll even start making them to sell! At the rate I sew, I’d have to charge about $100 each to make a decent hourly wage… you think I’d have any takers? Nah, neither do I. :)

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I’ve run a few 5Ks before, but this year I’ve been working towards the Toad Suck 10K. And wouldn’t you know it, they have a “Tadpole Trot” for the little’uns, so we asked Anna if she would like to run in a real race like Mommy, and she unhesitatingly said yes! So I ran my first 10K and Anna ran her first race on the same day!

I finished in about an 11-minute mile pace, which is slower than my usual, but it was hot and VERY humid, so my goal was to keep trotting along at a reasonable pace that would enable me to finish the thing on my feet instead of a stretcher.

Mommy and Anna!

The “Tadpole Trot”:

Getting into the spirit of things with our t-shirts:

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This past weekend, we finally got this neglected, overgrown, who-knows-what’s-lurking-in-there corner of the yard cleaned out, edged, and mulched. It looks like a flower bed, but the ground is not prepared to plant anything in it because my intent is to use it as a container garden. If I am to have any hope of growing things successfully, I think my best shot is containers. Containers that are just steps from the back door and right next to the watering hose.

Anyway, Anna said, “I like the new garden!” Aww, thanks honey. “Now we need to plant some flowers in it. You want me to help you do that today?” Well, my eager aspiring gardener had to wait a couple of days, but on Monday, we walked (yes, walked! I love this neighborhood!) down to the hardware store to let her pick out some flower seeds. She chose marigolds. Not my favorite, but I think they aren’t too hard to grow.

Let’s hope something sprouts!

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Look who turned four today! We had a big, full day. David took off work and we went to The Wonder Place and then Chick-fil-A for lunch, two of her favorite places! That pretty much wore both girls out, so naps were in order as soon as we got home. After nap, we went to The Ride to get a bike helmet for Anna, then we came home and presented her with a new (to her, anyway; it was a hand-down from a friend!) bicycle. David helped her try it out, and before long, she had really gotten the hang of it! When Sarah gets older, we’ll have to get the whole family outfitted and start biking as a family. After a spin on the bike, Nana and Granddad (who had just arrived from Colorado for the birthday weekend) took her out to dinner.

Here are some pics from the day:

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I got Anna a “Big Sister” shirt a while back, which she has been wearing proudly. Recently, while shopping at Rhea Lana’s consignment sale, I happened upon the exact same shirt with “Little Sister” on it in Sarah’s size. I couldn’t pass that up now, could I?

And one more, not in “sister” attire, but kind of funny:

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It will be hard to top last year’s Snowpocalypse, as it came to be known, but we got an inch or so a couple of days ago—enough for Anna to don the now-too-short snowsuit and get out in it. And the parenting medal goes to David for getting out there with her while I stayed inside and took pictures from the window. :)

I woke up in “snow day mentality,” in which I basically throw off all attempts at productivity and goof off. I even stayed in my pajamas. That lasted until about 10 A.M., when I just had to get dressed and put on some makeup. The girls managed to stay in theirs all day though.

It’s much better from in here, right Sarah? :)

(I know that would be a better picture if the window weren’t so filthy. With 2 kids and 3 dogs, it stays clean for about 5 minutes after I Windex it.)

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We love dogs around here, as my long-time readers already know. Well, Sarah says two things quite frequently—”mama” (which can mean me, or just that she’s unhappy about something and the status quo needs to change), and “woof woof” when she sees a puppy dog! (Actually, she seems to think ALL animals say “woof woof,” but we’ll get that straightened out later.)

This isn’t the best, but you can kind of hear her saying it if you turn up the volume:

And in other dog news… do you remember “Pound Puppies”? Well, I didn’t have those. :) I had the “Kennel Kuddles” from Wal-Mart, and they were great. I kept them, and I just put together a little puppy playset for the girls. There are some baby washcloths for blankets, some silver condiment cups for food bowls, a baby hair brush, and a doctor kit to play “vet.”

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This morning, as usual, Anna wanted to know where we were going. And as usual, when the answer was “nowhere,” she was ready to help me out with a suggestion. This morning she came up with this:

“Let me think where we could go… maybe we could go buy a present for a little girl.”

“What little girl?” I asked.

“Maybe in Africa…”

“Oh, you mean a little girl who doesn’t have any toys?”

“Yeah.”

Oh, what a sweet spirit she has! She was remembering back to some charitable giving we did before Christmas, when I told her these presents were for “a little girl who doesn’t have any toys” and I threw out Africa as a possible destination. And when her grandparents took her to buy a doll “for a little girl” and they dropped it off at a local toy drive. Apparently she thought that was pretty cool. May she continue that desire to give to others all through the year!

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