Alexis turns 5!!!

I really can't believe she is 5 now! She had a blast with her party. A Disney Princess castle cake, balloons, clothes, money, workbooks, toys, science kits...she made out! We have pictures up on Facebook, but I'll have to pick some to put up on the blog.

Now I have to seriously sit down with Luke and try to figure out some homeschooling material. We technically don't have to let the school district know until she is 6, but since she is old enough for kindergarten now, we need to make up some kind of curriculum for her, and Lilly will probably just do it right along side her.

I also contacted a karate studio here in town that takes kids starting at 4, and since Lilly is so close to four, her and Lexi can do it together. It's twice a week, one small group lesson, and one private lesson, for $88/month. I am hoping to get my schedule for next week this evening and set up a time that we can all go and check out the dojo and see what the girls think. I also contacted the Wayne Center For The Arts for piano lessons, since we can start those at age 5, but I haven't heard back from anyone :(

Dancing with the kids!

Luke got out some of the lights he had from when he was a rock star and we turned our dining room into a club. It's amazing how fast Lexi picks up on lyrics, she's singing along with Blink! I guess we should start watching what we put on the speakers....

Lexi's Birthday Weekend

On Saturday, Alexis turned 4 years old. On Sunday, we had her party, and I actually got Luke to do pictures for the blog! Now if I can only tie him down so we can put up a bunch of randoms over the past few months.

Lexi had a blast, she got lots of Disney Princess and Spongebob, a Melissa and Doug dollhouse, lots of Auto B Good DVD's, crayons, art sets, play-doh, and of course clothes. Thank you to everyone that could join us! She made out with $45, so that combined with whatever Lilly gets, will buy them a swingset as a joint present, and we will make up the difference, and I think Nana and Papaw want to help out with it too. Hopefully we can get it next month as long as the weather stays on the path to warming up.

She wanted a Spongebob cake this year.

An Ariel Barbie Doll

Spongebob DVD

A Bambi Book

Her Melissa and Doug Portable Dollhouse

Lexi and Lilly goofing off.

I was trying to get them to hug each other. Silly girls!

Potty Training

Lexi was fully potty trained day and night by the time she was 2 1/2, and it was pretty easy with her. She initiated herself, and just never looked back. I have a goal to get Lilly potty trained by November, so we only have one baby in diapers, so I have casually gotten ready for her. I have a potty chart in the bathroom to put stickers on, and a bin with a few potty prizes. She didn't really seem to have much of an interest with the potty in May, but I started asking her before bed and before bath and in the morning, and she would sit for a couple minutes and tell me she's done.

Well, the past few days there has been an explosion! She is running around naked right now and has only had one accident, and it was poop. She loves getting her stickers, and her Lightning McQueen cars as prizes. I can't stop her!! It will be interesting to see how she reacts when we are out, and she will still be in a diaper at night for now, although this morning she had pulled it off and went on the potty chair in the bedroom all by herself.

And I can't leave out Lexi. We have a little potty chair that goes into the bedroom at night, and stays in the living room during the day, which she has used faithfully since not wearing diapers. She has now graduated to going into the bathroom, putting her potty seat on the big potty, getting her stool over there, climbing on the potty, doing her business, wiping, and putting everything away and flushing. So I've got potty duty going on all over the place lately! Hopefully it stays this easy.

Well-Baby Checkups

Obviously, I still don't have pictures posted (blame it on Luke). We've been busy this past week though, getting ready for Lilly's party and a photo shoot. Both went really well, I will post those in separate blog entries.

Lilly had her 2 year checkup today. I had Kendra as well, so we had to borrow Chelsea's carseat and shove all 3 in the back of the car. We had so many stares at the doctor's office, like no one has ever seen a blended family before?? or parents with multiple toddlers?? Whatever though...people can think what they want. At least no one asked if they were twins (or triplets...lol). We've had people ask us if Kendra and Lilly were twins once...and we get it all the time with Lexi and Lilly. Maybe they were just staring at Kendra's foot though, she still has her pink cast on until the 18th, just to make sure everything healed correctly.

Lexi had her 3 year checkup on April 4th, so their stats are exactly 1 year and 1 month apart in age. Lexi at 3, weighed 31 pounds, and was 38 inches tall. Lilly at 2, weighed 32.25 pounds, and was 35 inches tall. So they have a 3 inch difference in height for being 14 months apart, but Lilly weighs a pound and a quarter more than Lexi.

They both look just perfect according to the pediatrician, and are up-to-date on our delayed vaccination schedule. Lilly won't need another shot for 2 years and Lexi will get her first MMR next year at 4...unless my mind changes in the next year.

The girls will both go to the doctor's now for an annual checkup, and we will not have to see the pediatrician again until November for this new little one, unless we have a serious illness or injury with either of them.

Our Snowy Adventure and some Crafty Inspiration

We looked out the window Saturday morning to find 7 inches of snow covering everything! This is the biggest snowfall we have had of the season, so I wanted to get pictures of the girls in it. We bundled them up and took them out for about a half hour. Lilly absolutely loved it. She couldn't walk very well, but she didn't care at all. Lexi just complained about being cold, and actually started crying towards the end. We had a lot of fun though. Later that day, we had Luke's dad's birthday party to go, where I've been influenced to get into some different crafty avenues...

Luke's sister has gotten into making jewelry, and his mom is crafty in every aspect, but right now she is knitting hats and scarves and other things. Both look easy enough to do, so I'd like to experiment with them sometime in the near future. I've been getting into candle making. We made a test batch of four 4oz strawberry scented candles made from soy wax. We just purchased everything at Pat Catan's, and gave it a go with baby food jars we have collected. It was very easy to do, but the only wick Pat Catan's had for soy wax candles doesn't have any type of a core in it, so after 13 hours of burning one, our wick curved and fell into the wax and put itself out. I have the other three to my MIL and two SIL's to see what they think. It cost us about $2.3oish to make, but ordering bulk from online, we can take that cost down to $0.80ish. So I am in the process of saving some money to make that happen. We'll see how that pans out.