Easter candy everywhere!

What a busy extended weekend we've had! Grace and Faith had off of school last Friday through this past Tuesday, so we found plenty of things to keep busy with!

We started out Thursday night with a little bit of crafting. The girls stayed busy in school that day by celebrating it Luau style, so they came home in their swimsuits all riled up. I thought ahead of time (for once)...and bought a few crafts to do together that night after they cleaned their rooms. I bought two little wooden treasure boxes for them, a little birdhouse for me, and lots of paint and brushes! Both Grace and Faith spent a good hour and a half painting their boxes JUST RIGHT! (And my birdhouse turned out pretty neat too!)  Then Mema (Grandma Susie) stopped over to say hi before bed, and then the girls put on skirts and serenaded me right before bed.

Decorating little boxes

Dancing the night away!

Friday was also busy. Little Zaria turned seven! So of course, we had to wrap her present, hang out and have dinner with her and her family, and enjoy cupcakes and sing happy birthday with the other neighborhood girls.

Netalya, Faith, Shaylin, Grace, Zaria

Cupcakes with Zaria

After EATING cupcakes, we were invited to Mema's to MAKE cupcakes! So we headed over to make springtime cupcakes, decorate them...AND to color easter eggs. Grace and Faith made sure every person in our family had to have their name on an egg in some way, shape, or form. We had: Mema, Mama, Andy, Grace, Faith, Jasper, and Digit (the last two are our kitties).

Saturday morning we had to get up early to get ready for the annual Easter egg hunt at Taylor Park in Rosendale. We've gone every year since Grace was 2, and we have a lot of fun playing with all of the school friends and neighbors (the candy, juice, and bubbles are a plus too). Of course, the Easter Bunny has been a favorite of Faith's since she was just a Tiny.

Faith, Netalya, Ashley & Zaria, Grace

Jason swinging Grace, Julie, and Netalya

Off the the bowling alley we had to go! My friend's little Tyler was turning four, and invited the girls for bowling and pizza. Bumper bowling only for little Faith, and Grace SWEARS she can do it without bumpers, but they both had a blast meeting new kids.

Of course, once we got home, Netalya knocked on our door and wanted to play, and since the girls hadn't seen Andy all day, they all wanted to play. Wrestling and tickling ensued for the next hour!

It got late and we shooed Netalya home so we could color eggs for the Easter Bunny. We tried a tie-dye technique, but it was pretty messy, so we improvised and got messy. All in all over the weekend, we colored 3 dozen eggs. (Believe it or not, now on Friday, the eggs have all been eaten).  Grace and Faith thought it would be nice to leave a cupcake for the Easter Bunny when he came to hide all our eggs and their baskets. The Easter Bunny (Andy) had to eat both of them because Mommy went to a friend's birthday that night. But it was very nice of the Easter Bunny to write both the girls a note back to read the next morning. Can you believe it?! The Easter Bunny ran into the Tooth Fairy that night, and he said she was very nice!

Sunday...Easter morning brought baskets and eggs and gigantic chocolate bunnies...and pretty Easter girl dresses. We stopped to Mema's for pictures and more baskets, then headed to Andy's family's house for ANOTHER Easter egg hunt and a huge and delicious meal.

 After all was said and done, we had Easter fireworks! Zaria brought out sparklers to share.

Monday morning was BEAUTIFUL! So we met outside with Zaria and her mom and baby sister for some springtime funtime. Zaria received a bubble machine for her birthday, so we went through a few gallons of liquid on the front porch! Then when Andy got home from work, they dragged us all down to "buttcheek hill" to play. There were a lot more children there than usual, and we had a blast.

Zaria, Andy, Cole, Abby, Shawn, Benson, Faith

Wednesday was Grace's first PeeWee baseball practice this year. This is her second year in Little League, and she absolutely loves it! With a brand new glove in hand, she was off to practice with Zaria and The Badgers team.

Great job, honey!

"the Badgers"

 Practice went late, and dinner was late, and we were tired. We tried watching tv together, but Faith fell asleep on Andy's lap...I just HAVE to share this cute picture.

sleepy buddies...

Now it's finally Friday. We had Netalya over after school til bedtime, then they fell asleep hard. Not much planned for crummy weather tomorrow, but Andy has a race on Sunday if the sun can manage to stay out!

Have a great weekend....we love you all!!!

What a fun and busy Sunday!

We did so much today that I just HAD to post! It was a cold, damp, and windy one, but we sure made the most of it! Last night we had dinner at Connie's (Andy's mom) house and stayed the night because of course the girls wanted a sleepover. We had an amazing taco hot dish, which both Grace and Faith surprisingly tried and liked, topped off with banana cream pie! Yum! The girls and I stayed up late watching "Tangled" for the umpteenth time...then crawled into bed together until 7:30 this morning.

After breakfast, we discovered that Skip (Andy's dad) decided it was too cold to take the dragster to the track today due to poor track conditions. (The track has to be at least 60 degrees because the track gets slippery when it's too cold). :( We were all pretty disappointed that we wouldn't get to see Andy race...but the girls missed being out at Wisconsin International Raceway that we headed out around 10:30 anyway.

After getting in, we heard over the P.A. system that there would be no actual racing today, but only tech and tune...and timed runs. The races are all done on a handicap, which means that each racer decides in what time the car will get to the finish line...street cars and junior dragsters are a bit slower, doing a eighth mile around 8 to 10 seconds and the top cars doing between 5 to 6 or 7 seconds. So, each car gets to do practice runs to see what the average timed run is for the day, and decides their time from there (the driver is eliminated if they go faster than their time).

Anywho...so we were kind of glad that Andy wasn't missing any races, but bummed that we didn't see any races. It was good to see everyone out there again after the long winter and to catch up. Grace spent her time running around and climbing on all of the bleachers (her favorite thing to do out there). Faith had a BLAST checking out all of the junior dragsters, talking to a few younger girls that race and looking at their cars/paint jobs/racing suits. She has decided that she wants to race when she is eligible at 8 years old...and most likely Skip will build her a car like he did when Andy was a kid. More on that later. We each grabbed a hot dog and an order of fried cheese curds, watched a few cars go down the track from atop the bridge over the starting line, then decided it was much too cold and took off for home.

Track dogs are pretty good...

After a little lazy time and a delicious brinner (breakfast for dinner), we took the girls to "buttcheek hill" park. It's just 3 blocks away and that's what the neighborhood kids call it because it has two hills connected and it looks like, well, you know :) And of course they had to invite Zaria, Netalya, and her sister Shaylin from next door! So off we went on rollerblades, bikes, and foot. 

walkin' with poppa bear

Halfway there, we ran into more school children that had to tag along...Richard and Zakk. Richard is in the 1st grade with Grace, Zaria and Netalya. Zakk is in four year old kindergarten with Faith. The boys are usually found with our girls playing in the front yard, or at the park. It was pretty chilly, but we all had a blast. The favorite is to have Andy push the merry-go-round really really fast!

Faster, Andy, faster!!!

gettin' dizzy!

Good and dizzy! Faith, Zakk, Zaria, Shaylin, Grace, Richard, and Netalya (and Andy!)

After they all got good and dizzy, they played ball tag on the hill and had races down the hill. Overall just really super great fun! I tried uploading a video...but it took too long. I'll try posting it on facebook.

Here are a few more pics from the park:

the kids on the left cheek!  :)

The first grader crew: Netalya, Grace, Zaria, Richard

Momma snuggin' Faith, keeping warm!

lil' twins: Zaria and Grace

BFFs! Zaria, Grace, Netalya

Then as the older kids took off toward home, Faith, Andy and I played follow the leader ALL the way home. Andy said once we were thoroughly winded when we got home, we should start a new exercise plan..."follow the leader diet and exercise!" 20 minutes a few times a week! Guaranteed to lose weight in a few short weeks! We were pooped :)

Well, this is a long one, but I got such great pictures, I had to include them. 

The girls are sound asleep, fell asleep before their pretty little heads hit the pillow! Good night to all...

April showers bring...

pretty little girls with umbrellas!!! Although it's cold and raining, the girls couldn't be more excited to get home from school and play outside with their friend/neighbor/best friend Netalya. It's funny, without fail, every Wednesday and Friday, we arrive home from school and hang up their coats and backpacks. As they start emptying their folders of the days' work, a knock comes on the door. "Come in, Netalya!" We know it's her :)

We've known Netalya since the very first day we moved to the neighborhood, 9 days before Faith was born. Netalya stood in the doorway of her downstairs apartment as we moved in directly upstairs. At two years old, Grace found out "Ta-ta" (as Netalya's older sister, Shaylin, called her) was only two months younger than her. Needless to say, they were fast friends...and are inseperable still 5 years later after two moves (we live next door to each other now).

So it's from an empty nest I write tonight, as Netalya steals Grace and Faith for yet another sleepover! I can't say no to three pairs of big blue eyes! So they quickly (sloppily) cleaned their bedroom and stuffed their backpacks full of toys, videogames, pillowpets, and jammies, grabbed their umbrellas, and skipped off to girlie-dom...

Faith, Netalya & Grace with their umbrellas.

Welcome to Living with Grace and Faith!!!

Ok...first of all, thanks for reading...and thanks to my cousins Jennifer and Jessica for the idea to start a blog about life with their children. I thoroughly enjoy reading each and EVERY entry they post and look forward to new blogs daily to see how the kiddos are doing. I thought...what a better way to somehow keep track of events, pictures, funny things kids say, and overall craziness of living with my daughters than to keep a blog?! That way, maybe the kids can look back and enjoy this when they're older (and because we tend to forget things with time)!

So I will try to get on here a few times a week with updates and pictures on family life with the girls...hope you enjoy!

"I'm FIVE!!!"

My studious and artistic Gracie.

Just a snippet on today...the girls had their friend, Zaria, over for dinner tonight. Zaria is in Grace's first grade class and happens to live in the same quadplex as we do. (Grace and Zaria are nearly twins with their pretty long blonde hair and crazy antics!) I thought it'd be nice for Zaria's mom to have a little quiet for an hour, as she has a one month old baby girl upstairs. All three girls were stoked to be eating together (roast "beast" leftovers). Man, I thought my girls fought at the table! They were more interested in teasing each other and arguing with each other than eating. So as I stepped outside to clean up the sidewalk chalk, I heard screaming and ran back in. No injuries...just a food fight. Needless to say, Zaria went home and Grace and Faith didn't get dessert :) 

We are all looking forward to this weekend as it is opening week at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna where Andrew will be taking his shiny new dragster down the quarter mile track for the first time! He and his father, Skip, bought the car in pieces and build it themselves from the ground up, will a little help from the folks at the track... They've been building cars together since Andrew was 11 years old and raced a junior dragster. The last four years he has teamed up with Skip's friend Mike Kuepper, a.k.a. Kuepperman, and has driven Mike's top eliminator Manza.  So we're all excited Drew has his own car now and to see how he does. Grace and Faith are thrilled to get back to the racetrack...they enjoy the company of all the teams, especially the kids that run juniors, it's like another family out there. Because Drew has tech and practice the day before the race, we will be staying at his mother Connie's up in Neenah, which the girls are also happy about (sleepover!!!) so I'm sure more craziness will ensue.

Grace and Faith with the Monza...

So welcome to the first of many blogs on living life with Grace and Faith!

Much love to all our family and friends!