A Summer to Remember

Maybe the title for this post should be "A Year to Remember." My posts are so far and few between I need to try to remember all that has happened for the whole year.


So first of all a recap of the 2011-2012 school year. Lily and Addison were in Kindergarten at Prairie Vista Elementary. Lily was in Mrs. Lord's class and Addison was in Mrs. Hammond's. Many people have asked me if the school separated the girls. Yes, but I could have requested that they be put together. Mike and I thought they'd do well separately, and they did.

At the beginning of the year we felt they should be dropped off and picked up by Mom and Dad. The very first day, Mike dropped them off and got misty as he watched his two babies go off to their first day of real school. Kelsey and I arrived early to pick them up and caught them as they were making their way to the buses. I said "Whoa, you are riding home with me." but by that time they were determined to ride the bus. Kelsey and I returned home and waited for the bus arrival. As fate would have it, the bus drove past our house to the driveway. Well, this passing by our house freaked the girls out and they decided the bus was not for them. That lasted for months, then one day Addison asked to ride the bus home again. After a few days, Lily decided she would also ride the bus home. Then in the Spring, they decided to start taking the bus in the morning too. After a full year, we all think we like the bus!


Kelsey's school year was eventful. She started the year at Bridges School in Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings class with Miss Molly and Miss Jen. For about a month we had tearful goodbyes, but eventually Kelsey realized she enjoyed school. Then at the beginning of January we received word that Bridges would be closing at the end of the school year. The owner had sold the building to Logan Center to be used as a facility for Autistic children. We started looking for a replacement and decided to check out the Early Childhood Development Center at Notre Dame and Salem Preschool which is a small school located about 20 minutes away at a Methodist Church. In late January we went to an open house at ECDC. We'd heard stories of people being wait listed for ECDC and discovered we could get current family status for next fall if we got Kelsey in to class right away. Luckily there was a spot available Tues/Thurs afternoons in a 3s class. Unfortunately Kelsey kind of hated it. I didn't love it either. Kelsey hated the hour rest time where most of her classmates slept and she had to play quietly on her cot. A whole hour. That is a lot of sit and play time for a 3 year old. I didn't love the fact that Kelsey was the oldest child in the class, many of the children were still in diapers and that Kelsey was having nap time when she didn't need it. She had dropped naps over a year before then. Well, again we had tearful goodbyes each school day.

Ultimately for the upcoming school year, we've decided Kelsey will again attend ECDC. She will be in a 4/5 M-F class where she will be one of the youngest children. She'll go in the morning when there is no nap time (Yay!) Those factors combined with the fact that Mike will be able to drive Kelsey to school on his way to work will be great. Although we REALLY liked Salem, their Pre-K class filled up so Kelsey couldn't be in it and the drive back and forth was a big negative.

A brief statement about Addison and Lily's Kindergarten class. As new parents to real school, you just don't know what to expect or what you'll get with teachers. And our experiences could not have been more on the ends of the spectrum. Mrs. Lord has been teaching for a long time. She is loved for her warmth and compassion. Mrs. Hammond is a relatively new teacher. I loved her organization. Each week the girls came home with homework. Some was the same, some different. Addison would get one worksheet one week and Lily would come home with the same one the next week. I'd swear we saw some worksheets 3 times! Mrs. Hammond's class kept to a schedule. We could depend on Addison keeping to that schedule. By the end of the year we just kept Lily on the same schedule to make it easier on us!

The bus provided opportunities for new friends. Lily became friends with Olivia Nilles who lives a block away. We've exchanged many play dates since they struck up a friendship. Addison became friends with Michael Tapp, a first grader. They have decided to get married someday. Michael has also come to our house to play.

Academically Lily is excelling. She's probably reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level now. Mathematically Lily is probably at grade level, or a little better. Addison's academics are more of a struggle now. At the beginning of the year, she refused to even talk to Mrs Hammond, so testing didn't go so well. By the end of the year Mrs. Hammond felt that Addison's reading was at grade level. But that Addison needed a little help on math. So this summer Addison has been getting tutored by Mrs. Hammond one day a week. This summer we've seen Addison's reading improve greatly, and she's definitely doing OK with math as well. Kelsey, as always, is working to keep up with her sisters. She's reading books along with them and has mastered more books this summer than either of her sisters. Her math abilities are still emerging.

Activities. Addison and Lily both played soccer in the Fall and Spring. We saw great improvement over the previous year when Addison refused to play most games. In the Spring Mike was the coach of their team and I was the assistant. Lily began the season as the team's cheerleader...while on the field. She would trail along behind her teammates cheering them on. However the last game of the season, she got a fire in her belly and scored a goal! Her mother was VERY excited on the sideline. In an attempt to keep their skill level and interest up, Addison and Lily have been going to soccer camp one day a week. One day during camp Addison scored all three goals for her team in their scrimmage! Kelsey has also started soccer. She is doing the 4 year old soccer camp one day a week. This fall, Mike will coach Addison and Lily and I will be coaching Kelsey's team. Fortunately, Kelsey's friend Abbie will be on the team too and her mom Heidi will be the team's assistant coach.

The girls also did gymnastics this year. It has been fun to see their coordination improve. They really love gymnastics and we look forward to watching their skills improve, but we don't expect the Olympic team to need to save a spots for them.
This summer began our foray into dance. Addison and Lily are taking a Ballet 1 class. Kelsey is taking a Creative Movement class. Addison and Lily and their class are quite good at following the teacher's lead. Kelsey is a great listener and also follows along quite well. They have all decided they want to continue ballet for the school year. This is great except for the cost. With three girls the $ really add up!

Also this summer all three girls have taken swim lessons. We were shocked when the second day of class had Addison and Lily jumping off the diving board. They've also been learning strokes and diving into the pool. It is so nice to feel comfortable letting them go into the pool by themselves with the lifeguard. Kelsey has made the most dramatic improvement this summer. At the beginning of summer she didn't want to put her face in the water. Now she can jump in from the side and swim to some one or the steps or ladder. And she loves it. She also went off the diving board during swim lessons, but hasn't gone back to it since.

Family changes: Last summer we bit the bullet and got a pupppy. Her name is Dilly. Addison suggested the name. It is one that came from a game on her Leapster Explorer. She is a goldendoodle. We got her from a breeder in Indiana named Joe Vosbergh. He was recommened by one of our neighbors whose daughter ended up in Lily's kindergarten class. She is a cute, smart dog who loves to play and jump. Unfortunately Jack, the cocker spaniel, was not a huge fan and kind of hated that she wanted to play with him. I also got a bit annoyed with Dilly who would come up behind me and bite my bottom if I wouldn't play with her.

In April, we had to put Jack down. He was having some digestive issues and $700 later we discovered he had a large mass in his abdomen. We took him home from the vet and he just layed around. In the house, then we'd carry him outside and he'd lay out there. When we picked him up, he was in pain, so we made the sad decision to let him go. Jack was an awesome dog and companion. He'd been with Mike through sad and happy times. And he endured the coonhounds and children.

Since getting Dilly we knew that when Jack was no longer with us, we would get another dog to play with Dilly. So we quickly checked rescue groups and found Biscuit (formerly known as Kioki). The group that had him only had adoptions on certain days, and that certain day happened to be Friday April 13, the day before Kelsey's birthday and birthday party. Well, we basically had decided he was the dog for us, so we all trouped off to the adoption event. The whole time we were getting to know him, the rescue people kept assuring us that he had a long day and was on edge because of that. He seemed nice enough. Totally not aggressive, but unfortunately not friendly either. The rescue folks assured us he was good with dogs and people. Well, one out of two ain't bad. Ends up he is AWESOME with Dilly. Since getting him, the two of them are constant companions and spend most of their time out in the yard. Unfortunately, Biscuit is just slowly warming up to us. At first he didn't even trust us to take treats from us. Now, he likes his treats, but the only way we can pet him is to trap him in his crate or trap him somewhere else. Hopefully by next April he'll let us pet him! We weren't even sure he'd stay with us at first. It took two people to get him to come inside. And, honestly, that wasn't going to work for us trying to get kids to where they needed to be. Fortunately, we found that if we got Dilly to come inside and go to her crate, Biscuit would follow, so we've figured out a system that works for us. We still have to work on having Biscuit come in the door and allowing us to close it behind him. One fantastic thing about Biscuit is that despite his obvious fear, he has never showed aggression towards anyone.

Mike continues to love working at ND. This Spring he had the pleasure of being asked to speak during Jr. Parent's weekend at Mendoza. Mike gave a stirring speach about "We are ND" similar to one he delivers to his student's at the last day of class. Last summer and this summer Mike has taken to biking to work one or two days a week. He is member of a bike to work team and he is leading his group in miles this summer.

My big news is that I had sinus surgery a few weeks ago. After being treated for recurring sinus infections that were not only giving me headaches and general face and tooth pain, but also making my asthma worse, it was time to bite the bullet. The procedure was outpatient and after initial pain on coming out of the anesthesia, it has been relatively painless. I'm also training for a Sprint Triathlon that I'll be doing with her awesomeness, Sara Harty, at the end of August. I've also managed to get on the Notre Dame payroll. This summer I've made updates to Mike's Accounting 20100/20200 websites for which I'm getting paid (Yay!). I continue to get paid doing contract work for ScreamFree and Solidica. (YAY!)

Travel. This year I've been fortunate enough to go to Atlanta in January for my brother Billy's 50 birthday party. I also went to Oregon in April for my brother Eddie's 25th wedding anniversary. Mike went to St Louis for an ND friend's funeral. And just went to DC to be with his mom who had Aortic valve replacement surgery. In March we all travelled to Savannah, GA to walk in the St. Patrick's Day parade with most of the Sheppard clan. We were able to spend a little time at the beach and the girls loved having time with their cousin Coleman. For spring break we took the girls up to Chicago to the field museum. We ALL loved seeing the dinosaurs. In three days we will leave in the middle of the night to drive to DC and Ocean City.

A Magical Day

We had a wonderful trip to Disney World. Absolutely fabulous. But it started and ended pretty bumpy.
The night before we were due to leave, I suggested to Mike that we get our boarding passes for our flight. Mike sat as his computer for a while and when I looked over, he was rubbing his eyes, a bit despondently. I asked if something was wrong. "Yes. This shows that our flight was booked, but never purchased." A bit of scrambling and checking credit card statements and low and behold, yes, Mike had not actually purchased tickets for the flight the next day. Luckily there were still tickets available for flights from Chicago to Orlando on 1/1/2012. The ones at reasonable times were $200 more than the flight at 6:35a. So we decided sleep was less important than $1000 and changed our plans to get up at 2am and start our vacation.
All is well that ends well. We made the flight, got to Orlando and enjoyed some warm weather, the pool and a family nap.
The next 3 1/2 days we spent at Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Gram and Pop joined us and we had adjoining rooms at the Comtemporary Resort with views of Magic Kingdom. Each night the girls bundled up in their coats and blankets and watched the fireworks. We got to watch Cinderella's castle change colors. Lily's favorite color was the pinkish-purplish.
On Tuesday we had breakfast at Cinderella's castle. We got pictures with and autographs from Snow White, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Cinderella. Kelsey gave Cinderella a red, heart-shaped marble she found in her pocket. Lily told Belle that she is her favorite princess because she reads lots and lots of books.
All three girls enjoyed the Carousel. Lily and Addison both liked the tea cups, but Kelsey thought they were too scary. Winnie the Pooh was found to be too dark and scary. Mike's favorite is probably It's a Small World which we all agreed was MUCH better than we remembered. Addison and Lily rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Although she looked rather petrified the whole ride and was relieved when the ride was over, Addison declared that it was almost "too much fun for me" and asked to ride it again. Lily went on Splash Mountain with me. Although she laughed quite a bit when my glasses were covered with water droplets, Lily stated she would never, ever ride that again after surviving the 50 foot drop.
A fun game we played was guess the color of the monorail. Whenever we were waiting for a monorail, we'd each pick a color (orange, pink, red, blue...). Whoever guess right got a "WooHoo!" from the rest of us.
My favorite was the Animal Kingdom safari. Addison's too. While at Animal Kingdom, we did a character meal at Tusker House Restaurant. We were able to meet Goofy, Mickey, Donald and Daisy Duck. The meal was buffet style and I think probably all of our favorite meals for the time at Disney. Gram stood in line so the girls could meet Pluto. Pluto was very excited about Addison's light up shoes much to Addison's delight.
On Thursday we started the day with standing in a short line to meet Tinker Bell. Kelsey was able to let her know that she is her favorite fairy. We were happy to have Kelsey meet Tinker Bell as this was the one thing she hoped she'd get to do at Disney World.
After 4 hours at Magic Kingdom, we started our journey home. Addison had not been feeling well all day and didn't eat lunch. As we were waiting in a LONG line at security at the Orlando airport, Addison vomited. Fortunately a family next to us was prepared for a vomiting child and had a bag to offer us. So we didn't have too much of a mess. And we are also thankful for airsick bags on the airplane and that we could take to use for the drive from Chicago back home. After surviving the flight, waiting a LONG time for our bags to arrive, and negotiating all of our bags, stroller and children on the to shuttle bus, we made it to our car, only to discover that the battery was dead. Ugh. Luckily a security car was nearby and the driver called for help. Surprisingly this resulted in only about a 15 minute delay.
From there we had smooth sailing and arrived home late at night, but all three girls slept on the drive home and went immediately to sleep once we got them in their beds.
So a rough start and end, but an awesome trip. The girls are ready to schedule the next one already.
One sweet story from our trip home. Lily started crying as we were leaving our parking spot at the Midway airport. I asked her what was wrong. She explained that she was sad because the pixie dust that was sprinkled in her hair at Castle Couture didn't work because her wish didn't come true. I asked what she wished for. At first she started to say she wished something about Mommy and Daddy, then she changed her mind and said it was that she wished that Jack (our 9 year old cocker spaniel) wouldn't be blind anymore. What can you say to that?

Kelsey turns three

Kelsey successfully turned three years old on April 14, 2011. However her favorite thing to pretend these days is that she is five.

We had a nice week long visit with Gram and Pop that included Lily and Addison's first soccer practice and first soccer game. Thus far, Lily is playing soccer; Addison is not. Addison was willing to dribble the soccer ball a little at practice, but refused to even dress for the game. Lily played in the game and kicked the ball several times in the 8 minutes of playing time she saw. But her shining moment was when she "ran and SHOT past everybody else" including the ball and ran so fast she went right off the field.

All three girls continue to progress with reading. We bought Level 1 and Kindergarten sight words BOB books. Everyone can read Level 1 Book 1 although Kelsey still needs assistance. And they all are working on reading more. Lily came in to our bedroom this morning and announced that she read one of our library books all by herself, but thusfar she has refused to read it to anyone else, so accuracy is still in question.

A fun conversation between Gram and Kelsey occurred the other day.
Kelsey: "I have a friend named Claire and she has her own car."
Gram: "Oh, what color is Claire's car?"
Kelsey: "Red."
Gram: "Fire engine red?"
Kelsey: "No, car red."

For Kelsey's birthday we had a fun party with baby sitters, families and friends. The tiara and scepter cupcake cake was a big hit.

Hoosiers

Hello! Anyone still out there? Sorry if you are out there and have been checking for updates. Since discovering Facebook, I post little updates and info there. Feel free to look me up!

As we might have expected, the summer was a bit rough. We ended up changing our plans so we could get out of my parents' hair a little earlier. So on June 30/July 1, I drove with the girls and my neice Regan from Forsyth up to Granger. The 12 hour trip took 19 1/2 hours. Many stops were made for going to the potty. But we made it in one piece and were able to sleep in our own house. Our stuff was delivered on July 2. The girls enjoy discussing the old house and the new house. Like Carter lived next door at the old house and Aubrey lives next door at the new house. The girls LOVE Aubrey who is 11 years old and initially thought it was great to have three little girls living next door. I think she's over it now.

We are really enjoying our new house and our new situation. Since Notre Dame started, Mike has been really busy. He is teaching three sections (120 students) and is trying to be very accessible to his students. He has regular office hours in in his office and also has unofficial office hours at South Dining Hall during lunch on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. He's told the students where to find him and he's had several join him to ask questions. It sounds like now he has a couple of regulars who he loves to regale with his stories of the glory days (if you can call 2 years with Jerry Faust glory days).

We didn't realize when we bought the new house that it is less than 1/2 mile from the elementary school. So we have soccer fields and three playgrounds within easy walking distance. We have many wonderful neighbors, but the girls haven't made any great friends in the neighborhood yet. We've had a couple of play dates with a family with two daughters. They do not live in our neighborhood, but their house is a little over half a mile away, so we can walk there.

Addison and Lily have been attending The Bridges school 1 - 3:30p Monday, Wednesday and Friday since the beginning of September. And they LOVE it. They have made a few friends through school and we keep saying we are going to invite Kate over for a playdate, but we've had stomach flu and a cruddy cough going through our house, so it hasn't worked out yet. Kelsey and I take Addison and Lily to school and Mike picks them up. Kelsey also LOVES The Bridges. Most days it takes me a good 20 minutes to get her to leave the classroom with the guinea pig and leave the fun stepping stones that are outside. Finally the school administrators suggested that I bring Kelsey for Friday afternoons with the Parent's Day Out group from 12:30 - 3:30. The group is intended for 3-5 year olds, but they made an exception for Kelsey because the group isn't that big. Kelsey has been to PDO three times. The first time she was a bit reluctant, but the second day, when she saw her teacher, she went running to her and gave her a big hug.

I noticed in my last post that Kelsey was in the I want to do it "all to myself" stage. Thankfully she is over that and will allow Mike and I and her older sisters to do stuff for her. Kelsey continues to amaze us with how sharp she is. She remembers words to songs better than Mike and me. She loves playing with our iPhones and managed to reset Mike's ringer the other day. She also loves dramatic play. She will sit by herself with the princesses and palaces and conduct quite a drama with lots of talking back and forth between the princesses. She is able to spell her own name and ALWAYS recognizes the word "zoo." She is constantly practicing holding up the correct number of fingers. She can hold up 1, 2, 3, and 4 fingers properly. If there was one complaint about Kelsey...she's trying to stop napping. Fridays, naps are now out. And this weekend she went without a nap Friday, Saturday and Sunday, despite our best efforts on Sunday.

Addison read her first book the other day...The Bobbsey Twins, Freddie and Flossie and Snap. I've been encouraging both Lily and Addison to read the titles of books and then words within books. The other night, Addison read the title. Then continued on to read each page. She started off VERY quietly reading, then by the end had enough confidence to say the sentences loudly. The next night both Addison and Lily read the two Bobbsey Twins books that we have together.

Lily also read her first book the other day. It was Friday at school. Since Kelsey's class starts 30 minutes before Addison and Lily's, the three of us go to the school "library" after dropping Kelsey off. Lily picked a book to read "That's not My Snowman" and before I knew it, she read the whole book.

Addison and Lily both are getting good at reading signs while we are out and recognizing words all over the place. As Mike says "This makes Mommy very happy." We are also working on math concepts like measuring, sets, sorting, etc.

Addison has gotten out of the habit of wearing dress up clothes constantly. Until, that is, she got her Halloween costume, Silvermist (one of Tinkerbell's friends). She is quite tall and is wearing a size 6. She is almost three inches taller than Lily. Addison seems to be into winning these days. She wants to know who's picture is prettiest, who has the most marbles, who got there first, etc.

Addison is taking swimming lessons and has improved greatly in her swimming ability. Her lessons are at Notre Dame at the pool in the Rockne.

Lily loves being silly. She came out of my room the other day wearing one of my bras over her clothes. She can be quite friendly and is more likely than Addison to talk to other grown ups and children.

As for me, I am doing a bit more work these days. Some subcontracting on website projects for my friend Fritz Miller, contract work for ScreamFree, and website development for my dear husband (accounting102.com). Neither Mike or I have been exercising as much as we would like, but we do get out and run one or two times a week on average. Last night I spent a while working on taking down wallpaper. We have several rooms that need redecorating and I haven't even finished taking down the wallpaper in the first one yet.

That's it for me. Ta-Ta for now.

News, news, news

So while posting on facebook tonight, I realized I hadn't posted here in a long time. And when I checked the posts it appears I haven't even mentioned we are moving. To South Bend. Well, technically to Granger, IN which is a 15 minute drive to campus...where Mike will be teaching starting late August this summer.

And we've sold our house in Athens. Well, we have a contract and a closing date of June 15. And we've bought a house in Granger. Well, we have a closing date of June 1 or 3 for that house. But the schedule for our move is a bit crazy. Ends up the folks who currently own our new house needed to stay in the house until June 26. So, we will be without a home from June 15 to the 26. And Mike will be teaching the first summer session at Ohio University which goes until July 23.

So our schedule goes a little like this:
Movers arrive June 9 and pack up our stuff. They drive away with our belongings June 10 or 11. June 12 we drive to Asheville, NC to spend the night and a little time with our ND friends the Olingers. June 13 we drive to Duluth GA to spend a couple days with our friends the Kaplans. June 16 we drive to Forsyth GA to spend 3 weeks with Gram and Pop. June 19 Mike flies back to Ohio to teach. He returns to Forsyth the following weekend to celebrate Addison's and Lily's birthday. On July 1 I fly to Ohio and drive with Mike to Granger where we will have our belongings delivered on July 2. We spend the weekend without the girls settling into our new house. July 5 I return to Forsyth. July 9 Mike flies to Atlanta and we begin driving to our new home in Indiana. July 10 we arrive in Indiana for good. July 16 or 17 or there abouts Brenda (aka Grandma) comes to help out in Granger for a week or so.

There are actually even more moving parts than these, but this helps show the grizzly life we will be leading for the next few months.

Interesting stuff about the girls. Addison and Lily have their last week of preschool next week. We have definitely seen a few changes in them thanks to this experience. During the last story of the day Lily chooses to sit with her friend Mailey rather than her daddy. At our parent/teacher conference a few weeks back, Addison's teacher said they were starting to worry about Addison's socialization because it seemed like she was pulling back and not engaging as much as she had been. But their worries subsided when she struck up a friendship with a little boy in class. Maybe the Snow White thing is just a ruse and Addison will end up being a tom boy after all.

Today Lily drew her first real picture. She drew a tree. She drew stairs on both sides of the tree so Cinderella (aka Lily) and Snow White (aka Addison) could climb up at the same time. Kelsey will have to wait her turn. Lily is quite good these days at coloring inside the lines. Addison is still working on it and while she is working on it all of her pictures still look like scribbled pictures.

Puzzles are a favorite activity for all of the girls. Addison, when asked to do something, frequently replies with "Just a minute, I'm doing this puzzle." And literally you can count on it being just a minute or so because she is getting to be so fast at the puzzles we have. Kelsey can also do puzzles "all to herself" Sometimes she needs a little verbal assistance, but she is quite good at figuring out where pieces go and how to put them in.

I like playing the game of "I spell a word and you tell me what it is" The other day we were doing the guess the animal game (i.e. an animal that has black and white stripes and looks a little like a horse). Then I switched to what animal is spelled C-A-T. Addison and Lily both got that one quickly. Then I did D-O-G. While Addison and Lily paused for moment Kelsey spoke right up with "Dog."

Kelsey has officially hit the terrible twos. Primarily she wants to do things "all to herself," but she forgets to communicate this to Mike and myself. And when that happens she throws a tantrum. And when she does communicate what she wants she changes her mind. After going wee wee, I asked if she wanted help getting up her pants. "Yes" then when I started to pull them up, she started WAILING "I want to do it all to myself!" Then 10 seconds later through her crying she says "I need help", so I go to help her again. "NO! I WANT TO DO IT ALL TO MYSELF!" WAILING louder (if that is possible). Even Addison chimed in then and said "Why do you keep changing your mind?" Me: "Thank you, Addison. So I'm not the only one who thinks she keeps changing her mind."

Addison is a daredevil these days. She loves jumping off of things like chairs, couches and beds. She is quite tricky in figuring out exactly what she knows. The other day I wrote the sentence "My pony is blue." because she has a pony that is blue. She wouldn't read the sentence to me, but she said "It's a puppy." because she was pretending it was one of Pongo and Perdita's puppies. So I'm pretty sure she at least knew the jist of the sentence. And another day I was quizzing Lily by writing color words (red, yellow, green, black). Lily was busy sounding out B-L-A-C-K and Addison walks behind me and under her breath says "black." I just hope she doesn't hide how much she knows when she gets to real school.

Lily loves to narrate her life. Lily: "'Can I have something to eat?' asked Cinderella as she walked into the kitchen." Lily: "'I jumped down" said Cinderella bravely." Me: "Lily, are you done with your dinner?" Lily: "'No' Cinderella replied."

We are sad to be leaving our wonderful neighbors and friends in Athens. When Mike got the job at Notre Dame, he received two cards of congratulations from friends here. He commented that he had never received a congratulatory card for a job before. Kelsey and I will especially miss Carter and his mom Jenny. They live just two doors down from us and I can say with confidence that Carter is Kelsey's best friend and Jenny has been mine. I only hope that the number of swing sets that are visible from our new house are an indication of the number of children our girls will be able to befriend in Indiana.

Addison and Lily are already signed up for preschool in the Fall. They will be going to school 3 days a week in the afternoons. It should be interesting because they still take naps most afternoons. I hope it works out well.

I imagine that is plenty of news and updates for now.

Easter picture

Happy Easter

A few videos from the day. The theme of the morning was "Put the eggs in your basket."

Little Black Coonhound

So we really miss Peoopee. Kelsey definitely hasn't grasped that "Good-bye to Peoopee" meant forever. She still asks where he is and talks about him like he's going to come around the corner at any time.
One thing we haven't missed about Peoopee was constantly worrying about having food sitting on the table and counters. Peoopee could just stick his nose up over the edge of the table and snag all sorts of sandwiches, turkey, cheese, etc most times without leaving any evidence of having done so.
The other day after putting Kelsey down for a nap, I was downstairs with Addison and Lily. Addison came from the kitchen and asked intently "Mommy, why is Jack on the table?" I peered in the kitchen and low and behold there was our little black coonhound standing on the kitchen table. It appeared that he then didn't know what to do (I mean after he ate every morsel of food available there). And, yes, today, Jack was once again up on the table.