8:30 AM

Last night as I was putting Noelle to bed she said she was going to try to sleep in today. I thought that was a great idea! So what were the girls doing at 8:30 this morning? ....

...not sleeping

I sent Sadie out to water plants and things got a little out of hand. I had a whole list of reasons to stop them: 1) It's not even hot yet 2) your wasting water 3) you have your clothes on 4) it's only 8:30.

And then my non-practical side spoke up and said "They're having fun and it's not hurting anything." So my girls are onto their second set of clothes for the day and I'm celebrating my non-practicality.

Catching Up

The last 3 weeks have been full of fun and activities. I could have written a lot about each thing but there simply hasn't been time. Sooo, here are some pictures to highlight what's been going on with us.

First off, Noelle had her ballet/tap dance recital at the beginning of June. It's hard to resist a handful of 5-6 year-olds in tutus.

Here she is after the performance with her teacher, Ms. Leah

Then the girls and I flew to VA to spend some time traveling around to visit friends and family. Our first stop was to meet my new niece - Maysyn Sauder.

Then we spent the day with a college buddy and her 2 girls (and soon-to-arrive boy). There was a local dairy farm that was having a special event, so we spent the afternoon there. The girls held a baby chick, crawled through a straw tunnel, took a wagon ride, sampled chocolate milk, played on the playground, saw lots of farm animals and...
...got to milk a "cow".
After our farm experience, we headed back to my hometown, Winchester, VA, for some sophisticated fun. Brad joined us and we got to celebrate "Great Judy's" (Brad's aunt)70th birthday at a fabulous restaurant along with other family and friends. Here she is with her grandson, Zach. She doesn't look 70, does she?

Then our family traveled to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for the annual Sauder Week at the Beach. Since my younger brother and wife just had a baby, it was just by older brother with his wife and 3 kids, my parents and us. We had fabulous weather and were able to get in the ocean everyday, at least once. We had a great time riding bikes, taking walks, building/digging in the sand, splashing in the waves, watching HGTV, riding rides, visiting with one another and eating lots of fattening food.

One of the sand creations with Brad, brother Dustin, Noelle, Kalysta and Payton

Here's all of us (who were at the beach)

the 4 girl cousins watching a movie before bed. The 3 older girls slept together 1 night.

Everyone had SUCH a good time. Soon after we got home Noelle made her feelings be known with a sign in her window.

(I wish I were with my cousins)

Noelle's Last Day of Kindergarten

Yesterday was Noelle's last day of Kindergarten. It was such a good year and we were both sad to say good bye to her wonderful teacher and an especially caring bus driver and bus assistant. She had Field Day during her final week and I was able to get some pictures:

Teacher, Mrs Dreyer, with Noelle

Noelle, with some classmates

Her special bus driver and assistant

The kids made special shirts to wear for Field Day. It has her school name and year on it and she got to put on the stars.

FIRST day of school. Oh, how they change in just a few short months!

It Could Be a Looong Summer

Noelle invented a new game and wanted Sadie to play with her. I was rather suspicious from the get-go considering the name of the game was "Queen and Servant".

Guess who got to wear a long, flowing gown? Noelle
Guess who got to sit in a custom made 'throne'? Noelle
Guess who sat on her throne ordering servants around? Noelle
Guess who was NOT impressed? Sadie

The pictures speak for themselves:


At one point she needed help buttoning up the back of her dress so she came to me and said, "Excuse me maid, could you help me?" ....Uh, no.

If this is the treatment Noelle's expecting during her summer break, we're in for a looong summer.
After I captured it all on film, I made sure she got the chance to serve us by doing some cleaning :)

Whoopie Pies

I don't know if the rest of the world knows about Whoopie Pies, but if you grew up Mennonite, like I did, any Mennonite girl worth her salt knows how to make Whoopie Pies. I think Nabisco came out with Cakesters recently and although I've never tried one, I think it's a similar concept. I guess they hired a Mennonite Keebler elf.
The girls are very excited about their Whoopie Pies - I make them about every 2 years so I don't think either of them remember them.

Don't ask me where the name came from. I don't know. But it sure is fun to say:)