fun meet

It's no secret that the girls have a bit of a competitive streak in them. It's not out of control. In fact, I'm glad they are competitive. We are forever learning life lessons with each success and non-success.

A few months ago, the place the girls do gymnastics at, offered a "competition" day for all of it's members. Their coach suggested the girls sign up with their other classmates. Little Pie was SO excited. She wanted to do a competition so bad and she wanted to earn that trophy. 

Unfortunately, we didn't do it. It was a 2.5 hour commitment and it was the morning of Palm Sunday. I told the girls we might try it another time, but that we already had commitments for the day.

Little Pie has NOT let me forget that I didn't sign her up for the competition. 

So now I had to be on the look out for a similar experience to satisfy her need desire to try a competition. The swim school the girls go to offers a Fun Meet every few months, so we signed up for it.

Little Bird had a trillion and two questions before the meet. Who am I swimming with? Who is my teacher? Which lane am I in? Why am I not with Little Pie? When is it my turn? What are the rules?

Little Pie was laid back watching all the big kids warm up in the big pool. She had no questions except if she could do "Frank and Murrays" instead of the "Tiger Paddles". She was just ready to go.

(Sorry, but I can't get the videos to load to this post).

The girls were each in their own heats and participated in two events each. The received "fantastic", "outstanding", "awesome" and "amazing" ribbons for their participation.

It was a fun way to get introduced to competition. They have already said they want to do it again!

bikes

The girls have been putting a lot of miles on their bikes lately. It was sort of a bummer that they received them for their birthday in November and then had to put them away in the garage for several months. We tried to pull them out a couple of times in March, in between snow storms, when the sidewalks were miraculously clear of ice and snow. 

But now that it's May and the likelihood of snow is almost non-existent, the girls have been riding them every day. We will either ride them down the street to the park, or go for a long bike ride around the neighborhoods, or the girls will just ride them around in circles in the garage. They just can't get enough of their big girl bikes.

We haven't quite gotten to the point where all four of us can ride bikes at the same time, but yesterday we did go on a little family adventure. The girls rode their bikes while Rob and I walked/ran with them to the frozen yogurt shop near us (I was expecting to get more of a workout, but there was a lot of stopping). Little Bird was especially excited about this adventure and asked all day if it was time to go. She was in the lead the whole way there.

We had a DELICIOUS yogurt treat and before we could swallow our last bites, Little Bird was ready to take off again.

But before we took off, we had to stop at the neighboring Valvoline shop and get her training wheel tightened. They were so nice to help us out!

The girls got a little bit tired on the way back. It's mostly "uphill" and we were also going against the wind.

Little Bird did have a wipe out about a block from home and she wasn't keen on getting back on her bike (even though she had a wipe out last week and got right back on). I think she was pretty tired from the ride.

I think we will definitely bike for frozen yogurt again!

last day of preschool

It's mind-boggling to think that the girls have completed a year of preschool already. It seems like just yesterday they were giddy to attend the first day.

They were pretty bummed it was the last day, but I assured them that next year would be even more fun since they will get to go three days a week and see all of their same teachers and most of the same classmates.

The last week of school was pretty fun too. On Tuesday, a classmate's father, who is a firefighter, brought his fire truck and gear to school for the kids to check out. They got to climb into the truck, hear the siren and try on a helmet. The girls were pretty impressed and proud that their friend's dad was a firefighter.

We were very fortunate that the weather cooperated for their actual last day of school. Most of it was spent outdoors playing field games, planting carrots in the community garden, and drawing pictures on the sidewalk. I guess they also got to eat a popsicle while they were outside!

Thursday evening there was an all school end-of-year program in which each of the kids were individually recognized; preschool kids got a certificate and the pre-k kids got a certificate and "graduation" cap. (The girls can't wait to get one of those next year!). Gramma and Grandpa surprised the girls by taking us all out to a last day of school dinner and coming to their program.

Also at the program, everyone enjoyed watching a slideshow of the year's events. It was hysterical listening to all the kids sitting around us yelling out their friends' names when they saw their pictures on the screen. (We received a copy of the slideshow and have already watched it multiple times!)

We are so proud of the girls for having such a wonderful first year of school.

We really love the preschool they attend and are looking forward to another year. The teachers are so awesome and the girls have really bonded with all of them. Yay for school! On to summer fun!!!