Sunday, June 30, 2013

Playset Under Construction!

Both girls love to be pushed high and tell us so frequently!

The girls are so excited about their new swing set!  The slide has been together all week but they were able to enjoy the swings for the first time this weekend.  They just LOVE having this in the backyard and we do too!  Once the roof is on it will be complete!
 
Splashing around on a hot day!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Todd's in NY & Todd's in OH

This weekend half of our family traveled to Ohio to be with the Hooley's.  Stella and Daddy ventured off on a trip to help with their church's 'Believe in Belize' golf tournament to raise money toward a mission trip Dan will be going on with several youth group members this summer.  Based on a few phone conversations it sounds like the tournament went great and that Stella is having a fun time with her cousins!  Mommy and Claire stayed home this weekend and they had fun too - at Bella's birthday party on Saturday and dinner with Aunt MJ and Uncle Neil on Sunday.  It's definitely different having just one little girl toddling after you rather than two, but having time one-on-one with the girls has also been a special treat.  Everyone's looking forward to seeing each other again tomorrow night though!

Earlier this week going for a walk on campus after Mommy finished work

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Happy Father's Day 2013

As we've heard Dora sing over and over again this week 'Feliz dia de los padres' today is Father's Day!  Our girls are so fortunate to have a 'new school' dad! (at least that's what we call it)  Millennial dad's are involved with their children's lives in very different ways than previous generations and our house is no exception.  Stella and Claire are blessed with a lot of quality time with their dad - all summer vacation, the commute to and from daycare most days, at school events, shopping trips with the whole family - even if it's just to the grocery store, golf lessons (yes, they've already started!), story time, and bedtime snuggles.  There's no parenting task I do that Randy won't and for that I'm very grateful.  I know our girls are going to really look up to and appreciate their dad when they are older and all of this time they have together now will bring back such fond memories for them!

We want to give a big shout out to all of the people who helped us out this Saturday.  Although I wasn't home most of the day it was really productive around our house!  Thank you to Adam Britton and the McCarthy family for helping Randy start the huge project of putting together the girls new swing set.  The rain put off any hope of continuing work on it today but we have a great start thanks to everyone's help.  Thank you to Aunt Mary Jane and 'Niece for looking after the girls while everyone was preoccupied.   And lastly but certainly not least, thank you to cousin Logan for putting together Claire's new dresser.   We are so blessed to have such great family and friends in our lives who continually support us!


Sunday, June 9, 2013

Cousins!

Cousins, from left to right: Haley, Skye, Stella, Claire, Cailin, Dana, and Logan!
 
We had a terrific week spending time with all of our cousins.  We are so glad everyone was able to visit NY and that we could spend time with family and friends.  We finished off the week with a surprise celebration for papa's 60th birthday - great fun was had by all!






Sunday, June 2, 2013

Parade Week

Claire-Bear snuggling with Papa before bed


This week the girls were able to enjoy not one but two parades!  Spending time with Grammie and Pa in Canton for both made them all the more fun!

Claire's Memorial Day T-Shirt
On Monday we watched the Memorial Day Parade.  Grammie was in the parade as usual and Stella thought seeing her march by was pretty neat!  Neither of the girls seemed bothered by the volleys of shots in memory and honor of our fallen soldiers.  The Boyscouts were handing out flags and the girls caught on to waiving the red white and blue pretty quickly.While the girls are a little young to truly understand the meaning of this important day we hope the parade will become an annual tradition for them just as it was for us when we were growing up.  For this year we made some fun t-shirts and just watched the groups pass by. 






Waiting on the street for the Memorial Day Parade





This weekend was the Dairy Princess Festival in Canton.  On Friday night Grammie and I took the girls to the park to see the Big Wheel Race.  Stella will be old enough for this next year so we thought it would fun for her to see it.  There was a lot of excitement in the park.  We had some dinner there and the girls played in the bounce house for the little kids.  Claire loved it so much it was hard to pull her away from it!  On Saturday Aunt Mary Jane and Grammie came along with us to the parade.  (I really enjoyed their company but I was also so very grateful for their help because Daddy's out of town coaching golf).

The girls completely wiped out after a fun day
at the Dairy Princess Parade.
Stella hanging out waiting for Claire
to come out of the van after a quick trip to the store.




















The girls are getting really exited for another fun week.  The Perrin's will be visiting from Hawaii this week so we'll be spending more time at Grammie and Pa's house.  The Hooley's will be coming in for the weekend too so it should be lots of fun!