The big 4!

Our little Maggie hit the big number 4 on Friday! I can't believe how fast those 4 years have gone. She is such a big girl now!!! Aaron asked her when she woke up if she felt any bigger, and she pulled down the covers and looked at one of her feet and said, "I think my foot is longer!" Then later she announced that she could also jump higher! That's my girl!

We had a big day. Daddy came home from work early, mommy made Maggie's choice of a birthday dinner, macaroni and muffins, and she got to open the presents from Aaron and I. The biggest suprise of the night was when we were getting ready for bed, and we found a mysterious pile of stuffed animals in the corner. Upon further investigation, Mags discovered a large package hiding under all of them. It turned out to be a full princess bedding set from Daddy! Comforter, sheets, pillow case. She LOVED it! I was mortified because this is the one thing I said I would NEVER buy, the full on bed set of some obnoxious Disney character. But, here we are. She's happy so we're all happy. Plus, the sheet that was on her bed had multiple large holes in it and is now in the garbage can! Hooray! I made cupcakes and we sang Happy Birthday and blew out candles after dinner.

Saturday was the big party. We had 9 kids over to the house for a princess extravaganza! Mags chose to wear her new birthday outfit that she got from Uncle Gordy and Auntie Lori. So cute!!We made princess bracelets, played princess fishing, princess cake walk, and put the princess in the castle (pin the tail on the donkey-princess style!). The kids collected their prizes to fill up their goody bags. Then we had a princess crown cake and opened presents, most of which were princess something.

Thank you to everyone who sent cards and gifts in the mail. She loves getting mail so it was fun to get so many. We received many princess cards, but I have to say that Grandma's homemade princess card was the favorite...that was until Grammy's singing Ariel card arrived and Grandma's got shelved. But, we got one from Grandma Jean yesterday, a singing Itsy Bitsy Spider, and that's just as good as the Ariel one. At least now we have 1 singing card for each kid!!!

We can't wait to see everyone in a few days. Here's a few birthday pics.

Happy Birthday to Maggie! 4 years old!

This is a cool PlayMobile toy sent by Uncle Gordy and Auntie Lori. Lots of little pieces!

The birthday gang's all here..Maggie, Megan, Meghan, Raya, Jason, Daniel, Abhi, Ally, & Kyra. Cake and ice cream...yummy!

Opening presents. So many, so little time!!!!

Animal raid

Maggie came running up to me this afternoon saying, "Mommy come look...the tomato plant has gross stuff all over the frog cover (egress window cover)". I went back to look and discovered that my poor tomato plants had been raided by an unknown assailant! I presume it was a raccoon, but can't know for sure. Mags was right. There were 6-8 tomatos that had giant bites or claw marks taken out of them, and it apparently had a tomato party on top of the egress window cover. The cover had dried on tomato seeds all over it, and there were foot prints in the dust. I asked Maggie if she thought a raccoon had done it and she said, "Yes...or maybe an elephant or a zebra or a horse." Pretty cute. We discussed the fact that it probably wasn't any of those things due to the fact that none of them have permanent residence in Woodbury, and that zebra's have feet like "this" (made a fist), hooves, yes...and that didn't match the footprints in the dust. : ) So, she's settled on the fact that is must have been a raccoon and hasn't stopped talking about it since.

On a totally different note, Maya rode her tricycle yesterday. She rode up and down the street and this was the first time she's gone more than about 3 feet at any one time. Yeah Maya!

Miffed...

A couple weeks ago, the gym that I have been going to for a year and a half now went bankrupt and was bought by Lifetime Fitness. I don't think they are out on the west coast, but they are the big kahoonas of the fitness industry around here. Anyway, they said nothing was going to change and everything was going to stay the same. TODAY, we found out that next week will be the last week of both childcare AND group fitness classes! Basically everything I go for!!! A LOT of people are really miffed, as am I. I don't really want to stay and really don't want Lifetime to have my money, but it is a great deal because with them I can get an insurance reimbursement if I go a certain number of times per month. I think I'll be paying like $1.43 per month or something ridiculous like that. So, I don't know what I'm going to do. Obviously I won't be able to workout in the morning anymore since there'll be no childcare (and I'd been going 4 week days a week), so I'd have to take away from family time and go in the evenings which I don't want to do either. Basically it stinks!!!!! Maybe I'll have to get a bike carrier or something so I can go for bike rides during the day. I don't know. Anyways, just had to vent. I had such a great routine going and this is screwing it all up!!!!!

A break for mommy...

Happy Wednesday everyone. All is quiet in the Kelly house. Maya is sleeping and Maggie is out with Daniel for lunch and a play at the park. They have been quite the little buddies lately. Preschool has been going great, although she is completely exhausted by the time school is over and often has a miserable night of the crabbies and meltdowns...but on the bright side - early bedtime!!!! Tomorrow they are talking about families so I've been going through pictures looking for some family pictures. We don't have too many!

On Monday afternoon we had a most enjoyable couple hours with our newborn neighbor, Lucas. (I think he's 7 weeks) His mother needed a break since her husband was out of town for the week...and she said her bathrooms desperately needed to be cleaned! Lucas and Mags got along great. In fact, he only smiled and cooed for her! She (and me both) loved having him over, but I have to admit it was nice to give him back. I forgot how little they do, yet how much work they are! And no, there are no plans for another one...

Yesterday daddy did bathtime as he usually does, and these little bathing beauties had a marvelous time splashing and playing in the tub.
I finally got out and weeded and trimmed all the dead leaves out of our little garden yesterday while Maggie was at school. There was a lot of junk in there, but also some good looking veggies too. We had fresh from the garden carrots, tomatos and cucumbers last night with our dinner. Yummy! The weather has decided to be warm once again, so hopefully that will help my tomatos ripen up. I think it hit 80 yesterday and will be high 70s the rest of the week and maybe 80 again on Friday. Couldn't ask for more!

Bouncy girls

We have definitely created 2 "bouncy" monsters. They are totally obsessed with gymnastics and all that goes along with it. Yesterday I made them both new leotards. As soon as Maya knew what it was (a "bouncy suit"), she couldn't get it on fast enough. I have to say though, she looks so darn cute in it!!!!! Today, Aaron and I borrowed some scrap lumber from the new house construction dumpsters and made a balance beam and covered it with some carpet remnants we had in the basement. It turned out awesome and the girls of course went bonkers. I came downstairs this morning from taking a shower Aaron had created a floor exercise mat out of our living room with electrical tape. They were doing gymnastics on the "floor"! It was a rainy day today, so we spent most of the day watching TV...Aaron's highlight of the day...finding out the Seahawks were on TV!!!!! We watched on the TV downstairs and the girls played fairly nicely by themselves and with eachother for over 3 hours!

The girls on their new balance beam!

Maya in her new bouncy suit.

Forward roll..yeah!!!

Two sparkly girls.

Cartwheel!

The "floor exercise".

Maya after she slipped in the garage and put both her front teeth through her lip. It was really gross and really bloody. She looked like she just walked out of a horror film.

The girls' new game, Maggie is the mommy, Maya the baby. Mags pushes her around in the doll stroller and gets her things.

This was Maggie's lovely outfit yesterday. She picked it out herself! : )

Apparently Maya got a hold of a blue crayon while I was in the shower. She also colored on another wall, dining room table and chairs, bookshelf, and a couple of toys. Thank goodness for Magic Erasers!! (haven't gotten to the walls yet...)

I think that's all for now. Maggie is right here and sends hugs and kisses to everyone and now is going to type her name...Maggie

Hot off the presses...

Well, just got home from dropping Maggie off at school. Today is the first day of going by herself. She just walked right in like she owned the place. Maya wanted to stay too. She kept saying on the way home, "school too!". She's now sleeping and all is peaceful in the Kelly house. : )

Maggie and Daniel outside the building.

Her class is the Pooh Bears. She just had to wear her spinny pink ballerina dress today!

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Here are a few pics to follow up the entry from the other day. I forgot to bring my camera to preschool yesterday, so I'll remember tomorrow! She's all hyped up and ready to go. She layed out her backpack and everything, even though we don't have to go until after lunch tomorrow! Can you say...excited!!!!
This is Maya eating a huge chunk of cheese. She help herself to the cheese drawer and by the time anyone saw her, she was going to town on a huge chunk. The kid LOVES cheese!!!

Mommy and Grandma and Maggie did a whole bunch of puzzels. In fact, we did every one that we own!

I think Aaron took this one morning when he got up. Beautiful!

Maya intently coloring away in the giant Dora coloring book.

This was taken just after it had rained, as you can tell by the puddle. It was quite muddy though, and Maya thought it would be fun to stomp around in it, and bend over and dip her hair in it. She was a wet, muddy disaster and we went right in to the tub!

This was taken at our BBQ. Here's all the kids, minus Charlie, eating ice cream cones. They were all a mess!

Grandma got Maggie this beautiful ballerina spinning dress and sweater for her birthday. She tried it on in the store and was so cute spinning around in it, and sitting down, poofing it out around her like a princess. Grandma caved and got it for her!

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!

Maggie has a very big day tomorrow. She starts preschool!!!!! Actually it's more like an open house/parent meeting type of thing for just an hour, but she'll be able to meet her teachers and get acquainted with the classroom and stuff with me around, then...Thursday is the big day of going solo. We've got gymnastics in the morning, then, Maggie and I and Paula and Daniel (her neighbor friend who'll be in her class) are going out for a special "preschool lunch" at where else?...Applebees of course. I'm pretty sure Daniel will be getting chicken nuggets, and Mags, macaroni. It's pretty predictable. We've already got the outfit picked out and she's finished her pre-preschool homework (a coloring page that we had to put her picture on) so she's all ready to go! Maya's getting dropped off at Becky's so we don't have to deal with her. : )

Both the girls are obsessed with gymnastics. Morning till night it's Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy! Maya also, as we discovered tonight, is an avid football fan. Somehow, Elmo, elbow and football all sound the same...something like "eh bow". She throws her hands up for a "touchdown" and she has a hard time when a commercial comes on. "I wanna see football" she says (or something like that!)

Last weekend we had our bible study friends over...Josh and Becky and Charlie - Chris, Tamara, Henry and Eli. It was a zoo of course, but very fun. The kids took a dip in the pool and we BBQ'd, played in the backyard and had ice cream cones. We don't see them as much as we used to, just because they both live about 30 min. away. So sad.

Grandma was here last week. It went VERY fast, but we had a great time as usual. We did some shopping at the outlet mall, went to the zoo and of course did lots of playing outside. She got to see Maggie's first gymnastics class and the gymnastics obsession going full force. : ) We can't wait to get to Seattle in 3 weeks or so to see her and everyone else soon. Bella is also excited to make the trip too. She got 2 shots today and so has already retired to her bed for the night. Poor Boo-ee.

I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow...so we can get some "first day of preschool" pics up too.

Oh, Poppy, we found your CD case thingy with your ear buds...actually grandma found it...it was crammed under the front seat or something. We'll bring it back with us in a couple weeks.