Lily Graduates (again!)

Lily had her Spring Sing on June 1st. She did great this year! Last year, you could tell she was a bit nervous. This year, she did all the motions and sang all the songs.



And Kellan was a perfect angel during the performance! He didn't make a peep!

They made these party hats, aren't they cute! They "graduate" every year at Lily's preschool. She actually has one more year to go before Kindergarten.


That's Lily with her teacher Ms. Debra. Lily's so excited that she's moving to the afternoon class this year with Ms. Debra. She really was a great teacher! And at least five of Lily's friends are moving to the same class.

And a couple party pics:


They had all these cute photos from the year hanging up and we all got a notebook at the end with the photos in it. Lily had a terrific year this past year and we are excited for her to continue with the same teacher next year!

Water Fun 2010

We eased into the water play this year. ;-) First, we got the Nemo sprinkler out, to test the waters so to speak.




The girls had the brilliant idea to find their goggles and put them on so the water wouldn't get in their eyes when they ran through the sprinkler. Not entirely fashionable, but all together practical.


Then we moved to trying out our rainbow pool from last summer. We thought it might have a leak in it, but we weren't sure so we put it up to check it out:

We did realize the rainbow pool was done for. So we purchased a new pool, which of course, is bigger and better than the rainbow pool. Hey, why not, right?

Here is Lily shooting water at Andrew's office window. One benefit to him working in the basement now. ;-)

Ella's water antics:



The best part of water fun for Mom? This:


Lily had a standing playdate with her friend from preschool Hannah during the school year. They would play every Wednesday afternoon and we alternated houses. Here are some cute photos from one of their playdates:

May Randomness

Both Andrew and I made it to Twins Games in May at the new stadium:


According to Lily, this is how one should dress when attending soccer games:


Ella was on the "Pumpkins" this spring. Her first time in the C Division for ages 6-8. She did awesome and soccer post is forthcoming. Kellan enjoyed being outside and watching the games.

We decided to have a picnic on the deck one night for dinner. Kellan lasted all of 2 minutes. The girls retreated to the house after about 15 minutes due to the presence of bees. And Andrew and I actually enjoyed about 15 minutes of just Holly & Andrew time to have a real conversation. Hmm...maybe we should have dinner on the deck more often. ;-)


Andrew, Kellan and I headed north for Memorial Weekend to Nisswa. We stayed in the golf suites at Grandview Lodge and had a wonderful relaxing weekend. We woke up one morning to see a Mama and Baby Deer out our window. It was so cute!

Kellan enjoyed going for many walks outside and decided to really hold his bottle unassisted for the first time.

Kellan's first time putting his toes in the sand. To channel Mikey from the old cereal commercials: He likes it! He really likes it!

Gardening 2010

Here's the supplies for the front yard:

So the above triangular bed is pretty much dead at this point (compared to the above photo) and completely overgrown with weeds. I'm not sure what the heck happened this year. We did get a TON of rain in May after it was planted so maybe it got TOO much water???? I don't know. But it sure did look nice when I put it in.

We planted individual pots of Cilantro, Parsley and Dill this year. (It's all coming up beautifully and I have a garden update already in the queue).



Below is an iris in our front landscape bed that we planted two years ago. It didn't bloom last year. But did this year. It smells like grape soda pop!


And on to our backyard garden:


The girls always get very excited about the garden. This year we planted pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, carrots, onion, and two kinds of green beans.




The signs the girls made for the garden. :-)



Really quick, I want to plug a new blog a friend of mine has started: Greening Sam and Avery! Abbie has started keeping track of all the great activities she does with her girls to explore nature and the environment they live in. And her monthly challenge for July is talking with your children about where their food comes from. I think gardening with your kids would definitely qualify for that. Ella and Lily helped pick which fruits and veggies we were going to plant in the ground. They helped put seeds in and every now and then help us water. They can't wait for everything to grow!