To tide you over...

Here's a video of an Eli Manning spot that The Famous Group shot awhile back for Gatorade. They also did spots with Serena Williams and LaDainian Tomlinson.



Look close...can you spot Andrew somewhere in there?

Need a hint? Look toward the end. :-)

Yes I know

I know, I know....our blog has been very dull and boring. I still have Masters photos to get up. Mother's Day to report on, and we had a fun-filled albeit rainy trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina. But we've had stuff going on here like Ella and Lily's Spring Sings and Preschool Graduation. Mounds of laundry to complete. Suitcases to unpack. Photos to edit. And all our normal activities.

BUT, school is over (or almost, they each have one more day next week) and the girls are in summer camps at various times throughout the summer AT THE SAME TIME! So, hopefully, I'll keep you all very caught up throughout the summer because I will have kid-free time.

I'm hoping to having some time tomorrow to at least get a little bit caught up on the blog. Thanks for hanging in there. ;-)

Checking in...

We're visiting with Andrew's family starting tomorrow for a whole week. If I have access to internet, I'll hopefully get the blog updated. Otherwise, I'll be waaay behind yet again.

Just wanted to say we had a very nice Mother's Day weekend with my mom and Dave visiting. I will update more in-depth on that in the future. I want to try out this slideshow feature I saw on a friend's blog. Very cool...you can embed a photo slideshow right into your post! Can't wait to try it out instead of just posting 20 photos in the body of the post for you.

The girls are almost done with school. They have their little concert and graduation coming up on May 28 and 29.

So I'll have a lot to catch you up on in the coming weeks!

Thanks for checking in with us! Stay tuned (as usual).

Whew!

Okay, I think I'm all caught up on posts again. Yay! We do have ALOT going on in the next two months though so I'll do my best, but I'm already anticipating that I'll be getting behind again.

The last two weekends have been really relaxing and sort of the calm before our summer craziness begins. Andrew went to Minocqua last weekend to help his mom and dad open up the family Cottage and get it ready for the season. He really enjoyed his time up there! While he was there, the girls and I just hung out. We went Webkinz shopping at the mall and had a very nice Saturday morning. We got smoothies and shared a cookie at Barnes and Noble, then visited the children's section. We went over to my dad's house after dinner to help him set up his new Wii! Yes, my DAD has a Wii. It was a lot of fun. We made Mii's for everyone and then played a few of the games. I've discovered the Wii is actually a really great learning tool for Ella to work on motor planning. Her speech disorder is a motor planning disorder. So for her brain to process a multi-step situation like: hit this button once, now hold that button down AND swing your arm AND then let go of the button right at this moment. Whoa, that is a really great thing for her. And it took her several attempts before she got it down. But once she got it, it was there. Very cool!

Then we had my cousin Cindy and her family over on Sunday. Andrew got home around 11:15am. So he was back in time to hang out with them. We spent much of their visit taking their family photos which was super fun. And I am most pleased with how they turned out (Check out the photo blog if you're at all curious). Then we just sat around and chatted while the kiddos played. It was nice to catch up with them. We couldn't remember the last time we hung out on a weekend when it wasn't a holiday or family event.

Then this weekend, Andrew and I hosted a little dinner party for a couple of our neighbors. One day a couple months ago, Andrew came to me and said, "I need to socialize. Let's have some people over and hang out." I laughed at him and asked him if he was getting sick of being locked away in our bedroom all day. :-) Kelly and Robb had us over for dinner last fall so we thought it would be fun to reciprocate. And we have gotten to know Angie and Ben down the street better in the last few months. Ben plays golf so Angie and I thought it would be fun for Andrew and Ben to get to know each other better. Maybe they could go out and hit the links sometime this summer. Hey, we organize playdates for our kids all the time, why not our husbands too? ;-)

Anyway, we dropped the girls off at my dad and Clare's to spend the night and came home to get the dinner ready. They came on over and drinks, good eats, and good conversation was had by all! I think we really enjoyed our kid-free time talking about everything under the sun. You name it, we probably talked about it! Just a truly wonderful evening.

And right now, Andrew and I are still enjoying our kid-free time as we have yet to go pick up the girls, but it's been great to get caught up on our own personal stuff.

Oh! I just remembered, I do have one more post to do. Andrew at the Masters. Oh, well, I was almost caught up. Maybe I'll still get to it yet today.

Hope you all are enjoying the warmer spring weather and have a great week!

Handprint Butterflies

Ella does little art projects at her speech appointments. And one week, the therapist traced her hands and made a butterfly. Then they glued her speech words on it. I thought that was such a neat and simple project! So we attempted it at home.

All you need is construction paper, scissors, glue stick, a pipe cleaner for the antenna and anything (feathers, stickers, rhinestones) to adorn them. Trace both hands twice and cut them out. Cut out a body shape and head. Glue them all together and let the child decorate however they want. When they are finished, fold the pipecleaner in half and then curl the ends. Tape it to the back of the butterfly.



My friend Amber took hers a step further and traced her kids feet to make the body which I thought was a really cute idea. You can see super cute Bryce and Brianna's here.


The girls really got into this project. We made a butterfly out of each family member's hands. Lily decorated my butterfly as well as her own and Ella decorated hers and Andrews. Then Ella wanted to make a sun and Lily wanted to make a cloud. Lily especially liked that she put feathers on the cloud to make it fluffy. They both were really proud of the whole thing. We displayed them on the wall to the right of our deck door.

In order from top to bottom: mine, Lily's, Andrew's, Ella's.

Easter Weekend

We had a really nice Easter weekend this year. We decided not to travel because we didn't want the girls to miss school--it seemed like they were off more than they went in March. I never had two spring breaks when I was in school! And not to mention it was Masters weekend for Andrew. :-) It also kind of stinks to travel 13 hours in the car (total) with the girls for such a short weekend trip.




We visited my Dad and Clare on Thursday night so they could give the girls their baskets. I think the girls had more fun with their sparkly bunny ears than any of the other fun things in the basket. :-) That's Gracie the kitty with the bunny ears. And I was trying to get one decent photo of the girls together with their ears and they kept goofing around. Stinkers! Clare actually got the one cute photo of them in the chair.

So instead of traveling, Tom and Pat decided to come visit us instead! They flew in Friday morning where we relaxed at the house for a bit. Then we headed to the mall to do a little shopping and play in the play area while Andrew finished up work. We had a nice dinner grilling out Friday night and the girls had fun playing with Grand Pat and Bubba.

Saturday morning we had a nice big breakfast and then decided to head over to the mini-golf place in Chaska. We had the whole course to ourselves up until the last 10 minutes. It was great, the girls just went ahead and played as many holes as they wanted over and over with Grand Pat, while Tom, Andrew and I actually played a round. We really had a good time. Then we headed to get some lunch.

Gifts from Bubba and Grand Pat.




In the afternoon, the girls colored Easter eggs with Bubba. Unfortunately, I left the eggs out a really REALLY long time. So it was questionable whether we could eat them or not. I was really bummed. I LOVE egg salad. After egg coloring, we got slightly dressed up and headed to Wooddale Church for the Easter service. It was really nice they had an option on Saturday (that wasn't a Holy Saturday service) so we could go and not feel stressed as we would have attempting church on Sunday. The church is beautiful!! They had a full orchestra and choir along with projection screens with words and videos to go with the service. The girls were really well behaved and loved the music. We decided we really like this church and plan to attend services there in the future. After church, we headed over to Outback for a nice dinner where the girls were STILL really well behaved!


My mom had given me the girls' Easter gifts when we were in Cedar Rapids so we waited to let them open them. They both loved their books and chalk. Here they are playing with the chalk in the basement.



Sunday morning, we told the girls they had to both come in our room to wake us together before going downstairs. And they listened really well. Too bad it was 6:03am when they came in. UGH! They were excited to do the egg hunt and find their baskets. We had a nice morning eating Easter candy and I attempted to make Monkey Bread for breakfast, but even though I followed the recipe exactly, it turned out pretty disasterous. Too small pan...too many biscuits...overflowing liquid into the bottom of the oven=smelly, smoky house and undercooked, doughy monkey bread. Oh well, I will attempt it again with some modifications and hopefully it'll turn out better. ;-) Tom and Pat were very good sports about the whole thing.

We took Tom and Pat to the airport in the morning and then headed to Cindy and Shawn's house to celebrate Easter with the Engelharts. We actually arrived EARLY. I am notorious for being late to Engelhart family functions. Most of this is due to the fact, that I tend to arrive right ON time, it's not my fault that the REST of my family tend to arrive at least an HOUR EARLY. Anyhoo, we were super early this time and had a great time visiting with everyone, stuffing ourselves with yummy food and desserts and egg hunting. The best thing about Engelhart Easter is that there is still an egg hunt for the "big kids" which would be my generation. Yes, almost all of are over 25 (and a few of us are over 30), and we still get to do an egg hunt. The Aunts fill eggs with various amounts of change and hide them all over the yard. We're talking like 150 eggs! Then the little kids have their own hunt. So fun was had by all!
(I had some pictures I took at Cindy's but now I'm not sure where they went...will look for those and hopefully update later.)

We then arrived home in time for Andrew to watch the back nine of the Masters. The girls and I just relaxed and rested for a bit. All in all, a very fun holiday!

Egg Carton Flowers

Amber first told me about this idea. The girls got really excited when I told them we were going to make flowers out of an egg carton. Okay, well, let's be honest. They get excited when we do any sort of art/craft project!

I cut the egg carton up and gave them each six "flowers" to paint. It took some coaxing to get them to cover all of the gray egg carton with paint and enough paint to be bright. They had fun mixing colors together and deciding what to paint on each one. When they were finished, I sprinkled some glitter on them so it would dry in the wet paint. After letting everything dry thoroughly, I poked a whole in the bottom and put a pipe cleaner through, tied a knot in the pipecleaner and voila! Instant flower. I couldn't find a super great vase in our house, but made due with one. I was going to get marbles to put in the bottom, but that never really happened.



They have been sitting on our kitchen table for a few weeks now and I think they are sort of fun to look at. This might be a good project to do this week and leave at people's doors for May Day on Friday. :-)

Nana's Treasure Box Craft

Before we visited my mom, she called me and told me she had these little bags that she wanted to get something for the girls and give it to them. We didn't really want to do candy or anything. So I suggested that maybe some art/craft supplies or stickers or even SCOTCH TAPE (because we never have enough of that in our house and I can never find any when we need it) might be a good idea. The girls always LOVE craft stuff. So she filled each one with a scissors, glue stick, stickers, and ribbons. Then, she got a plain white box from Michael's for each girl (they have all different sizes and shapes of boxes to choose from). The girls were very excited to open their bags and start in on their project while we were visiting Nana!


As a little background story for you. When I was really little there was an older couple, Martha and Les, who lived in the same apartment complex as my mom and I. They were sort of adoptive grandparents for me. Sometimes they would keep an eye on me when my mom had to work or had a business trip or something. And other times, they just entertained me. Their grandchildren lived far away so it was nice for them to have me around too. Martha taught me to cross-stitch when I was five or six or so. And she was a very crafty person in general. She was Danish and I remember her making those cool Easter eggs where you blow the yolk out. And she would paint them and glue ribbon around them. Very Martha Stewart before Martha Stewert was really around (funny, they have the same name). Anyway, I'm digressing quite a bit. The whole point of this story is that Martha would make these lovely little handmade gifts for my birthday or Christmas. One of them is a little jar with my name cross-stitched on it that you will find on my mantle to this day at Christmas. My mom has since made matching jars for Andrew and the girls as well. Martha also gave me a sewing box that I treasured as a child. She covered it in fabric and ribbon and cross-stitched "Holly's Sewing Box" across the top. I still have that box and even though, I believe I might have used it as a Barbie bed for a while as a child, I somehow knew it was very special and treated it very well.

So getting back to the Nana's Treasure Box idea. My mom thought it would be a nice thing for Ella and Lily to have their own box from Nana. And since they are a bit younger than I was when I received my box, we decided at this point, it would be a better idea to leave the boxes at Nana's house and Nana could put something special in it every time we come to visit, either a special treat, money for a trip to the dollar store, more craft supplies, or whatever Nana feels like putting there. :-)




I think this is such a fun idea! And I'm excited that hopefully my girls will treasure their Nana box as I treasure my Martha box. And maybe when they are older and can make sure the box is treated well, they can bring their box home and put their own treasures in it.