Pettiskirts and Cowgirl Boots

Here are some pictures my sister Amber took...she is just learning but I think she does an awesome job!! Thanks Amber for all the darling pictures!
I love this picture of Isabella, she has the cutest whispy curls and in this picture it adds the perfect little touch.
This is Lilli's true smile. Amber has had Lilli for her model for awhile now so Lilli has developed this "fake" smile. But in this picture she gave it to us "for real."

I love my little princesses, ballerinas, lions, cowgirls, whatever they are for the day, it always seems to be something different. Thankfully they were excited to dress up in the costumes that Amber and I had for them.  They were not excited about taking pictures so I bribed them with Bruesters ice cream and told them a story about Narnia. Lilli loves this story. Isabella didn't want to wear her flower in her hair so I told them that there were bees that needed to come and get pollen from their flowers so they could help Aslan.  Also whatever position Amber needed them to be in for the pictures; whether it was on their tummies or sitting down they could receive special powers from the clovers in the grass to help Aslan.  They totally loved it and it was fun for us all!

Pettiskirts

My sister Amber is getting into photography, so while she was here she took a ton of pictures of the girls which I don't mind at all I love having tons of cute pictures of the girls:) She ordered some pettiskirts for her photo shoots. Lilli and Izzy were the first to model the cute skirts!! She ordered them and had them mailed to our house, so when they came I have to say I was really excited and so was Lilli, as soon as the box was opened she tried one on and didn't stop twirling until she went to bed that night. They are so puffy so they make the perfect twirling skirt.  Izzy liked them also and it was really cute to watch her twirl.  I want to make one and actually found the "how to" on Martha Stewart. Wish me luck. For this photo shoot Izzy wanted to wear a jacket and have her hat on. Yes it was 80 plus degrees outside, don't ask me why??? Despite this we got some cute pictures.
I love these two pictures!! Loving sisters.....well not all the time but most of the time:)

More darling pictures of Izzy...and yes she is sporting one of my handmade flowers. Our backyard made a nice backdrop for the pictures with all of the grass and trees.

The Richmond Scramble

I ran another race, but kind of by default. Josh had actually signed up to run the race, but had forgotten that he had a deacons camping trip, so I got to run the race. I wasn't totally pumped for it but when I got there I got excited and pumped up to run the race. Our ward was actually well represented. It was our Stake President Br. Anderson, Toby Anderson, Gary Payne, Dan Lloyd and Matt Toomey. The race is all around the James River on trails, it was gorgeous!! This is actually my new favorite race, one that I hope to participate in every year.  We climbed up railroad ties, up and down stairs, over bridges, over the river on big rocks, up ladders...it was so fun.  Thanks to Amber for staying with Lil's and Izzy. 
I was wondering what Amber and the kids would do while I ran, but thankfully they had set up a "mini Richmond Scrambler" for the kids. They loved it!! Since Lilli and Izzy love to jump and climb this was the perfect thing for them.

I finished the race and was hoping to find Amber and the girls on the side lines of the finish line, they  weren't there but I found them here with Lilli being "strung" up this tree. She loved it and was giggling the whole time! The "operator" didn't string her up very high, she would have loved to go to the top of the tree.... you should never underestimate a girl:)
This race wasn't timed with a chip so you just had to look at the clock as you crossed the finish line. So I did that and was very confused. It said it had taken me 1hr and 39min. I walked around for a while a little perplexed. Then I asked the operators about the clock. It all came together when they told me that the clock I was looking at was for the 1/2 marathon that started 30 min earlier than the first wave for the 10k. I was in the second wave that started 8 min after the first.... so I ended up with a time of 61 minutes. I was pretty happy with that:) I actually surprised myself, I had passed the men in the ward that I thought had left me in the dust.  I guess I am kind of like a horse, when I start heading "home" I just pick up the speed!

Flower Power

We were soo lucky to have my sister Amber visit from Calgary Alberta, Canada!! We loved having Amber here and had such a fun time!! She is such an awesome auntie...so Lilli and Izzy loved having her around! On Friday night while Josh went camping with the scouts Amber and I decided to try our hand at making some flower clips. I have to say we did an awesome job:) 

Whenever I would finish a flower I would have to see how it looked, so after we were done, Amber had a headful of flowers! I think we ended up with 24 flower clips in all!! 
We had so much fun making them together, especially Amber's amazing strength, lets just say she broke 4 needles trying to get them through the flowers. I didn't break any needles so I guess that goes to show who is the strongest:)  I am so grateful to have such an awesome sister and wished she lived closer so we could do things like this together more often!!Maybe someday...Love you Sis!!

We love flowers....and worms

Izzy was the first to find a worm while we were gardening the other day, she loves to hold them and watch them wriggle!

Lilli's favorite flower is the Zinnia

I think Izzy's favorite color is yellow, because she is always saying it and she chose this yellow one.

Lilli also found a worm, not the first one. For a time she collected a few and had them as pets, but they didn't seem to last very long... but she names each one and this one's name was wiggely jiggely.

My favorite flower was the orange Gerbera Daisy, I love Izzy's scrunchy smile. That is her "cheese" camera smile. I have so much fun with my two girls and feel very blessed that I can stay home with them every day and have fun, laugh, give lots of kisses and hugs, learn alot and make lots of wonderful memories. Thanks girls for yet another wonderful memory!

Planting a Rainbow

I got this awesome idea from a blog I was reading the other day. We checked the book out at the library; "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Ehlert. We read about how a child and a mother plant their garden together. So off we went to Strange's green house to find our rainbow. The girls loved seeing all of the different colored flowers. Izzy mostly liked splashing in the puddles and playing with the rocks. We found all the colors of the rainbow and headed home to plant our rainbow. It actually ended up being a couple days later because of naps and other things that needed to be done. So everyday Lilli begged to plant her rainbow, finally after dinner on Friday we planted our rainbow. They were such good gardners, and produced a very beautiful rainbow!

Lilli has always loved getting dirty, so she was my right hand gal as we dug each hole and then "squished" the flowers out of their pots, plopped them into their holes and then covered the hole back up with dirt.

Izzy on the other hand hates to get her hands dirty, if there are even crumbs on her hands she tells me that there are "guckies" on her hands. She wanted to help, but when I handed her the flower with "dirt" on the bottom, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She tried Daddy's gloves, it didn't work out too well for helping, but they were fun to wear.

Lilli and Izzy's Rainbow- A Red Zinnia, Orange Gerbera Daisy, Yellow( I forget the name), Green Basil, Blue Plumbago and Purple Petunia's.

Hard working gardners!

Mommies Making a Difference-Trash Pick-Up

This last Friday(May,30) we did a trash pick-up at my old apartments. I bought some latex gloves, which the girls were very excited about, grabbed some old grocery bags and we were ready! Adrienne, Matthew and James Walker joined us and they all did an awesome job! The kids really liked trying to find trash to pick up and put in their bags. 

Izzy loved having the gloves on, even though they were way too big, I had to hold the bag and then she was able pick the trash up and give it to me. It was really neat to watch the kids get excited about serving and doing something positive for the community, not that they fully understand all of that....start them young and hopefully it will continue:)

James and Izzy were really cute together, I'm not sure if they found some trash, a cool bug or some fun dirt to play in???

Matthew was an awesome trash collector, he found the jack pot under this tree. He ran ahead of everyone and just started filling his hands and arms with trash. Then he walked all the way back to his Mom to put it in the bag! After Matthew and Lilli were done with this tree it looked amazing. Thanks for your awesome trash collecting! I know the apartment community will enjoy the little bit of difference it will make:) 

Some One-on-One Time w/ Izzy

It very RARELY happens that I get one-on -one time with Izzy, so when she woke up from her nap and Lilli was still asleep (very out of the norm) I jumped at the chance to have a little fun with just Izzy! We hadn't got the bubbles out for the year, so it was about time, and boy did she get excited! "Bubbles-Yeah!!" It was really nice to give Izzy ALL of the attention for once, I could tell that she really enjoyed it also!!

She did pretty good with the battery powered bubble blower, that one is the best, it just blows tons of bubbles for a lot longer that the bubble wands. She was able to produce some BIG bubbles. Way to go Izzy!

She was even able to blow some of her own!

Lil's joined us a little later and did an awesome job with the bubble blower! Yeah for bubbles, they always produce lots of fun and smiles!

Memorial Day

We had a fun filled Memorial day! We went for a long run and then did yard work, we love to do both! I mowed the lawn and Josh tried to get rid of a few tree stumps in our front yard. About 6 weeks earlier he had drilled holes in the trunks and then poured this liquid in it that is supposed to eat away at it and eventually kill the trunk. Well at the the 6 week mark they were still looking as green as green can be.  Well on the bottle of our "miracle " liquid it said to pour charcoal on the stumps and just let them burn. Probably about 4-5 bags of charcoal later and lots of lighter fluid there was really no difference. But oh was it ever fun to watch Josh, he had a blast! After all of the yard work we were ready for some pool time. Josh "jumped" right in and the girls loved pouring water all over him. I got pushed in too, but sadly there are no photos of that lovely scene:) 

This was the first time in the blow up pool and the girls didn't want to ever get out! They love the water!! Especially scooping and pouring.

Oh what a night!

Yummy Cheesecake!!

Isabella loves to ride things, so when she saw this dog at Stoney Point shopping center she just had to try.

I went into Sur La Table not a kid friendly place so Josh stayed outside by the fountains with the girls. I could hear them from inside the store and thought, wow they are really having fun, and did they ever have fun. Josh had let them run IN the fountains with their clothes! They loved it!! They were a little cold walking to the car, but at least they had fun right?