Spaghetti is Messy

Spaghetti dinner was over and the bathtub was already occupied so I scooted over some of the kitchen mess so Indie could rinse off in the sink.  I was going to make it quick so I could start working on dishes, but Indie was having a blast so I stopped everything. Dave and Milan joined me in the kitchen and it was the best way to spend our evening.  Milan suggested that I take some pictures, but I told her the kitchen was too trashed.  In the end, I did grab my camera and I am so glad that I documented this perfect messy evening so I can remember those happy moments in the kitchen.  

All the Words

Indie's signing is clicking and I love being part of it.  I guess you could call this speech therapy, but it's just one of the ways we play.  We have been reading this farm book in the car whenever we have some time, which must be more than I realize, because Indie can sign book, cat, cow, and dog.  The best part is she also says "du" for dog.  We frequently do letter flashcards and she repeats the letter sounds for a, b, and d!!!  

Indie is so proud of herself when she communicates and especially loves the celebration we give her.  If she does something on her own, she will clap at herself until we join in.

"book"

"cow"

Just clapping because she's awesome!

Spring Break

Spring Break was a BLAST......until it rained and we all got a little feisty inside this house.  Anywhoooo, let's revisit the fun from earlier this week!  

First off, Saint Patrick's Day..... Last year the girls abandoned their tricks and were nice to the leprechauns and got treats in return.  That program was a hit so the girls left the Leperchauns homemade green cookies (with tons of frosting and sprinkles) and were rewarded with Barbie Sticker Books, cool green putty stuff, green gum and Andes Mints.  Lucky little ladies!  

We had beautiful weather on St. Patty's Day so we weren't about to let our Friday afternoon go to waste.  We enjoyed the park and still managed to make it home with time for our special green dinner.  This year's menu was green potato soup, green cheddar bisquits, asparagus, and cookies for dessert.  Nice and simple and GREEN!

  Indie's new bear crawl....she's getting pretty good at this.

Saturday, I took the older girls to watch Disney On Ice and we all thought it was an amazing show!   You can't really go wrong with princesses, Olympic style ice skating and acrobatics.

Sunday, a family adventure to Schramm State Park (pretty good) and Williams for dinner (great!).  Monday was a park day with lots of friends and free ice cream at Dariy Queen (it's the little things!).   Tuesday, art museum with the Fiddlers and World Down Syndrome Day dinner with Indie's"homies with extra chromies."  I loved visiting with friends while Dave got a kick out of all the toddlers scooting around the floor with their own techniques. WDSD was one those days that I wanted to shout that we are so blessed to have Indie in our lives.  

Thursday was the day the girls had been waiting for!  Coco Keys!  We found a Groupon and I knew it would be difficult to watch all the girls doing different things the entire time so we invited lots of friends and it worked out great!  

Eden and Winnie loved scaling the net across the deep pool and the medium-sized slides.  

Milan and her team loved riding the big water slides.

Cora loved sitting on top of the little slide but very rarely went down.  She even thought about the medium slide for a while, but was too nervous to try it. 

The girls played their little hearts out for 7 hours and would have stayed even longer if it wasn't for that pesky bedtime.

I love adventuring with my ladies and can't wait for summer!  

Eden Bug

This week, I would like to highlight Eden Bug and her toothless smile!  Today she lost her 6th tooth and boy have things changed since the first wiggly tooth hung by a thread for weeks.  This time, Eden yanked out her tooth as soon as she could.  Way to get aggressive little lady!  

 Eden loves to help me make dinner and this one was a gourmet breakfast menu.  (Waffles from the box, but I did cut up strawberries so that makes it healthy.)

If I was to forecast Eden's future career, I would totally pick teacher because she is constantly reading aloud and teaching her pretend students.  (For the record, home-mom is her other career preference.)   I think that she chooses to host her class in the living room so that Cora will sit and join her game.  Eden usually acts annoyed to play with Cora, but once they start a game together, they have fun for hours!  Same goes to baths together too.  

Eden is also a model student at school and has the highest grade possible on every aspect of her report card.  Her favorite part of school is whipping through her AR reading goals and earning rewards like lunch in the classroom, snack, show and tell.  She's already earned show and tell for Monday so she's taking her Mexican souvenirs from our trip.  Eden is usually super chatty when I pick her up from school and I love hearing about her school day!  

Eden is a big rule follower, who also puts a lot of effort into making sure others follow the rules too.  She has never been on the wall at recess and Miss Sindelar even commented she she's be absolutely shocked if Eden ever had a behavior consequence at school.  Eden has lots of friends and looks up to a 6th grader named Kate because she's "nice to everyone, dresses cute, and is so popular." 

Speaking of dressing cute, here's Eden rocking her 80's look.  

Platte River State Park

Midterms are over and Dave's spring break has officially began so everything is right in my world!  Today we had some beautiful weather so we decided on a family adventure to check out Platte River State Park.  It's only 40 miles away with waterfalls and a fun hike along a creek.  Or in a creek if your part of this family.  We hiked a tad too long so the girls ran out of energy before we reached the car, but we stopped at a nearby field for lunch and they were recharged in no time.  After a while, they started wrestling and playing with Dave until it was time to leave.  85% happy time means this day was a win in my book. 

 Does it look like Eden stayed home from this family outing?  Nope, she just screams and hides from my camera.  It's  a very effective deterrent, but look, I got a picture of her boots haha.  

This is a snapshot of our life right now....Cora playing, Milan reading, Eden directing, and Indie watching me wherever I go.