Goings On

First of all, today (Monday) was "test time" at gymnastics. I didn't know it. I didn't take the camera. I spent the whole time struggling to keep Brooke entertained. (Sometimes that's not so easy.) At least I got to watch the end of class, when Olivia was presented with her Green Certificate. She was ECSTATIC!!!! Oh, I wish I had the camera then. But, here she is with her certificate and wrist band at home. Basically, the "green" designation means that she has reached the half-way mark for what they'd like her to achieve in this class (Kinder-roo). She's one of the younger ones in the class, so we're pretty impressed. Technically she's not suppsed to be in the class because she's in pre-k, not kindergarten. But the teacher felt she could do the work and let her move up. She was so proud of herself I thought she was going to burst. Go, Olivia!

I found these stacking buckets at the consignment store. They are so fun! Brooke loves them because they stack up taller than her. She put them all together in the correct order the first time she played with them, so no "order" problems for this young lady.

And she loves to knock them over, too. I liked this pic because I caught them in mid-tumble.

One day it's freezing, the next it's 60 degrees. The girls finally enjoyed some outdoor time. And we got to watch the extenstion being built onto the neighbors' sunporch. After the extension is done, they are going to put up a privacy fence across the backyard. Yeah! We like them lots, but if they put up a fence, then we can link onto it and... let the dogs run free out in the backyard. YEAH!!! In the picture it looks like our property runs up to the tie-wall. Unfortunately it does not. The neighbors own a few feet towards the playgym. It will be interesting to see how the fencing is done.

A couple Fridays ago it was Pajama Day at Olivia's pre-k. She was VERY excited. It looks like she's packed for China again, but it's her sleeping bag, pillow, slippers and doll, and blanket. We had to pack the night before. When we got to class, the room was filled with everyone's bed stuff. The kids had a ball.

Brooke - enjoying her most favorite thing in the world - chocolate - in ANY form. I guess she gets that from me.

Daddy helped Olivia make a tent in her bedroom. The kids slept together under the tent, on the floor in their sleeping bags, for over a week. We finally put a stop to it yesterday. (I wanted the mess cleaned up and Mark wanted his favorite blanket back.) I've had to sleep on the floor in there and there's no way I'd do it for FUN. The young are just so much more flexible. And goofy. Mark plugged in the portable DVD player and they watched movies in there, too. They loved it.

Thank you for the tutu's, Aunt Linda! But we prefer to wear them on our heads!

Baby Grunge Ballerina.

Daddy's little girl. From what he has said, I think Mark's hair used to look alittle like that.

This is Oprah. She is the senior cat in the house. She came to us from a rescue situation (it was us or the pound) about 5 years ago. She was used to being a single cat, so she did NOT appreciate having other cats around. She almost hissed herself to death. But - and I'll never understand how this happened - the other cats simply ignored her. They'd beat up on each other all the time, but they just ignored Oprah. So, after about a week, she realized that she looked kind of stupid hissing at everyone. And she stopped. And things have been perfectly peaceful since then. But all the other animals respect her. She's 17 and she sleeps alot, but the others always walk way around her and never make eye contact. It's really pretty funny. And she doesn't take any funny business. She'll let them know if they ever step out of line. Oprah - ruler of the household. She's really a great cat - it's like having the Queen Mother living with us.