With summertime here, I decided I would keep the girls home with me everyday that I am off. Since Emily is starting Kindergarten (sniffle...sniffle), I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible this summer rather than have my own quality time (which I need so badly). I knew that having all this girl bonding time would not be easy, so I have tried to plan something almost everyday that we are together. We have had many a playdate with my good friend Maria and a couple with Nikki and my other friend Maria (Emily's friend Sofia and her parents). We have gone to Busch Gardens with my co-worker Meghan. We have plans to go to Busch Gardens next week with a group of us from work and Adventure Island with another co-worker... thank God for season passes! We are trying to plan another pool party with the Bingo Babes and oh yah, I have found some time for Mandy-time... bingo with the girls. Fritz and I will have a babysitter come to our house for only the second time in, I don't know, 5 years to go out with some other couples. I can't wait.
It is great to have so much to do and so many people to have fun with, but somehow the girls are still managing to make me crazy half the time. Emily has been so difficult to discipline lately, but we are really putting our feet down about talking back and not listening. She has been losing TV privileges every 2-3 days (her least favorite thing to lose).
On a more positive note, I have switched Emily to the summer voluntary pre-k program at her elementary school and it is going very well. She is coming home happy and excited. Oh ya, and it is free!!!! Yeah for us! Even if it is only for 3 weeks, I'll take it.
Haley has been going 2 days a week to Riverview Montessori where she will be for the next 2 years and is also doing very well. She lays in bed going over all the new things she is learning. I love it... their brains at work! We hear her counting (and bossing her sister around) for 20 minutes before she falls asleep. The first day that Emily went to her new school Haley cried "sissy not coming" as I carried her into school, clinging to me. I think that both girls have a few weeks to adjust to their new surroundings before real school starts. I'm very much looking forward to this coming year, but it is bittersweet. My babies are getting so big!
Here are some pics of our busy days!
We spent the evening of the 4th of July with our friends Maria, Ryan, Riley and Ronan and some of their close friends at their house and experienced quite a fireworks show from expanding turds, to little trucks that lit up and barely moved, to large beautiful fireworks right above our heads. We all had a great time.
Here are some pics from Busch Gardens. This is Emily and Kelsey (my co-worker Meghan's daughter).
