Nothing much...

I can't believe it has been over a week since I last posted! Springtime is definitely making the days go by fast!

Let's see, Saturday night we had dinner with my parents, sister, and her boyfriend; then the next day my parent's 16 1/2 year old shih tzu, Daisy, died. They got Daisy when I was a freshman in high school, so she had been around for a lot! I spent a good part of the week trying to help my mom locate a breeder with puppies. (We've got a couple of prospects so hopefully she will have a puppy in the near future.)

I also spent a lot of time working on the financial end of Eric's business. If you didn't know already, Eric has his own IT consulting firm. I am "in charge" of the accounting aspect of it, with my great love for math and background in accounting (HAHAHA!). Its actually not too bad, I kind of like the fact that I'm doing something other than being "mom" right now.

Next, Claire's choir wrapped up their season last week. They had a party, last rehearsal, and a concert this past Sunday. They sang 5 songs and did a great job. Her group is 2nd and 3rd graders so its fun to see how they've progressed since they were in the kindergarten/1st grade choir last year.

I'm also trying to put in some extra time with Emilie working on pre-k/kindergarten skills. She has her kindergarten screening (the Dial-3 test) next week. She's doing pretty well with most things. Having 2 more sisters born while you're preschool age definitely limits the amount of time your mom can spend with you on writing your ABC's and other school stuff. That's one of my "mom guilt" things. That I didn't spend as much time with Em as I did with Claire getting ready for kindergarten. Luckily, Emilie is a fast learner and she's very forgiving ;-) Her preschool has also done a good job taking up the slack where I've left off! Anyway, she is super excited about starting school in the fall. I know I'll miss her, but I'm also looking forward to only have 2 kids to shuttle around and care for during the day.

On to the next thing, Chloe got her 1 year portraits done today at JC Penney's. We've got a photographer that we like up there, and she does a great job every time. Chloe's pictures turned out really cute. I'll post them when we get the email images in a week or so. I can't believe she's going to be one next Thursday. We're also getting ready for her big birthday party on the 11th. It should be fun watching her smash up her cake. I'll also try and get a slide show put together next week so I'll post that when its done.

Elise is doing good, too. She cracks us up everyday with the "beyond her years" things she says everyday. She is currently obsessed with 2 stuffed kitties(named Mimi and Twila) and a tiny gray poodle (creatively named Poodle, and pronounced Poo- doh) figurine. These 3 must be together at all times and go everywhere with her. She also loses at least one of them for part of every day, so its always a challenge to help her keep track of them. I know I've lost my patience a few times and just told her they were lost for good. All in all just typical 3 year old stuff. She's also super sweet though and a great snuggler.

Other than that, we're spending as much time outdoors as possible. We have a block party with our neighbors on Friday night. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn't rain. The kids have a lot of fun playing with the neighborhood kids. We have got a group of close to 20 kids (if you count ours too) that live in our block. Mostly girls, too. (Even if you don't count our 4!) So its always fun to let them go play, and the adults sit and talk (and take care of the occasional skinned knee or juice box run).

Anyway, I guess that's it for now.

Here's a couple of pictures of Claire's choir. I don't have a telephoto lens for my camera, so these are as close as I could zoom in from where I was sitting (in the back, in case Chloe got too noisy!).

Claire's second from the left in the second row.

Claire's in the front row on the right.

Chloe loved jamming to the music!