Starting them early...

I know it's the end of January, but it's never too early in the year to get back into the pool!

I took the girls today to the indoor pool at the Y. We've been to this pool before, but not since the end of the swim season last year. With the months that have passed, I was worried that it would take a while to warm up to the water again. I'm not sure why I was worried now. Both of them were swimming around within five minutes of getting in. C can still wear her bathing suit with the built in floaties, so she was "swimming" all over the pool. She had fun with a noodle too. The pool is too deep for A to touch the bottom (even in the shallow area) so she wasn't diving under like in our neighborhood pool, but she was swimming around with her arm floaties on. By the time we were ready to go home, A had built her confidence up enough to go under on her own. :-)

I'm so happy the girls like the water so much! It sure makes our summers fun!

She's 4 and a half!

Ainsley celebrated her 4 and a half birthday on Sunday. She's been so excited the last few weeks about finally getting to add the "half" to her birthday. Since her real birthday is in the summer she doesn't get to celebrate it with many of her school friends. So, we decided to celebrate the half with cupcakes at preschool the Thursday before. I let her pick out the theme she wanted (she decided on Tinkerbell), let her pick out the cupcake batter and icing, too. We found some cute Tinkerbell cupcake papers that had little Tinkerbell toothpick toppers with them.

When we got home, we baked the rainbow sprinkle cupcakes. Of course, she got to lick the beaters (C was napping so A got both!). We put the icing on then she got to put some pretty pink sprinkles on top. (I added the toppers when I took them to school.)

She had a great time having her "birthday" cupcakes as her school snack. I think her classmates did too!

The Sleepover that almost wasn't!

Our girls have been begging us for the last few months to have a sleepover in A's room together. Thinking that C was just too young, we told them they'd have to wait a while. They asked again on Sunday for the sleepover. They don't have school on Mondays, so we decided why not? We talked it up with them, told them they'd have to go to sleep at the same time (we usually let A stay up an extra 15 minutes or so)--we really talked it up! Both of them were super excited. We put one of the bed rails up on A's bed (so C wouldn't fall off. She's used to her toddler bed.)

Bedtime came and C got the hiccups of all things. Of course, A thought that was hysterically funny each time C would hiccup. We could hear them in A's room laughing and giggling so we went in and reminded them they needed to settle down and go to sleep. They tried, but no success. C got up and came to the door. We went in once again and reminded them they needed to stay in bed and sleep or we'd have to take C back to her room. A few minutes later we could hear A begging C to stay still and stay in bed. A really wanted this sleepover to happen. She was trying so hard to get her sister to cooperate! At this point we figured it just wasn't going to happen so I took C back to her room. A was pretty sad, but I told her that after C went to sleep, I'd bring her back to A's room for the night. That seemed to appease them both.

We followed through on our promise and took C into A's room after she went to sleep. A was already asleep by the time I took C in there, but they did both wake up enough with the transfer to know they were having their sleepover after all. We didn't hear a peep from either of them all night long. They were definitely happy campers Monday morning when they woke up from their sleepover! :)

Bingo!

Dad and Deryle have a Bingo game at the Oak Island house that A enjoys playing when we're there. It has pictures and words so it's easy for her (C likes to play too) to figure out. She'll sit and play with us for quite a while. The one at the beach house is an ocean theme, so it's perfect for the location!

Anyway, Santa brought the girls their own version to have here at home. It's a nature theme. (Santa must have know Mommy's background there!) We had planned to play tonight with A after C went to bed, but C must have caught on to us and wanted to play too! We let her play one round with us then off to bed she went. A got to play two more rounds before her bedtime winning both rounds!

If you're interested in checking the different versions of the game out, you can find them here.

Happy New Year!

I just wanted wish everyone a Happy 2009!

Oh, I've added a slideshow of pictures as well. :-)