Day 4

Mommy stayed home with a sick Jilly today.

She was scammed by the patient into making breakfast in bed.

Jilly had asked Mommy a few weeks ago if she could sew some Barbie bedding and Monday's sick day was the perfect time to make good on that promise!

Jill picked this fabric out months ago for a pillow for herself, but decided to use it instead for Barbie. She filled the pillows with fluff all by herself.

And not to forget the little sister... Mommy made Natalie a new pillow case from the fabric the munchkin picked out herself.

Day 3

Day 3 without Daddy... here's his postcard from home:

Jillian was bugging Mommy at 7:15 this morning that she wanted to go caching. By the time we got out the door, ran an errand and got to County Park she was feeling punky. We tried a small hike, but without even looking the cache we decided to call it day.

Poor kid came home and took a two hour nap at 10:30AM. Woke up and took some Tylenol and she's doing a bit better, but still not 100%.

And then there is Natalie. Mommy got a chance to do some clean up as she happily played on her own. She was just a ray of sunshine today!

Good night Daddy!

Love,

Mommy, Natalie and

jillian/miller

(she typed her name herself!)

Day 2

Today we:

• went to market (which isn't as much fun without Daddy)
• found a geocache downtown and watched the Binns Park fountain
• went to a birthday party/visited Nonna & TOF
• watched a movie and took a nap all together in Mommy's big bed
• found a couple more geocaches
• went to bed exhausted and cranky!

This is Natalie's "cup holder".

Yes, it is a Curious George book wrapped around a sippy cup.

Day 1

Here's our Day 1 postcard to Daddy who is very far away in Denver...

We went to the Hands On House, at the special request of Jillian. We were happy the Arcudi family could join us there!

Of course we did face painting...

But, in a new twist, Jill actually painted a picture on her cheek.

Check out that awesome flower!

There was a special drop in event so we played outside,

walking through the spider webs

...leave a message and we'll call you back... A little No Doubt never hurt anyone :)

Then we got string and pretended to be spiders, weaving a few playground webs ourselves!

Natalie really got the hang of it and did this all on her own!

Daddy's going away night

Daddy left today for Denver for 6 whole days. We are going to miss him! But before he left we had a special homemade pizza dinner and went out for ice cream.

Before heading to Strasburg... Daddy and his girls.

Daddy is wearing his paper necktie that Natalie made him for Father's Day.

Nonna and TOF joined us

.

Jill was not happy about going home

(or maybe about Mommy taking her picture?)

More from the kitchen project.

Mommy got to help! Mommy got to help! Woo hoo! Since her major contribution to the project has been keeping the kids entertained, this was certainly a photo worthy event.

So, this is Mommy laying on the countertop wiping down the grout

(before she burned her arm on that halogen light near her elbow. Ouch!)

And the result?

All grouted in and looking awesome

after dinner concert

The girls treated us to a concert after dinner this evening.

they arranged the furniture into rows for their 'fans'

And afterwards they signed autographs

Those eyes...

Happy Father's Day!

Our Dancing Queen

Jillian had her first dance recital today and she was fabulous!!!

Getting ready... Nonna was in charge of hair and makeup

The ballet number. For the tap she just removed the poofy underskirt.

Our dancing queen had the orange balloon, third from the left

Jill with her best buddy Zoe

kitchen home stretch...

Daddy and TOF spent today putting up the backsplash tile. It looks great!

The end of the kitchen project is in sight... Grout, kick plates and some outlet covers and we'll be done?!? But that won't all happen this weekend. A special little 5 year old we know is having her first dance recital tomorrow! Photographs of that special occasion to follow.

Meanwhile, here's a video... just something Natalie did that made us smile.

Some randomness

Finally got around to putting this up and Mommy LOVES it!

It's an UpperCase vinyl sticker thing and we put it above the opening from the living room to the dining room, so is the first thing you see when you enter the front door...

Also finally got around to loading Windows on our Mac so Mommy can do some work things from home. While it was loading the installation splash screen came up touting Windows as being "faster and more reliable". We thought the irony of those words on an iMac was worth a picture. :)

Summer!

Geocaching Fun

Groff Memorial Park in New Holland

Natalie was in charge of our pen. She kept putting it behind her ear like Handy Manny!

Beautiful Nolt Pond in New Holland

The kids just loved seeing the duckies at the pond

Our favorite monkey looking for the cache

Busy Saturday!

Since we had some countertop problems, there wasn't much to do in the kitchen today.  We did put in a bunch of cabinet hardware, but aside from that we spent the day doing fun family things!

• Market
• Concert on the street outside Market
• Strawberry picking
• Grocery shopping
• Lunch
• Nap (or rather, kids pretending to sleep while Mom cooks and Dad mows)
• Playtime outside
• Geocaching
• Dinner
• ICE POPS!

Whew!

Here's a few pictures from strawberry picking.

Cabinets in! Fridge in!

The ceremonial first magnet on the new fridge!

Helping stock the new fridge

Kitchen after Day 10... all cabinets installed