under the magnolia tree: March 2012

Look who's riding a bike! A neighbor handed down this bike to Magnolia and by the end of the day she got it! No training wheels! That balance bike must really do the trick!

The very same day Magnolia's friend and neighbor learned to ride her bike. Oh, the fun these two girls will have!

Warm, warm days. What a wonderful March it has been. We lived outside soaking up the sun. The kids were in heaven. Here they are coloring on the picnic table with the neighbor girl.

Nani comes for a visit. The Chicago Judys bring her up so M & G got to play with their cousins, Cate and Charlotte. Here George and Nani enjoy the sunshine on our new window seat.

Magnolia and Nani build an extensive sand castle in our sandboat.

Then we play with modeling clay and make little chicks and bunnies.

While we were all having a wonderful time with Nani I got a phone call from the school nurse telling me Magnolia had lice! Oh my goodness, thank goodness for Nani who kept Georgie very happy while I tried to rid of it. I felt like I was walking through quicksand, not even sure how to tackle this. I had heard nightmares of lice, that it was impossible to get rid of. I treated Magnolia. Nani left and I had one day to strip everything and wash before Aunt Alicia and cousins Musa and Isa were to arrive. George was great by taking the kids out of the house. I vacuumed everything. I stripped their bedrooms like we were moving out. I vacuumed mattresses. George bagged everything. We washed and washed and washed. We all treated our hair and so far, no return. Fingers crossed it doesn't return. While it was exhausting, I'm just grateful it was nothing serious. Things could be a lot worse. In the end, it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Magnolia missed a half of week of school.

Carefree as can be.

The biggest nuisance for her was not being able to wear her helmet (hence ride her new bike) until we cleaned it out.

I actually think she thought it was kind of cool to have bugs in her hair.

And this one sat in the sandbox all day long,

tongue sticking out,

working very hard on his creation.

And while the only photos I have from Musa and Isa's trip are all on my phone, I can say we had a super fun time. We went to the Art Museum, ate mini donuts, went bowling, visited the Sprecher Root Beer factory and sampled root bear. It was great to see them!

With such warm weather we decided to give our back porch a new purpose. Since we've moved in we've kept our grill and stroller here. Using everything we already had, we now have this great little space. I can perfectly see the kids play in the backyard yet be close enough to the kitchen if I'm cooking.

Happy Spring!

I am so behind in my postings. It overwhelms me. I just didn't know where to find the time to catch up. I'm making the time because I just can't stand the thought of having a huge gap in time. While a lot of the pictures may seem boring or of poor quality, I'm posting for the sake of the moment it captures. I hope to be back on track after this. I have so much to post about M & G, they are growing up so fast and this is, after all, our journal.

In January George III builds a window seat in the living room. The kids loved this project and the fort it became until it was completed. Of course, my job of making the cushion and pillows is still left undone...

Sometimes George reminds me of Luke on Modern Family. I often find him wearing this while taking a bath.

We celebrated Chinese New Year with Magnolia's Chinese School. It was a great time. Here they are decorating their dragons.

Magnolia played bean bag toss. She also played a game where she had to hold a marshmallow between chopsticks and walk back and forth. And, of course, she did it!

For Valentine's Day Magnolia had to write all of her classmate's names on their cards. It took her all week to complete this project but she did it!

That same week she celebrated 100 days at school. She was assigned to count 100 Jelly Bellys to bring in to her class. She also had to make a project using 100 items. We counted out 100 coffee filters and glued them to paper. It's so much fun being in preschool!

I brought up our sand and water table and filled it with beans and rice. I found all kinds of things to play with, Valentine's Day inspired. There were hearts shaped out of pipe cleaners, vases, fake flowers, scoops, heart jewels, pink and white pompons, cupcake liners. Magnolia and George loved filling the vases with beans and rice and making me bouquets. I tried to be patient with all of the rice and beans on the floor but by the third week, I stored it all away. I will do it again next year, this was a hit!

Valentine's Day morning. We all made and gave Valentines to each other. Magnolia got another charm to add to her charm bracelet (a horse) and George got a little fire engine.

As with everywhere else, we had a record setting mild winter. It was wonderful! I had forgotten how nice winter can be when we're not buried in snow for months on end. Here was one of the few snowfalls we had. It was pretty while it lasted but we barely had any snow stay on the ground this year.

These two LOVED the snow this year. Well, I should say that it was the first time George enjoyed it. I dragged him around the yard on the sled and when he toppled over face first in the snow, he begged for more. We only went sledding once. It was at my parent's house. They loved it. Will be fun next year!

After Christmas I started to sew again. I took over the guest room and started more projects that I could possibly finish. With recent company, I cleaned up the room and vowed to tackle only one project at a time. It's nearly impossible for me but I'm trying to stick to it. Here's a little romper I made for George using an old dress shirt. I'm dying to make him another for Easter. I really hope I can get to it in time!

I made this shift for Magnolia out of Florence Eisemann fabric. I'll always love her in yellow (first pics we saw of her she was wearing yellow). While it's pretty short on her, she seems to pull it off.

George took a week off to stay at home. It was so much fun. We acted like tourists in our own city and did something fun everyday. We tried new restaurants, went to museums, parks, walks, and shopped. One day I let the kids make a Cookies and Cream Cake.

These two love to read. One day I found Magnolia reading Go, Dog, Go! to George.

The first of March we traveled to South Bend, Indiana to host a baby shower for my cousin, Elizabeth.

My sister, mom, and sister-in-law all chipped in and it turned out really cute.

My mom did the favors, pink candles in a glass jar.

I found the location. In the carriage house of the Oliver Mansion and next to the Studebaker Museum.

It was a very pretty place and perfectly intimate for our small group.

My mom also did the centerpieces, love them!

Foregoing games, we all did this instead. It was cute, fun, and even a little tear jerking. I ordered the pencils with baby Sarah's name and created these little cards myself. Elizabeth is my dad's sister's daughter. She died of breast cancer when Elizabeth was only five. When Elizabeth found out she was having a girl they named her Sarah (after her mother) and Kathryn (after our young cousin who recently passed). Such a beautiful name!

My sister, Mary, did the food and drinks and my sister-in-law, Christina, ordered the fabulous desserts.

I brought all of my mom's old vintage tablecloths, some of my china, serving platters, and my mom's silver which is fittingly monogrammed with "S."

Mary brought the tissue poms which Elizabeth was happy to take home and hang in the nursery.

It was so much fun to see my family in South Bend and especially spend time with Elizabeth and her husband.

This is the museum where we had the party.

It was so pretty and so fun to have an all girls lunch! I need to do that more often!

It was such a small group of us and it all went by so quickly that I didn't even photograph all of the guests. I quickly got this shot of Elizabeth's good friend from high school reading aloud her wishes for baby Sarah.

And Elizabeth loved hearing them.

Yvonne's daughter was so cute helping Elizabeth open her presents.

While these last two are so blurry, they are my favorite. I just love baby bumps!

We are so excited to hear of Sarah Kathryn's arrival!

While the shower was perfect and wonderful, so was the rest of our trip. We got to see a lot of family and my brother and his family (who lives in MI). Our hotel had a wonderful pool and the cousins couldn't get enough swimming.