sisters sharing laughs

I got a new app on my phone that gives my mediocre phone photos a cute vintage polaroid look & I love it! I took these photos with the new app on my phone when Sammi decided to feed Natalie her mac n cheese, which both girls found to be hilarious!

I'm glad that despite all of the fighting between these two sisters, they still have lots of moments of giggling together! Gosh, they fight a LOT, but when they are sweet together, it melts a mama's heart!!!!

dinner conversation with the girls

I took the girls to Pizza Hut last Friday after I picked them up from school. By the end of our one-hour dinner, I was sweating and scooting them out as fast as I could before someone nearby strangled one or all of us. :) The dinner conversation went something like this:

"Please use your indoor voice so we don't disturb the other visitors. No, you can't have that. Whoa----Don't touch!! Spicy!! So, what di-----aaaahh---Please don't lick the salt shaker. What did you do at school todaaa---Ew, ew, ew, don't touch that! Please take your shoe out of your mouth, Nata----Sam!!! Sam!!! Please put that down. Stop licking the window please! Shhh... we need to be a little quieterrrrrr----- No, no no......don't pat the lady's head sitting behind you. Sit down please. Do you want to leave without eating our pizza? No stompi---SAM! No stomping! Switch me seats. Don't worry, I'll get you a new fork.......

....Keep your straw in your cup please. No, no, no....please sit down. Please wipe your hands before you touch thaaa.... What?! How did you get your FINGER stuck in the straw hole? Okay, it's okay. Let me help. Yes, you can have another piece. I will get it for you. Please be patient. Please just wait a minute while I cut Natalie's piece! Okay. Here's your piece, Saaaa----Natalie! Pleeeeeaaasse don't pick up other people's old food from the floor and eat it! Ewwwwwww! Okay, let's go. Come on. Right now. Let's go. RIGHT NOW. Do you need to stand in the corner? Okay. Out to the car we go...... Wasn't that a fun dinner, girls?"

My Girls + Pizza + Me = Happy. But next time, I'm getting carryout. :)

close friends

I love that Joe, Lisa and Reece are our close friends as in - we like them a lot and share a lot - but I'm even more glad that they literally live across the street! Lisa can call at 5:30 and say, "If you're not doing anything, come over & eat on the patio with us!" We all pitch in whatever random food we have laying around, call it a meal, and complete it with lots of conversation and laughs! And usually a football or soccer game too....

We love you, Joe, Lisa, and Reece!!! Thanks for inviting us over last night!

swimming with bree & kate

Boy did we have fun at the pool yesterday! We always have fun playing with our friends Bree and Kate, and this trip to their neighborhood pool was such a fun day!!!

The princess buckets were definitely the favorite pool toy!

This pool is awesome! The baby pool is gated from the big pool and it's the perfect size for all the girls to splash and swim without floaties!

Becky brought snacks and juice for everyone so we spent as much time by the pool as we did in it!

Thanks, Becky, Bree, and Kate!!! We loved swimming, splashing, and jumping in the pool with you! Thanks for feeding us lunch at your house too!

And, last but definitely not least, thanks for ending the play date with a SUPER FUN dance party!!! After we ate Becky and I were chatting and the girls were in the next room whispering and up to something... All of the sudden we hear the voice of Tone-Loc bust out "Let's Do It!" followed by the Wild Thing song (which Bree had picked out of the CDs and put in the player herself), lots of giggling from four little ladies, and lots of dancing!!!

I tried to upload the video but I'm having problems, so maybe later! :)

new school, new summer schedule

We have a new summer schedule!! And we couldn't be any happier! Two major things have happened: 1. We started both girls at Primrose School two days a week. Samantha is very excited to be back and Natalie is excited to have her first experience at Primrose! And 2. My AMAZING sister-in-law, Krystal, who is a teacher so she has summers off, asked if she could take the girls a day every week for us so that we could work and her nieces could spend time with her.

So, here is our new schedule:

Monday: Home with Mom usually, sometimes Dad (and lots of play dates with friends!)
Tuesday: Grandma and Grandpa Sherman
Wednesday: Primrose
Thursday: Aunt Krystal
Friday: Primrose
Special Weekends (Weddings, Trade Shows, Etc.): Grandma & Grandpa Brand

And here is their first day of school:

Sammi is welcomed by her teacher and makes friends with Evelyn!

Natalie is introduced to her class.
She made lots of friends in no time and loves her teachers!!!!

Then, around lunch time, I received these photos in my inbox from the Owner of Primrose, who we LOOOOVE and consider a friend!!!

(I've never understood how kids can sleep on cots at school, but they always do! And Mindy sent me a photo to prove it!)

Aunt Krystal came to our house and tested out our new swings. She takes them to the park, on errands, to the pool....they LOVE spending time with Aunt Krystal! We are SO lucky to have her!!!

I love our new schedule. I love that we all come home together and eat together instead of working in shifts. I feel like we actually spend more time together as a family rather than always juggling our schedules between work/home/work/home. Work is much less stressful too.

And I especially love that Sammi and Natalie are not only safe but with people that love them so much and give them wonderful experiences and memories to cherish forever growing up.

We are so lucky to have you all in our lives to take care of and help us to raise our children! We love you all so much!!!! XOXO

we love our swing set

We built a swing set! Well, all of the dads built a swing set, and us girls watched and played while they did!

The dads get started in the garage... Although the girls like to "help"....

...we left them to build and we played in the sprinkler and baby pool in the back yard!

It's kind of goofy that the girls love this pool so much still because it's so tiny (we've had it since Sam was a baby)! They do love it though, so we get it out often!

Drying off so we can have a snack...
Our girls LOVE fresh berries, which makes mommy especially happy with a super picky eater to feed!

.....However, this was also the weekend we came to the conclusion of bad news on the berries. We are 99% sure that Natalie is allergic to at least one of them. She's been breaking out in rashes a lot lately but I figured it was just dry skin. We had a lot of berries the day before this day too, and by the end of the day, Natalie's rash was so bad is was near bleeding. And it was all over her body. :( My mom was the one that suggested it was berries, and after a couple of days of not feeding them to her, it cleared up completely. Now that she's clear, I'm going to feed them to her one type at a time and see what she reacts to (since it's not a dangerous reaction). I'm hoping it's only one of the four they were eating!!! I'm suspecting blackberries, but we'll see.

You can barely see the area to the right of her mouth is red and patchy - that's just a small sample of what happens when she eats them.
Meanwhile, the boys kept at work on the swingset!
...and worked
...and worked
...and finally came in for a quick lunch break!
My mom joined us all day to help me with the kids & lunch and ended up helping a lot with landscaping too!

It wasn't in the original plans, but our generous friends/neighbors decided it was time for us to also re-mulch our landscaping so they ordered twice what they needed! :) So, the girls and Dan laid all new mulch with Joe & Lisa's leftovers (thanks, Joe & Lisa!) while pulling weeds and trimming trees! The grandpas had to go out for more swing set parts so the timing was perfect!

The girls help after their naps... (Sam changes clothes about 100 times a day so she doesn't always match) :)

Dan "stealing" mulch from our friends!
Soon the swing set was ready to go in the back yard and be completed!

The monkey bars and last two-person swing still need to go up (missing pieces/need trimming first), but that hasn't stopped Sammi & Natalie from getting tons of use out of it just in the first week!
Climbing up is even better than climbing down!




We LOVE our swing set!!!!
Thanks so much to our families for putting it together for us!!!!