Clowning Around

One day last week, Rocky and I broke out the clown costumes and spent the day just clowning around with the kids!  Rocky even joined in the fun and showed Billy a clown trick or two.  Billy's best routine involves tucking his extra-long handkerchief in his pants, sneezing, looking for a place to wipe his nose, pulling out his handkerchief, which keeps coming and coming.  Billy and Alexa have also created the Mr. Blue-Mr. Purple act, which is a must see event.  We've discovered we have two little showmen for sure!

Mary Had A Little Lamb

While the Easter egg hunt came to a fitful halt for reasons unknown, Alexa absolutely enjoyed the petting zoo.  She knows about a dozen or two songs by heart, but her current favorite is Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Needless to say, she was ecstatic about seeing the lamb and she even graced the crowd with several verses (her Daddy is by far her biggest musical fan)!

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old

The last time we spent the day with Blake and Marly was bittersweet.  I know it was the moment the reality of moving sunk in for both Billy and I, and we both ended up crying when they left.  Even though we are only forty minutes away and go back to Townsend twice a week, it is tough not to see them all of the time.  Alexa asks for Blake and Marly every day!

 

Since moving to Manhattan, however, Billy has had a busier social life than all of us!  He's played with his new friend Christian almost every day.  They are like to peas in a pod.  And Alexa and Carsen are destined for everlasting love, I am sure.  She wants me to pick up Carsen, too, whenever we go anywhere.  They all play basketball together, go to museums, and play endless hours of superheroes.  The other night the grown-ups all had game night and six little kiddos ran around the house, having what Billy is famous for saying "THE BEST NIGHT EVER!"

Little Bunny FuFu

The best laid plans often go awry, right?!  Isn't that what parenting is all about?  I've come to expect that all plans will change if a child is involved.  And that is what makes kids great-at least once you come to grips that absolutely nothing is certain. 

Take something as simple as Easter Bunny slippers.  Billy and Alexa know Easter is approaching, and I thought these would be a fun, quiet way to kick off a couple of weeks of Easter crafts.  As soon as the little cottontails began hopping down the bunny trail, round after round of Little Bunny FuFu was sung and bop after bop after bop after bop on the head was given.  As always, not so quiet, or Easter related, after all.

Things We Love

Valentine's Day was a good time for both little ones to remember the things they love:

Laughing at the puppies next door.

Swinging.

Slides.

One another.

And of course, Jeremy.  And Nunsense, which Billy took me to for our Valentine's date.

GO STEELERS!

I love to get the kids excited about anything.  If you give them license to cheer for something, they will and with gusto.  So it didn't take much to get them ready to spend Super Bowl Sunday with Daddy at Uncle Steve's house (really, despite the picture and her lingering month-long illness, Alexa really was excited).

GO STEELERS!

On The Move

So, apparently moving takes a lot of time: a month to pack and a month to unpack!  Luckily, the kids have been as busy as I have.  Of course, searching for the home was the difficult part.  With Rocky away at the academy and myself preoccupied with the speech and drama state tournament, I just let the kids decide:

This one ultimately won out because of the secret passageway between these doors.

 This one, however small, did come in a close second due to its potential as a spinning room.

With six bedrooms, a playroom, two living rooms, and a small continent for a yard, we are FINALLY getting settled in and will have time to share some of the super-fun adventures we've had in the last two months in our new town!