March 2019

Richard took the girls to a science festival. Most of it was probably a little old for them but they still found enough things that were fun.  I don't know all of the things they did but I know they tried to build the best bridges out of random material, they built race cars out of food and they got to touch a few brains from different animals!  They all talked about that part the most.

On Instagram I saw that my cousin Mike was in town for the Arnold festival so we invited him over for dinner.  Of course the girls were smitten with him immediately and we had so much fun hanging out with him.  We mostly talked but also got in a game of foosball, arm wrestled (and real wrestled) and ate yummy cookies that I remember eating all the time at Grandma Joye's.  

We used to build forts all the time in our old house but haven't done it as much lately.  The girls convinced Richard to help them build a mega fort in the living room and they played in it for two days straight.  And of course, we even had to eat dinner in the amazing fort!

The girls have caught on to the fact that if they give Richard their big puppy dog eyes, he is much more likely to give in to what they want.  Brooklyn is a pro at it and I finally caught a picture of her begging her daddy for something she wanted. How can you say no to this face??

Kaylee wanted to do an escape room for her bday party and Richard and I had a blast coming up with the premise and challenges they needed to do. We had wrapped 3 different colored bike locks around a toolbox which had the key to get out of the room.  For each color bike lock, there was a different path of puzzles and riddles they had to figure out to open it, including some other things that were locked up.  We even started them in the bathroom and they had to find the key to get out of the bathroom which opened up into our bedroom where they more challenges to do.  Some of the kids lost interest after about 40 mins but Kaylee and the triplets that she has gotten really close to this year seemed to really love it!  

The weather has still been chilly but because it had been so cold it felt like summer to us!  We tried to spend every minute outside that we could and the kids have been on the trampoline constantly.  One day Brooklyn and I took out chalk and spray bottles and we spent a lot of time writing letters and shapes and then erasing them with water.  

Kaylee had her actual birthday a few days after her party but she didn't have a ton of presents to open since she had chosen to get her ears pierced this year.  But I did find a few books for her and a super squishy stress ball she had wanted, as well as an awesome Time-Turner necklace from Harry Potter that I was really excited to give her.  Later that day we took her to pierce her ears and she took it like a champ!  No tears and barely even flinched!  She has been really good at taking care of them and has bought a lot of new earrings to get ready for when she can switch them out. 

Brooklyn got these paper glasses at school one day and I jokingly told her that her daddy might not recognize her.  She wanted to facetime him right away and could not stop cracking up that she was tricking him so bad!

Brooklyn has a lot of nicknames but one that we often use is Brookie.  Because of that, I wanted to make some brookies to let her try them.  I must have done something wrong with the brownie batter part because it ended up being a big Pinterest fail!  

McKenna and Brooklyn often ask to snuggle together at night even though it usually results in a lot of laughter and wakes them up more than helps them fall asleep.  But I love their relationship so much.  They always say that they are best buddies or best sisters forever.  I hope it stays that way!

We were lucky enough to have Mom come stay with us during spring break and it happened to also be Brooklyn's birthday.  We opened presents in the morning and then took her to her favorite park.  The girls played longer than I have ever seen them stay at a park but 90% of the time they were on the exercise equipment around the walking trail!  I think we were there for almost 3 hours and they could not get enough of those machines. Grandma took her birthday shopping and then, of course, we had to eat at Wendy's for dinner since that is Brooklyn's favorite. 

Exploring with Grandma is always fun.  We went to a new exhibit they had set up in Easton mall that ended up being really fun.  They had 6 or so rooms with different optical illusions in them.  One room had a ton of mirrors, one was full of spirals that seemed to swirl around everywhere you looked, one had lights that flashed green. blue and red and the pictures on the wall changed depending what color light was on and one was all white but had hundreds of different colored dots stuck everywhere.  We were all given a few dots to put anywhere and it was fun to see what other people had done with theirs. 

Grandma had also never actually been on campus so we took her for a tour of the places around Richard's office, including the incredible view from the top of the library, the dinosaur museum and saying hi to Brutus. 

We also had to take her to the Conservatory to see the butterflies! 

One night we went on a date and Mom took the girls to a horseback riding place that said they had a bunch of free activities and horse rides for $5.  Mom said it ended up being really lame so it's too bad they went but luckily it wasn't far from our house.  Brooklyn talked about getting to ride a horse the whole way there but when she actually saw the horses, she clammed up and would not go anywhere except cling onto Grandma's leg.  Kaylee and McKenna got to ride a lap around the arena and they tried to pet some animals even though it was hard to reach most of them.  Even though it ended up being kind of a dud, McKenna especially loved riding the horse.  She definitely has some of Grandpa's genes!