Spring has sprung!

We have had a ball hanging out outside for most of the last week or so. Alan was gone at a conference so my Mom came to help me with the girls. We kept 'on the go' as usual. The highlight of the week has definately been the activity at the Avondale Lake. It is a half mile from our house and we frequently go and feed the ducks. Well, spring has sprug for sure! There are both duck and goose babies! I'm surprised you did not hear Meredith squeal "baaaaaaaaabies!" all the way at your house!

Here is the Mommy duck and her babies. There were 10 and now there are 8 which makes me sad =( A nice lady we stopped to chat with told me that the male ducks do not help the female ducks protect their babies. She said the only interest they show is trying to mate with the female again as soon as she is back in the water (darned male ducks ...) They are so incredibly cute! The photo does not do them justice. She hides them pretty well and I had to sneak to get their little faces ... usually as soon as they heard or saw me they swam in the opposite direction.

The same lady told me that the male geese DO stay and help protect their babies. Every time I see the goose babies, they are surrounded by a whole posse as opposed to just with the Mommy all by herself.
Here, they are following Mommy ...

So stinkin' cute!

Turtles ... hanging out

Hey baby, how YOU doin'?? Wonder if he did the 'yawn and stretch' move?

Again, trying for a good pic of the girls together ... (H right, M left)

One night while the guys were away, the other Fellowship widows and I decided to have pizza at our house ... here are Hannah and Braden hugging ... so cute!

Post-pizza Dora ... from L to R ... Meredith, Braden, Katelyn, Hannah. They look like they could all be sibs with their hair color!

Here is Meredith eating Fruit Loops (or Fruit Hoops as she says) at the Zoo

Oh my goodness, do they love to hug!!! They are very sweet to each other! Even during tantrums one will sort of hover over the other like she wants to help somehow. Sometimes, Hannah will just keep bringing random things to Meredith when she is crying ... binky, blankie, snack, random toy, crayon ... she will aquire a pile ...

Hannah

Checking out the vulture with Grandmama ...

big girl booster chairs!

Hannah has found a new passion. She loves for you to lightly tickle her on her legs, back or belly. She will get sooooo still. In fact, sometimes she will demand it! She will take your hand and put it on her leg and say "tick, tick ..." She rested here on my Mom for a good 10 minutes and let her tickle her back. She had a little pool of drool when she got up! That is what Grandmas are good for right? Finding what you like when Mommy is too exhausted to be creative! Oh, and catching drool, too!

Guess what? Daddy does exist! We went out of town for the weekend of Easter then he went out of town the Friday after and didn't get back until this past Wednesday and you would have thought that he and Hannah had attracting magnets. She cannot rip herself off of him ... he leaves the room for one minute and she cries "Daddy" like her world has torn apart. Meredith is happy and plentiful with the hugs but is being a Mommy's girl right now ... but Hannah ... she really missed her Dad!

Easter

The girls and I went to Saluda, N.C. for Easter with the Wright side of our family. My Dad is the director of a retreat center there and there is room enough for all of my siblings and our kids to stay. Alan was not able to go as he had to work =( We had a good time and the girls loooooved playing with their big boy cousins.

Here is Hannah playing with some of the spoils from her Easter basket. She had a blast with the necklaces and sunglasses! This was after what should have been a 3 hour drive home but ended up being 5 thanks to traffic. They were ready to take those dresses off and run around!

Here is Meredith ...
This is Meredith right after we got home. It took bribery (jelly beans) to get them back in the house! I think Meredith, especially, would be happy to pitch a tent and just stay outside all the time!

Hannah

Running with the big boys in an empty party room at the restaurant where we ate after church on Easter. The photo is blurry because they were running around like crazy people thanks to Easter candy!

Hannah and the boys after church

Meredith wouldn't leave my side after I traumatized her by leaving them in the church nursery. The poor young girl who had her when I came to pick them up was very relieved to see me as Meredith cried the whole time. Hannah did very well and I would have thought it would have been the other way around ...

Me and the girls after church ...

Hannah and Brayden checking out their finds from the Easter egg hunt ...

Thanks to a Dora egg hunt book, the girls were pretty good at the whole Easter egg hunt thing ... I doubted they would know what to do but they took off and found egg after egg! Here is Meredith finding a purple one ...

... and Hannah finding a tiger stripe one

Hannah holding her own with her cousin Grayson (or Gayse as they called him) ...

... and Meredith holding her own with cousin Landon (or Yan ... like Yam with an 'n' ... as they called him)

playing catch up

Whew ... what a busy month! I have a lot to do to catch up with the blog. First of all, there are Easter photos but I have misplaced my USB cord (oh no!) so it may be a bit before those are up. We went down to Charleston for the house hunting expedition #2 and found a great house that we have a contract on. It is a short sale so anything can happen so cross your fingers for us! If all goes well, we will be closing on June 1st and our new address as of June 30th will be 452 Barbadian Way, Mount Pleasant, SC 29464. I took a million photos of the house but will only post a few here ...

Front of the house ... it is a 'Charleston single' and in traditional style they have built it close to the neighboring lot on one side and given us a small side yard on the other side as opposed to the more common backyard.

side yard & porches

view of the marsh and Wando River from the master BR

kitchen

just past the kitchen is a screened porch and a detached garage

dining room

family room with pretty views of a pond across the street and marsh beyond the lake

Some friends from ATL joined us at the beach for the weekend. We had fun dragging them here and there. There was just too much to see in one weekend! Here, we were on our way to the beach.

the kids hanging on the porch in the AM

We were able to take the girls to the beach several times thanks to small breaks in the rain. It was too cold for swimming suits but we 'made do' in play clothes. They had a lot of fun splashing in the tide pools as they were warmer than the ocean and the waves tended to knock the girls over. This is Meredith ...

Hannah ...

On the way to the beach, we happened upon a lizard. The girls thought it was super cool until it hopped off Alan's arm and crawled down Hannah's leg. She wasn't a fan after that (not that I blame her though I wish I would have caught it on a video camera!) The 'ick, get it off me!' response must be tied somewhere to the X chromosome ...

pre-lizard ...

The girls have an obsession with the 'big girl chairs' and love to climb in and out of them and climb in them and demand food (even if they just ate!) I forsee fading out of the highchair and into the booster chair. We got them boosters the other day and now if I try to put them in highchairs (for messy foods) they say "new, new" because they want in their "new" booster chairs.

This was the first time we took the girls to the beach this past Charleston trip ... the water was stinkin' cold but after a while, we just gave up trying to keep them out of it and let them splash around and throw shells ... shoes, clothes, jackets and all! Hannah got tired of being wet and cold but Meredith stayed out there with Alan for two hours! He eventually made her come in to get warm! She loved it! I can't wait to be able to take them when it is warm outside ...

with Mommy ...

with Daddy ...

Here are a few pics from home the weeks before we went to Charleston ... here the girls are walking 'like a tapir' from the Go Diego, Go! Show (prior to this particular show, I didn't even know what a tapir was ...). They really are getting into their shows now and will play along and clap their hands and follow instructions (like here ...) and it is really cool to see them "get it." When something bad happens in the show they look upset and say "Ugh, Oh!" ...

Like most toddlers, they have really run headfirst into the independant stage and are always saying "self, self" ... as in, I want to do it myself! Hannah tries, and occasionally accidently blows a bubble ... but usually she just gets soap all over her mouth (yuck!) Meredith will sit and buckle and buckle over and over ... she has some good concentration and determination ... when she gets it buckled and needs it unbuckled (she hasn't figured that out yet) she looks at me and says "hep you ... hep you ..." as in, Mommy, help me ... it is too cute ... I guess she thinks that when I say "do you want me to help you" that the way you ask is to say "help you" ... I love it when toddlers mess things up like that ...

Here, Meredith was plucking one petal at a time off of a flower ... in my mind I was saying ... he loves me, he loves me not ... Oh, I hope it is a loooooong time before they get their hearts broken by a stupid boy!

I try my hardest to get a good photo of the girls together as several family members have asked for one ... but this (or a binky photo as the only time they sit still is when they are tired) is what I get ... the backs of heads! They love to be on the go! The only time they are not on the go is when they want me to cuddle with them.I just thought this was a cute photo. They love to feed each other, their baby dolls, me ... I love the way Meredith has her mouth open while she is feeding Hannah ... just like Moms do when they are feeding babies their baby food ... they climbed in this bouncy chair themselves ... they have taken to trying to both fit in one small space ... they do love to be together and it is so sweet to see.