Bakery!

The girls and I took a field trip to a bakery this afternoon! It was purely selfish, as I'd tasted the cookies they make there from a friend and couldn't wait to bring some home! The girls loved it...they got to see them making bread and some different kinds of cakes and even packaging up some cookies for a baby shower. Then I let them each pick out a cookie (it was a REALLY tough choice! but the purple Minnie Mouse cookie was the big winner!) and they got to eat it there at the bakery. I found out that this particular bakery (Cinottis) was founded in CLEVELAND! I'll have to ask Grandpa David if he ever went there as a kid...or if he knows the last name at least! I guess they moved here to Jacksonville a long time ago, so it's a longshot, but a fun connection anyways!
Here are some cute pictures from the trip and even a little video while the girls were eating. Yes, Riley put pepper on her cookie. You can see it sitting on the table in the pictures. I didn't see it when I was sitting there.  Oops.

Our little Picassos

Reagan and Riley have asked me almost every day for the past couple of weeks if they could paint. Reagan pretends to paint all of the time...she'll take a french fry and dip it in her ketchup and "paint" her plate, or if she spills water or juice or something, she'll "paint" the mess up with her finger. They painted a lot at their little school and I honestly think they miss it a lot! I've not been great about painting with them at the house...it's a lot of setup and clean up and I always seem to find an excuse why not to do it. I won't do that anymore after today. Matt got a painting drop cloth from the painting store and we let the girls use the finger paint that Aunt Laurie gave them at Christmas on their easel outside.  They had the BEST time. Matt and I both agreed that we have NEVER seen Riley so into an activity that we've done here. She painted, and painted and painted and honestly didn't want to stop. She even painted her face and her hair on accident and wanted to just keep right on going. Reagan did not like the finger paint, which wasn't a surprise to me. She does NOT like to get dirty. Matt got some brushes for her and then she had a blast. Riley painted a monkey, a dinosaur, some fish and a shark (you can tell, right?!?) and Reagan painted a giraffe and a dinosaur. They were so happy and I will attempt to make this a more routine activity around here...thank GOD for the screened in porch (and the bathtub). Here are some pictures of the girls in action and a picture of them next to one of their finished products. The video was taken after Reagan finished her painting for the day...Riley was still going strong so Reagan wanted to help her! I love it when they talk to each other...it's happening a lot more these days and just makes me smile!

Post Painting Fun!

As a result of the fun that the girls had painting this afternoon, they had to have their second bath of the day before dinner time! (We rode bikes to the pool earlier this morning and they took a bath after that when we got home!) Yes...we've had a BIG day! I recently started letting them take their baths in my tub in our bathroom. They have a blast in there and they seem to want to play a lot longer in there than in the tub in their room...so as long as we don't have a reason to hurry up, I love watching them play together in the big tub! It reminds me of when Laurie and I were little and we used to play in the big jacuzzi tub at Grandma and Grandpa Zellar's condo in North Carolina! They have started "swimming" in the tub a bit...I let a lot of the water out and they flip over on their tummies and just hang out together. Here is a picture and a video from our after painting tub time!!! So fun!

Quack, Quack!

There is a little pond down the street from our house and there are a whole bunch of ducks that live there. We go to visit them almost every day and the girls talk about them all of the time. We take bread down and feed them every once and awhile, but it never fails that the times I remember to grab bread on our walks, the ducks aren't there and then I end up carrying around slices of bread for our whole walk. So...most of the time we just go and say hi!
The ducks must have been missing us because I walked by our front window after dinner tonight and noticed two of them in the driveway! The girls thought it was hilarious. We went out to see them and Reagan kept wanting to give them hugs and kisses (no... I didn't let her!!!). Here is a picture of them looking out the window at the ducks and then a quick video of Reagan in the front yard with them! (Riley was fine just looking at them from a distance!).

These little piggies are PINK!

The girls have been asking for me to paint their toes for awhile now...they see me with mine painted and are always touching them and talking about my red toes! So...for the first time today, I painted my sweet little girl's toes. It was so fun...they giggled the whole time and were SO good. They sat perfectly still while I did it (and I did NOT do a very good job...but they don't seem to know!) and sat with me on the floor while they dried. (I bought the quick drying stuff...dry in 60 seconds!). It was the first of MANY, MANY times that I assume we'll do this together...and I loved every second of it. Check out the finished product...

Splash!

I ordered some sweet ladybug rainboots for the girls about a month or so ago. When they came the girls both hated them (I think they didn't like how they felt or something...not really sure but they definitely didn't like them). We've started the typical Florida summer weather where it's beautiful all morning and then we have some crazy storms in the afternoon and then it clears up and just gets steamy! After dinner tonight we told the girls they could put their rainboots on and go splash in the puddles and they were super excited about it! Guess they just needed some time to process the idea of rainboots!?! Here are a couple of videos we took of them splashing around the streets near our house! Reagan would go back and forth and take her time splashing around...Riley would just do one huge STOMP and then look for the next puddle!

We miss her already!!!

The girl's amazing, wonderful, fantastic, creative and perfect babysitter is moving to Boston next week. (picture our whole family with a super sad face). We are so excited for her and for her next adventure but we are going to miss her like crazy. She's become a part of our family over the last year and we were so blessed to have her as such a big part of the girl's lives. She has promised to keep in touch and we hope that she'll come and visit us the next time she's back in Jacksonville. She came today and made picture frames with the girls so that we could put some pictures in them of her with the girls. So special...here are a few of the pictures we took!