WeeBall

Tonight was the last night of WeeBall. I think Shelby really enjoyed participating, although she was a little hesitant the first night. The last few weeks they did some special things like water balloon games & parents/siblings vs weeball players. Shelby did not enjoy that night too much as daddy accidentally shut her wrist in the van door when we arrived. I think Morgan did enjoy playing with Daddy. Tonight was competitions and awards. Each participant would win at least 1 award. I think they ended up giving 3 awards per 1st, 2nd & 3rd with recognition for the overall top performance in the category. Shelby came home with a 2nd place ribbon for Throwing, 2nd place ribbon for Hitting, and a 1st place ribbon and overall best time for Base Running! That is exactly why she is 5 and still gets put in the shopping cart or stroller when we shop. She won't stay by me and she is fast! I think both girls could have a future in track. Morgan is getting pretty fast too as she tries to keep pace with Shelby!

Silly Sleeper

If you read my post about our Chicago trip you may recall my description of sleeping with Morgan. Every night before I go to bed, I check in on the girls. With Shelby I may find her still awake no matter the hour, or she is asleep with the light on. I have found her with markers in her hand or books open on her chest. But there is no doubt I will find her anywhere but in her bed. And then there is Morgan. I never know what I am going to find. Sometimes she is kneeling next to her little bed, bent at the waist and laying across the bed. A few times I have found her asleep on the floor. Below is a picture of how I found her last night. I thought it was too funny to pass up a photo. She never moved while the flash went off in her dark room or when I picked her up and put her back into bed! She laughed this morning when I showed her the picture. And speaking of Shelby. As I type this it is 11:10 pm. I know how I will find her when I head upstairs after posting this..... wide awake as she just made an appearance to have her finger nails clipped!

Chicago!

The girls and I got daddy out of the office for a day and half (the half was actually Sunday so that shouldn't count :) ) and headed to see some of the exciting things Chicago has to offer. The girls (mostly Shelby) get excited about Chicago because that is the city in the movie Everyone's Hero the little boy ends up in. It is also the place their daddy spends a lot of time recruiting. Sunday after church we headed up and spent the afternoon at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The weather that day was perfect, but we must have hit some of the animals at supper time as they were not outside. This was the case for the bears mostly so it was a little disappointing. The girls were asleep 2 minutes after we left the parking lot and headed for our hotel. They missed our drive down Michigan Avenue and past the American Girl store. That was probably just as well since I am taking them up there on the train in August just to go to the doll store. That will be our last fun thing to do before Shelby starts school. Our hotel was a couple blocks off of Michigan Avenue and the girls loved the idea of staying there. After getting settled, we headed out on a short walk for Chicago Pizza at Gino's East. Thankfully the hotel gave us a VIP seating ticket so we got right in. Otherwise we would have waited at least 30 minutes and it takes about 40 minutes to get a thin crust pizza to your table once you have ordered! Nate really wanted the deep dish pizza but that takes at least 1 hour and we didn't know if the girls could sit that long! Something to do without kids I guess. After pizza the girls and I headed to the pool for awhile. Next was a bath for them and then on to tackle sleeping in the same room! It took awhile but we got it done. Between Morgan and Nate they switched beds a few times and I found out Morgan is horrible to sleep with! She never sits still when she is awake. Well she doesn't lay still when she is asleep either! She kicked me more times than I could count, was grinding her teeth a little bit & I finally had to straighten her out when she kicked the lamp on the side table. The next morning they were up early and ready to go. We checked out of our hotel and headed to the Navy Pier. We rode the Ferris Wheel, took a 30 minute boat ride along the shore line and the girls had fun making a new friend at Build-A-Bear. They had been waiting to do this after they saw the puppy dog a friend from church had made on her trip to Chicago. Shelby picked out a pink bear she named Rosebud and dressed her like a ballerina. She had the outfit picked before she knew who she was putting it on! She changed her mind about 3 times before settling on the bear. Morgan on the other hand, set her eyes on Hello Kitty and never changed. We tried to convince her since Hello Kitty was the most expensive thing you could pick! She did change her mind about 4 times on the outfit and shoes. She finally settled on a pair of white pants with a green flowered tank top. I suggested Hello Kitty go without shoes because she looked cute that way and Morgan was fine with that. Daddy helped her pick a name because Morgan just wanted it to be Hello Kitty. He named her Hitty. Combining Hello & Kitty and relating it to baseball. Our final stop on the Pier was some good but expensive ice cream and then we headed for home. The girls were both upset that we were going to sleep in our own beds that night and not at a hotel!

Team Work

As I washed dishes after supper tonight, I looked out the window and saw the girls swinging together. Morgan was sitting on the swing and Shelby was standing on her legs. They said they were forming a sailboat. I'm not sure what they were doing when they were both sitting. I just know it looked a little safer!

Getting Ready......

A few weeks ago I took Shelby to pick out her backpack & lunch box for kindergarten. She is a big fan of Fancy Nancy so when she saw that backpack she immediately settled on that one. It is complete with a tutu! There was not a matching lunch box so she picked a glittery Disney Princess one. And her final choice was a Barbie thermos for hot/cold food. So she ended up with a little bit of all her favorites. Morgan wasn't too happy she didn't need a backpack or lunch box. I think she is going to be a little bit lost when Shelby is gone all day.

Pump It Girl!!

Morgan is doing a great job learning how to pump her legs to keep her swing going. I took a little video of her working at it today. Her big sis was thrilled...... not! Sorry the video is sideways.

St. Louis City Museum

At the end of June we headed south for cousin Trey's 3rd birthday party. The last few years we have spent the following day visiting somewhere fun in St. Louis with our Metzger cousins. This year it was the City Museum. The placed closed before the kids were tired of trying out all the fun things to do. Pictures really don't show how great of a place it is. A place to visit again in the future for sure.

Fourth of July Fun

The girls and I headed north to WI for the 4th again this year. Aunt Ashley was co-pilot for our trip. The weekend started with frosting cupcakes with Nonny. Ashley said after watching them frost, she wasn't sure she was going to eat any. There was a lot of extra licking going on! Then we took a drive and had supper at the lake. On the 4th the rain put a damper on the parade, but the candy we collected more than made up for it! Morgan was a trooper and collected all the stray candy. I didn't have plans to do the carnival this year since we did that in June at my hometown festival. Good thing because we headed home out of the rain as soon as the parade was over. You would have thought Shelby was the Wicked Witch of the West and was "MELTING, MELTING" in the rain! We didn't go back for the fireworks since the girls didn't have naps, they start so late & we had to get up for church the next day. We saw them in June as well so it wasn't a big deal. Papa Moe bought a few that they enjoyed with cousins Noah & Caleb.

Once the rain cleared the weekend turned out pretty nice and the kids had fun on the Slip-N-Slide. Shelby and Morgan also had fun 4 Wheeling with my uncles Nick and Doug and their families. And all that fun is awful hard on a little girl. Ashley enjoyed taking a few pictures of Morgan asleep on the way home.

And to any of you readers who are on my email notification list, I apologize if you were emailed 50 times! I have struggled getting this post to do what I wanted, and finally at midnight and several thoughts of throwing the computer across the room I decided just to type and post photos at the end. Again, sorry!