Swiper no swiping

Siena has fallen in love with Dora the Explorer. She still loves her princesses and carries her Cinderella doll around everywhere but she has Dora conversations all day long. I don't know how I feel about Dora. It is more interactive than other t.v. shows as it asks questions and gives the kids time to respond, but usually they say, say it louder! So Siena is learning to yell at the t.v. That is the part that I don't like. She has learned a little Spanish eventhough she doesn't pronounce it correctly. Today in the sand box at the pool she was so proud that she dug a hole and she ran around the sandbox saying we did it we did it we did it yeah! Then her and her friend play swiper no swiping where they try to take a toy away from each other and then they say swiper no swiping and the other one says o man! It's really funny what they pick up on through the t.v.

recycled to a shirt dress

yucky old shirt

new dress!!!!! using daddy's old shirt and stylish in daddys shoes.

My friend Sarah always finds the cutest things to make and I finally attempted one of them. I used one of Dave's old worn out dress shirts. I think Dave gave me the hardest shirt to work with because it isn't really girly but I tried to make it more girly with the lace and pink thread. It was lots of fun and I am actually happy with the result. That is a big surprise since a lot of the things I make don't turn out. It's fun making little girl clothes. I just hope Siena will wear it. She is really picky in what she wears. Here's the link if you want to her cute craft blog and it's the shirt dress but she has a lot of other fun things to check out because she is really crafty!

Alexandria City Birthday!

Siena and Jacob going crazy about the fireworks

Birthday cake!!! mmmm

The week after the 4th of July they celebrate the city of Alexandrias birthday. They have birthday cake for everyone and a concert and fireworks right off a barge in the potomac river. It's lots of fun. The kids and I went down early and found a good spot and Dave met up with us later. We found a spot right next to the orchestra and by the river for a good view. Last year we were right behind the cannons that they fire off but decided against that this year. We got good seats. It was right next to the birthday cake stand so we were sure to get some cake. The kids were entertained with the music and we had a good time. We brought glow sticks so we didn't have to pay the outrageous price to buy them and the kids enjoyed them. It was a good show with fun fireworks. I am always impressed that the kids aren't afraid of fireworks. It makes me very happy because I really like them too.

other fun family photos!

Family Pictures

notice it's the 4th of July and my daughter would NOT wear her cute red white and blue dress. FRUSTRATING!

Meilstrup Reunion

We went up to Hershey for the week of the 4th of July for a family reunion. It was a lot of fun. There were 25 of us and Siena and Ben really liked seeing their cousins. There is Henry that is 1 month older than Ben and then everyone else is 4-12 and mostly boys. So Siena had a lot to learn. She had fun watching them and trying to play with them. They were really nice and took care of them. It's always fun when we go to Hershey and of course we went to the Hershey factory and got our chocolate. We tried the new Hershey Museum but it was more geared to older kids so we watched the movies and went through it quickly. On the fourth we went on the train that runs from Hummelstown to Middlestown where they told you the history of the area and sang old songs. It was fun and made me grateful that I didn't have to travel cross country on those. The kids really liked it. We got family pictures taken which I was really excited about and I think they turned out well. I am happy with them. We of course ate lots of food, BBQ and parks and Grandma and Grandpa's pond where we chased the ducks...simple pleasures here. I realized more that Siena is quite the fish. She loves to swim and we went to a pool and they had this big tall slide that she went down and Dave caught her in the 5 ft water. It about gave me a heart attack but she loved it. I wouldn't let her go down it again. She wanted to go off the diving board until Dave showed her that she had to go under the water and that Dave couldn't catch her. She liked watching Dave do it though. Ben liked playing Basketball in the pool and taking everyones basketball. On the fourth we went down to the medical center and sat on the lawn and listened to an orchestra. Later you could see fireworks from Hershey park but we skipped that went and did our own. We did see the Hershey park ones as we were driving back to our home that night. We had lots of fun and the kids were really good and it was fun to see all our cousins that we don't get to see very often.