Soccer Spring 2012

 Emily and Abigail participated in their first team soccer season at the Broken Arrow YMCA.  Daddy was their coach and they had a great time.

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The team seemed to learn a lot throughout the season which showed in their playing the games.

 After the last game, the team had an end of the season party where they were given their medals and items won during the fundraiser.  Our team raised the most money and received a pizza party.

 To end each game, the parents and family formed a tunnels and the players ran through.  This, along with the snacks, seemed to be the favorite part of the experience for most of the players.

 The girls turned 5 years old this year.  Everyone always says that they grow up too quickly, and while I believe they have, I look back at all the wonderful memories we have made as a family and my heart is filled with gratitude at God's tremendous blessings.
I love watching them grow and develop into truly unique individuals that have changed our lives for the better.

The girls are almost finished with thier first year in school.  They are in Mrs. Nelson's Pre-K a.m. class at Glenpool Elementary.  They go to school half a day and spend the second half of their day at Momo's.  They have learned a lot this year including identifying all capital and lower case letters with their sounds, counting to 100, how to spell all the colors and many sea animal names, how to write sentences, and how to read.  They also made many new friends with Kelsi being their closest since she gets to spend extra time with them everyday at Momo's.

GREAT Grandma Tolbert

This is a picture of the girls with their maternal great grandma in Hanna.  She calls the girls "My twins" and was excited to finally have her own set of twins.  Multiples seems to be prevalent in her family, but she had never had any of her own until our girls were born.

New Bikes and Puppy

Meet Nala, Daddy's new puppy. He has wanted another German Shepherd for a long time and was finally able to get one once we bought a house, AND he created a yard that she could be comfortable in. He worked hard to move our fence line, so he definitely deserves a reward. The girls absolutely love her, too.
For their 5th birthday the girls received big girl bikes with "stabilizers", as Abigail calls her training wheels. Abi got a red Cars bike and is pretty good at riding except when she looks where she has been instead of where she is going. She has already had a couple of accidents, but, hopefully, she'll learn her lesson soon.
Emily's bike is purple with glitter and streamers. She is really good at riding hers, too, but sometimes gets to going way too fast and scares Mommy. I think I may have been as excited as they were to get their bikes. I have been waiting a long time to go bike riding as a family. Now, I think the girls would want to do that every night if we'd let them. They love riding their bikes!

4 1/2 Years Old- "Half"y Birthday!!!

The girls turned 4 1/2 today. They are most excited about moving to the yellow room at church. They spent the day going to school and watching the Glenpool Homecoming Parade.

Previous half birthday posts:
6 months
1 1/2 years old
2 1/2 years old
3 1/2 years old

Seaside, FL Day Four

My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied.

~Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Speckled Band
On the ship headed out to the East Jetties for snorkeling. The girls watched out the side as our guide tormented the other boats and jet skiers by spraying them with a water gun as they passed us.
Emily and Daddy were snorkeling buddies. Emily rode on his back as he snorkeled around the cove. She refused to put on her mask because it was too tight, but would compromise and occasionally press the mask against her face to cause just enough suction to keep the water out as she looked under the water.
Abigail was in the water briefly; just long enough to see a very large crab scamper by. After seeing this, she got scared and wanted to just sit on the boat and munch on her snacks.
After a swim in the pool back at the condo, we meandered back to the Central Square in Seaside and had dinner at Pickles. They have outside seating with misters to keep us cool while we eat. It is also a great time to people watch.


The girls posing by a mermaid statue. Emily is still convinced there are real mermaids out there in the ocean.
We ended our evening back at the girls' favorite place, Duckies. Abigail could not wait to get her hands on a cat like Emily has. She named hers Copper Moonlight. Emily chose small cat and dog figures and named them Sat the Cat and Fog the Dog.

Swimming

I have yet to tell the exciting news of the girls learning to swim. They just took off at the beginning of the summer and have been little fish ever since. Abigail loves to stay under water and wear her goggles. She can swim the length of both Nana's and Momo's pool, coming up only to spew water and catch one quick breath before going back under. Emily likes to keep her head above the water and doggie paddle. They are both getting pretty good about going deep under the water.

These videos were taken at the pool at our condo in Florida.

Seaside, FL Day Three

AAARRRGGGHHH! AhoyMe Hearties! Aye Aye! Heave Ho! Landlubber! Scalleywag! Shiver Me Timbers!Thar She Blows! Walk the Plank! Yo Ho Ho!

Tonight we visited the Pirate Ship, Sea Dragon. Emily and Abigail were very excited to board a real pirate ship and meet "nice pirates".
Emily looking through her telescope at the people and ships passing.
The crew climbing the masts to be introduced. This quickly caught the girls attention.
Before the fun activities began, two of the pirates gave instructions. Neither girl was real sure of how to take these unfamiliar characters at first.
The trip began with a water gun fight. The girls mostly shot each other, but found it a little exciting that they could shoot other kids, as well as, adults without getting into trouble.
Abigail, in true pirate fashion, with her eye patch, and telescope.
Emily getting her face painted.
Abigail getting her face painted.
Abigail and Emily showing off their new face paintings (both dolphins) and their pirate hats.
Daddy and Emily sword fighting on the deck of the pirate ship.
Daddy and Emily in the midst of their fight. They don't appear to be too fierce of enemies.
Emily fighting one of the pirates. I think he was distracted by the pretty lights from her Twinkle Toe shoes. He stopped the fight to make a comment on them.Mommy took over the fight once Daddy got tired.
Abigail did not want to sword fight at first, but then she got into it once she realized she could hit Daddy.
The pirates showing the children the treasure map and trying to determine the exact location of the treasure.

After looking at the map, the children had to look out into the water to locate the orange buoy with the big black 'X' on it. One of the pirates threw out a hook to capture the rope and then, all the children worked together to pull the treasure chest out of the ocean.
Each child was allowed to get three items from the treasure chest. Here they all had to hold up three fingers. Notice Emily holding her three by putting down her ring finger and her thumb; not the typical thumb and pinky.
The pirates seemed to take forever getting the chest unlocked and showing the children what was inside.

Finally, the children were able to gather their loot from the treasure chest they had worked so hard on locating and pulling into the ship.
The evening ended with a Pirate Party which, of course, include the limbo. Both girls just ducked underneath until they saw what the older kids were doing. Then, Emily began laying backwards as she walked under it.

Both girls refused to participate in the Chicken Dance. I guess they thought it was silly??
The pirates lead the children around a conga line playing the tambourine and dancing.
The very last "treasure" the pirates gave was a skull and cross bones tattoo. Bones, the Pirate worked on putting Emily's on. Abigail refused it.
They girls also got to fire the "Kid Cannon" which consisted of soft Nerf cannon balls that were shot by hitting the cannon with a hammer. Abigail was a little frightened by the idea at first because she thought it was going to be loud like the big cannons they shot off earlier in the trip. She could not stand the loud boom and would cover her ears tightly. She also got worried every time the captain said anything about the pirate "Cannon Ball Sue". She just heard the words "cannon ball" and assumed they were about to fire it off again.

Emily and Mommy's matching tattoos. Check out those guns!

Our ship; Sea Dragon