2-Wheelin' Around

Poor Lilly has been trying to learn to ride her bike without training wheels since late last summer.  She was starting to get the hang of it, then broke her arm and was unable to ride for 7 weeks.  When her cast was removed in October, she again tried to ride with two-wheels.  She would do okay, but wouldn't pedal hard enough to keep going.  So we moved her to the grass, where she couldn't just coast.  It worked, but she couldn't go more than about 30' by herself and we still had to push her off to start.  Well, we had snow the first weekend in November and it didn't leave (as I type, we are getting snow...on April 28...)  But we have had a few good days here and there this spring.  Lilly was doing quite well again and then...her stitches.  Since she was still learning, and learning means wipe-outs, I wasn't about to let her ride with the stitches in. 

Finally, on Monday, it was nice, there wasn't snow on the ground or rain in the sky, and we had no plans for the evening.  Lilly put on her helmet, walked her bike to the grass and said, "I'm ready Mom!"  I pushed her off once and that was it.  She rode the entire length of the front yard, made a turn (her first successfully) at the end and rode back to me.  Then she pushed herself off and did it again.  After a few times, she asked if she could go in the driveway.  She's a pro!  It just clicked and she's doing so great now! 

We are so proud of her!

Hoppy Easter!

We hope you had a great Easter celebrating that Jesus rose from the dead!  We had a wonderful day.  It started with our egg and basket search, then church service, then we hosted Easter dinner for my mom's side of the family.  We ended the day with a nice afternoon walk and family movie night viewing of "Tangled."

Let's go camping!

This spring, we were able to pay off several bills and what's better to do when you pay something off than buy something new?!  I know, not the best strategy, but it's what we did.  Thankfully, our new payment is going to be less than what we were paying for the others combined.  So we're still ahead, and with a new toy, too.

We bought a camper.  We've been wanting one for awhile and finally took the plunge.  I love to tent camp, but Andy's not a fan of it.  And during horse camp and the fair, we stay at the fairgrounds and have had to borrow a camper from family for those 2 weeks.  So it's something that has been on our minds for years.  This spring, when we paid off those bills, we started to look at campers.  Since it wasn't something we needed, we were willing to wait until we found just what we wanted.  Andy insisted on it being a 5th wheel, I insisted it have bunks for the kids so we didn't have to mess around with converting tables and couches several times a day.  We found our ideal camper, in our price range, on about day 2.  Seriously.  We hemmed and hawed, looked at a bunch more on-line, and kept going back to this particular model.  It was ours a week later.

The whole time, we didn't tell the girls anything.  My parents had taken them overnight for a visit with family friends, so that day Andy and I went to see the camper in person and put down our deposit.  When he pulled in the driveway with it a few days later, the girls were so excited. "Is that a camper?  Whose is it? Is it OURS?  Do we have a CAMPER?!"  It was a school night, so they were disappointed we couldn't sleep in it right away.  But that weekend (after the play on Saturday night) we stayed in the camper for the first time.  So far, we love it.

(I don't know why this won't rotate)

Let's Play Cinderella

What I didn't mention in my post about Lilly's foot was our guilt that night.  Not the guilt over Lilly getting hurt (though we felt badly) but the guilt over poor Alayna.  See, she was in a school play that night and it was her first time ever performing something like that.  And we missed it.  Thankfully, Alayna is old enough that she understood Lilly needed us more at that time.  And super thankfully, there was another performance the next night!

The play was "Cinderella", though it was adapted and set in the 1950's.  It was really cute--Cinderella was going to a sock-hop instead of a ball and she sang in a lip-sync contest instead of dancing with the prince.  Alayna was one of the Chicks, a group of girls that followed the cool guys around and were friends with Cinderella.  She did a great job and we were so glad that we caught the Saturday night show!

You Put Your Right Foot In...

Our weather has been crazy, going back and forth between snow and 60 for the last few weeks.  But a little over two weeks ago, it was a nice 60 degree day and Lilly was playing barefoot outside at her friend's house.  They were running around and decided to play with rocks.  Somehow, in the middle of their rock play, a boulder fell onto Lilly's foot just right...and split it open.  We were just getting ready to head into town when we got the phone call:

"Candy, this is ____.  Lilly was playing outside and somehow a rock fell on her foot and split it open.  We didn't think it was that bad, but after we cleaned it up, we thought we'd better call.  I think she needs stitches.  I am SO sorry!"

After assuring her it happens and we weren't upset, we got in the truck and drove over to check it out.  It took us about 2 seconds to agree with their assessment and we gathered her things to bring her to the hospital.  Her friend wanted to come along to the hospital, so we loaded everyone and started the drive. 

To keep Lilly's mind off her foot, we made the 40 min drive as fun as possible.  We sang songs, told silly stories, talked about school and found ABCs on road signs.  When we got to the hospital, they gave us a big exam room so everyone could be with Miss Lilly.  We all guessed how many stitches she'd need and Daddy won with a guess of 5--she needed 6!  His prize was to carry Lilly from the hospital and pay for our supper at McDonalds!  haha

On the way home, Lilly wanted to continue her sleep-over and we told her that was fine.  However, once we were closer to home she decided she wanted to come home with us.  We dropped her friend off, again assured our friends that all was fine and went home. 

Lilly was such a trooper the whole time!  She was great about letting us take care of her foot and always made sure to be extra careful with it.  She had her stitches in for 12 days and had them removed this past Wednesday.  The doc said all looked well.

He has risen...and so have we!

OKay, so I'm not in any way likening myself to Jesus--just wanted to get that out there right off.  But yesterday was Easter, which celebrates the fact that Jesus died and was raised from the dead 3 days later.  Well, this blog is kinda being raised from the dead.  I hope.  I've been so horrible with blogging and I really miss it, but things have been so crazy.  But I'm going to make a point of blogging more because I enjoy and I know my readers enjoy it, too.  So let's hope I keep things going this time.

I'm not going to do a huge update post, but a few individual posts over the next few days.  So be on the look-out, if you are still out there!