Glen Lake Days

We are having a fantastic time at the lake this year! The girls have been loving the water and playing in the sand. We've been very content to stick close by the cottage and just wander out to the lake the lake outside our door each day.

We have been to the sand dunes and got one good photo of the 4 of us...kind of a miracle. Sadie is NOT into having her picture taken all of the sudden. She's a camera and starts whining "no picture!" Not sure why! I guess I've been the paparazzi lately??? Sadie was a little unsure about the dunes because it was fairly windy and blowing sand into our faces, as well as the super steep, sandy hills, so she required a ride up and down the hills...whew! That was a lot of work!!! Tom and I took turns and she was ok, but ready to go. Her sister on the other hand, could have stayed and explored all day.

The second morning we took a great hike in the woods for a couple of hours with the girls. We went to overlooks of Glen Lake and the big lake, too. Beautiful morning. On our hike we saw what looked to be a medium sized dog trotting up the trail towards us...until we realized "oh my, it's a cyote!" He turned and ran into the woods away from us, but then doubled back and trailed us for awhile but eventually left. We took turns carrying a VERY big stick after that. Pushing the stroller up those wooded trails, some sandy, is not getting easier with our heavy loads. Sophie did a good job of hiking most of the way up, so that helped a ton!

Yesterday Tom got to golf at the Bear in TC with his dad all day and we hung out at the cottage, a girls day :) Late in the day the wind died down enough to take a boat ride on Cheryl's new pontoon boat with the kids. Sophie got to drive and loved it! Sadie again, unsure about the new experience, but she was exhausted from not napping so she fell sound asleep...photos to come!!!

Rain today, so we'll see what we get into. A little shopping, maybe a playground if it stops raining...out for ice cream, just being together. Bliss.

Window in her mouth

Sophie finally lost the tooth that has been loose for months! Grammy pulled it out for her on Tuesday night at dinner. It was just hanging on, almost sideways. It didn't hurt her, but she was so scared! The big teeth underneath have pushed the baby teeth into the middle and now it looks like she lost 2 teeth because she has a gap on either side of the other lower front tooth :) She was so excited to have the tooth fairy come, too! Tooth fairy was pretty proud to remember her task that evening. She left a dollar bill and a silver dollar...because it was the first tooth. I've heard that subsequent teeth only fetch a dollar. Any day now that other lower tooth should be popping out...or getting pulled out! Then she'll have a great big window in her mouth!

Besties

Shoe fetish

Here Sadie is running around, sans skirt, in my fancy red shoes. Mom has a photo of me at about this age doing almost the same thing. Sadie loves shoes, especially big, girlie shoes. The more sparkly, shiny, high-heeled the better. The girl loves them! She also has a penchant for her sisters flip-flops, which she calls "hop-hops."

I'm hoping this isn't a sign of things to come...I may be spending a lot of time and money at DSW in the future ;D

Paper-mache and a 2 year old

Well, I saw a craft for making paper-mache bowls in one of our parenting magazines. It listed the craft as appropriate for 2+ and it was a no nap day for Sadie. I wanted something constructive to do with both girls, so we whipped up a batch of homemade paste (not that impressive, only flour and water) and began ripping up a bunch of tissue paper in preparation for making our project.
Sadie loves to paint. So applying the paste with a paint brush was initially going really well. Then that must have felt too slow to her because she decided to try her hands. That was fun, so was smearing it all over the table...but when her hair fell in her face and she brushed it back with her messy hand...well, that wasn't so fun. Mommy started sort of getting a little stressed about all the paste in the hair and telling her "don't touch your face or hair," so she then pasted her chin with tissue paper. I only wish I had a photo to show of this, but if I did my camera would be forever full of paper-mache paste...so you'll have to use your imagination.
Sophie meanwhile was working away, happy as a clam, but very meticulous and had to do it "just right" and was unwilling to touch the paste. If you've never done paper-mache you won't know that messy is part of the deal. You have to get it pretty much all over your hands to get the job done...so I did :)
In the end we were very happy with our cute little bowl. So happy that Sophie and I did one, without Sadie, the next day, too!