Bike Ride Fun

Since it was so nice outside last night, we decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather.  We took the girls on a bike ride.  They love riding their bikes.  The hard part is that we live on a busy street, so we have to go down to grandpa and grandma's road to ride.  Not the easiest road to ride on, either.  I have noticed that most back roads in Indiana are not flat all the way across.  They slowly rise from the shoulders to form a hump in the middle of the road.  Our girls don't know how to ride without training wheels just yet.  They're getting close.  But it's hard when we don't have any flat surfaces to ride on.  Oh well.  It'll happen.  We gave them an incentive, though.  If they can learn to ride their bikes without training wheels before August, then they get to take their bikes to Mimi and Papa's house in NY and go on a bike ride with them.  Mimi and Papa love to bike and are looking forward to that trip.  Anyway, here's our motley little crew before we left (minus daddy, mommy and the dogs).

It's supposed to be even warmer here today (in the 80's).  Maybe we'll take the girls to the park tonight and bring the bikes with us.  I'm loving this weather!!!

Progress

We have been trying to get some things done before the baby arrives next month.  It's hard to believe that he'll be here that soon, but with the projects we have, it still seems like forever.  Since we found out we were having a boy, we decided that he's going to need his own room.  Right now, Emma and Lily share a room and Maggie has her own.  Well, that's going to change.  Maggie is going to move in with Lily and Emma will move to the basement.  Her room down there will be big enough to use as a guest room, too.  We'll put in a queen-sized bed, and when we have visitors, Emma will move back upstairs and sleep on the floor in the girls room.  She doesn't mind that.  She loves sleeping on the floor.  Anyway, we had a good friend come over and help Marc frame up the room.  It didn't take too long.  Just two evenings.  But then we decided to hire out the drywall work.  The men should be finished with that part today.  Then it's on to hanging up wainscoting (just on the bottom half), chair-rail, floor molding and then having the carpet laid.  Still a lot of work, but hopefully we'll be able to get it done quickly.  We're going to wait on getting the ceiling done for a little while.  I'm going to have to start on our boys room as soon as Emma's room is finished.  Anyway, here are some pictures of the progress so far.

It is a good-sized room (about 360 sq. ft.).  Plenty big for a 6 year old and will be fine when we have guests.  I'm so looking forward to this project getting done.  And so is Emma.  She's ready to be in her own room.  I'll post more pictures after some more work has been done.

Hair Cuts

A few weeks ago we took the girls in to get their hair cut.  I couldn't believe how a little cut (little for Lily and Maggie, 8 inches off for Emma) could make the girls look so grown up.  But it's funny, their cuts really fit their personality.  They love them.  I love them.  It takes a little longer to do their hair (now I have to blow dry), but it's worth it.  They really do look cute!

Maggie

Lily

Emma

My sweet girls!

Zoo Fun

It's been awhile since I've blogged anything and I have a ton of pictures to get on here.  So, I'm going to try and play catch-up today.  We have had some beautiful weather lately.  And on one of those days, we took advantage of taking the girls to the zoo.  We have a family pass for the summer and are very excited to use it.  The day we went, it was about 85 degrees outside, but not all of the animals were out yet.  They wanted to make sure that we wouldn't go back into the colder weather before all the animals were allowed out.  So, here are a few of the animals that we saw that day.

One sleepy tiger.

This white tiger was our favorite.  He was laying right in front of the glass when we got there.  Lily put her face up to the glass and the tiger jumped up, put both paws on the glass and roared!  Needless to say, our little girls jumped back, screamed and started laughing.  It was fun to watch!

I have no idea what this is.  I just thought he was kinda cute!

The camels look pretty pathetic with half their hair missing.  But we found out that they were in the process of shedding their winter coats.  So, maybe the next time we go back they won't look so terrible. 

One of the cranes.  If you look closely, you can see that she's guarding her precious egg.

Just some of the local riff-raff!

A red panda.  Maggie and I loved watching this one.  He was quite entertaining.

This poor lion.  He was pretty hot.

As Maggie calls it - the cow with really big horns.

A warthog.  Not the cutest of animals, but the girls liked him.

I love zebras.  I think they are one of the coolest looking animals.

All this leopard did was pace back and forth.  I think he might have been bored.

Some more of the local animals.  Funny, they didn't have these behind bars!  =)