Company Picnic

D's company picnic was this past weekend - IT WAS ROASTING!!! The car temp was seriously over 100 and it 'cooled' down to 95 on our drive home. The weather is killing me. This winter when we were under 3 feet of snow in Feb. I thought that Al Gore was pretty much insane with his whole global warming stuff. However, after a blistering summer and it is still going strong here at the END of September, I am reconsidering my position.

Rant over.

So the highlights of the company picnic, since we did not win one of the raffle baskets, were the following: eating, face painting, and playing on a giant inflatable. Here are a few pics of each activity. I will preface by saying that the face painting was incredible. The lady did each of them in less than 5 minutes. It was amazing. I helped Audrey pick out the butterfly cause I was picturing a little one on her cheek. Clearly I did not understand what was going to happen. You may not be able to tell but there is glitter on it too! And Brooke chose her own and could not be persuaded to do something else, but it turned out much cuter than I had pictured.

You had to climb up this - which Audrey flew up - and then slide down one of 3 slides. They loved it and did it over and over and over.

The slide was really fast. Unfortunately, one time Brooke toppled over and she has a pretty large carpet burn looking scrape down her nose.

Dancing Update

They are SO CUTE in their little dance class. And they really seem to enjoy going, which is even better! In the picture above, they are the two in black (such little rebels!). Audrey is clearly the one with more inherent ability. In this particular class, Brooke fell over at least 3 times. I am talking about total fall to the ground as she was trying to stand a particular way. And I cannot explain how funny it was to watch her try to walk from one side of the room to the other doing a little "hello, goodbye" step in the tap portion. She seriously could not figure out how to move her feet up and down and move forward. The teacher had to move her legs for her. But we practice at home a little and she is able to get it before we go back the next week.

I never took dance (shocking for those of you who have seen me dance!) and so I have really enjoyed watching the class and trying to learn right along with the girls. In ballet they are doing 1st and 2nd position and jumping back and forth between the two (which seems to have some name that they say when they do it) and the tap move seems to be the hello (toe up) and goodbye (toe down) combo. In the gym part they are working on the bars and walking by themselves across the balance beam. This last week, they did an exercise where they ran and knocked over a mat that was standing on its end. Brooke excelled in this portion as she ran full speed and barreled right into it - a skill that she has mastered at our house running into us. She's our little roller derby gal!

The Danger Zone

It has been unusually warm (hot) up here this fall, and while that is annoying, it also provides an opportunity for the girls to play outside for longer. They LOVE to be outside and currently any time we are outside, Brooke LOVES to ride her bike. Audrey is not really a big fan of pedaling and so she usually just walks behind for most of our outings. Here are some pics of them riding and a little video as well!

Crazy riders on their tricycles

Riding on their miniature bikes

Brooke on her 'big wheel'

Cox Farms

For the third year, we went to celebrate fall at Cox Farms....lots of outdoor slides, animals, and apples. Seems early to already be doing fall festival stuff, but this weekend was the preview weekend where you get a coupon for free admission for 2 people - and since the girls are now full price this seemed like a great time to go especially since D was out of town for the weekend.

So the girls and I loaded up and met up with some of our friends which is basically essential as I still get nervous taking the girls places like that by myself. (Here is a long aside. I always emphasize to the girls that they need to stay right by me so that they can be safe. I tell them that they are so cute that some one may want to snatch them up and take them. D says that perhaps this is not really to route to go with them as I may cause some psychological damage. But alas it is the strategy that I have chosen to go with. So I was reviewing this with them on the way to the festival. And I discovered that I am not causing any damage as they think that I am talking about getting "snapped by a crab" and possibly by a "kermit crab." So no harm yet!)

Here are some pics of the day - which turned out to be burning up and made it even harder to feel festive while sweating and getting sunburned!

Brooke sliding down the castle slide. They both did great sliding all by themselves!

In a pretend tractor race (L to R): Elisa, Falyn, Audrey, and Brooke. This was followed by the girls running to the finish line so that they could be the winner.

So cute how they will randomly just walk around holding hands, though occasionally one (almost always Audrey) does not want to participate


Audrey feeding a goat - this goat ate all of her food.

Brooke, in contrast, would pull her cone away. When I asked her why she replied that she wanted to make sure that everyone got some.

Tarzan Audrey!! She was great at this little rope swing.

First Day of Preschool

So that last post was a little on the dramatic side - apparently that is where the girls get it from! The girls actually looked pretty cute in their substitute outfits and Audrey seemed quite cheerful when I picked them up. Here are the best pictures that I got:

First Day of Preschool

Today was the first day of preschool for the girls! The morning did not go exactly as I had envisioned.

They have gotten into the habit of watching TV while I shower and get ready in the morning. Usually that takes about 40 minutes which is almost exactly the length of two of their shows. So they expect to watch 2 shows. They started watching the first one a little after 7:30 and I wanted us to leave our house by 8:45. So I knew it was a mistake when I started the second one, but I was trying to make sure the morning went smoothly.

Of course that means that we were rushing around trying to get dressed, hair done, and breakfast eaten with very little time to do it. And of course we were out of waffles and pancakes - which is basically all the girls eat for breakfast ever. So I had made a little substitute breakfast for them that I thought would work great - no such luck. Brooke was quite distressed and did not want any of it. She finally settled on some yogurt and cottage cheese for her breakfast. Not what I would select as we were already dressed to leave. But I decided to go with the flow and avoid any melt downs.

And I should probably mention here that Audrey has a cold. I woke up sick on Friday and still feel a little under the weather. And of course on Monday Audrey started coming down with the same cold. So I was worried about whether I should even take her to school or not. But I didn't want her to miss the first day, and I am not sure I could have gotten Brooke there without Audrey. The solution - Benedryl. So Audrey is really not herself this morning and I am trying desperately to make sure she doesn't look like she is sick.

We are almost ready to get out the door when Brooke spills yogurt down the front of her shirt. A lot of yogurt down the front of her shirt. There is no choice but to go change shirts QUICKLY cause it is now 8:45. So I throw another shirt on Brooke that pretty much matches her shorts and think that we are ready to go. But Audrey INSISTS that she also needs a new shirt. Which is ridiculous, but since I am trying to hurry and I really don't want any tantrums I give in and tell her to go grab a shirt to change into. No need for me to select one cause we only have one shirt that matches the skirt that she is wearing and we are for sure not changing any more than absolutely necessary.

So the girls go to school in mismatched outfits and Audrey with a runny nose. What must the teachers think!

The before school pics were not good, so hopefully we will be able to get some after school today!

First Dance Class

This is a super exciting week at the Hadden house! On Monday the girls had their very first dance class. And it was their very first class (of any kind) that was sans parent! Big Day! The class is actually a combo class at the Little Gym. It is an hour long and they do Tap, Ballet, Creative Movement, and Gymnastics. I tried to sit and read a book and not constantly peep in, but I did watch some of the dance moves. It is clear that neither of them are going to be dance prodigies. They announced that the gymnastics was their favorite part - not a surprise. I think that they were disappointed that their was less spinning in the ballet portion than they thought and less loud tapping in the tap portion. They were very excited to spin and be REALLY loud in their "tapper" shoes. The funniest part of the ballet class was watching them try to get Brooke to stand in first position- aka with her feet like a piece of pizza. She just could not get it and she kept her feet together and would roll over on to the sides of her feet...bizarre.

The girls in their tap class...not sure why they are holding hands, but it was super cute!

Labor Day Part 2 aka The Amusement Park

In addition to the Amish attractions, we went to Lancaster to go to Dutch Wonderland. It is basically an amusement park that caters to kids 6/7 and under....and since the kids are free until 3 we decided that this was the perfect time to go. We spent 2 "days" there - Saturday from 10 - 2 and then Monday from 10:30 - 3. The girls liked it on Saturday, but they really liked it on Monday. They were requesting rides and seemed to understand what it was all about more the second day. The favorite rides were the panda bears for Audrey and the little purple cars for Brooke (pictured below). D and I enjoyed the log flume, the roller coaster, and the bumper cars. None of us were fans of the Turtle Whirl. On Monday we also went to the water portion of the park. They have a big water slide - where you sit in a little raft and pop out at the end on a little conveyor belt rather than into water - and a bunch of splash/spray things. There are no pictures of this cause the camera was in the locker. But the girls really enjoyed this too.

In front of the entrance and on the merry-go-round (which I tried to discourage as you can do that anywhere, but I had no success with that).

With the mascot Duke and on the bulldozer ride - slowest ride ever - where they liked lifting the front end up and down.

Their favorite rides - though Brooke's choice is really not a ride as you move it with your feet. The panda bears had little buttons that you pushed that made buzzing noises and it spun around rather quickly.

The Haddens as Amish and moving across the park on the people mover.

D putting the girls onto the mini-ferris wheel and the HORRIBLE turtle whirl!

Labor Day Part 1 aka The Amish Experience

For Labor Day this year we decided to head up to Lancaster PA to visit the Amish country...and go to a kiddie amusement park (there will be a separate post for that as I took a bajillion pictures).

On Sunday (in retrospect, not the day to do authentic Amish stuff) we went to this attraction called the Amish Farm and House. It was built back in the early 1800's. We took a guided tour of the house - very informative as all of my Amish knowledge was based on the movie Witness - and a self-guided tour of the grounds. The girls really liked the goats and the corn.

Audrey feeding the goats

Children of the corn

All I can say is that I am so glad that D approved this beforehand or I would never live it down - it turns out that all of the land around the Amish farm and house has been bought and turned very commercial. We were literally in the parking lot of Target and across from Outlet Malls.

After our tour we decided to drive out a bit and see "real" Amish life. And we got so excited each time we saw a little buggy coming toward us.

And because I am secretly a 13 year old boy, we just had to stop and take a picture of me with this sign!