The Soileaus' Excellent Adventure

Karen's post the a while back reminded me that I had promised myself last spring that we would try our hand at letterboxing with the girls. If you are unfamiliar with this hobby, basically you find clues on the internet to boxes hidden in your area with a stamp and booklet inside. You find the box and stamp the hidden stamp in your book and stamp your personal stamp in the booklet in the box. I don't know if that explanation made sense, but at any rate, we decided to give it a try today. We took the girls to Michael's and let them pick out the stamp they liked the best and I bought them each a notebook to record their finds. And, it actually turned out to be more fun than we thought it was going to be. We found one box and the girls, especially Harper Lee, were really excited by the idea of it being a secret that not everyone knew was there.

We decided to try right away to find another box, but as often happens with two girls ages 8 and 5, the situation quickly deteriorated and we decided to head home. BUT, we had a blast and we will definitely try it again as soon as weather and schedule permit!

Dance All Night

My name is Christa, and I am addicted to DDR (otherwise known as Dance Dance Revolution).

I was looking for a fun way to get exercise and I found it! This game is SO much fun. We have a blast as a family playing together. Come on over and we can challenge you to dance-off! (har, har) Here is a sample of Liv's moves. I will post some of Harper's soon. Their "styles" are completely different. I will even try to sneak and post some of Jeremy's dancing skills, but I wil NEVER, NEVER post any of my dancing, so don't ask!!!

Wisdom from Harper and Liv-o

We have had a lot going on lately. Mostly, we have been sick. But, sprinkled in amongst all the snot and sick days there have been some really funny and sweet moments.

Liv came up with a new swear word. She likes to exclaim "Holy Mercy!" when she is impressed with something.

I often think that stories about Harper Lee are lost in translation because her facial expressions are so hard to explain. The first night that we had the Wii game "Dance Dance Revolution" in our house (much, much more on that later) the narrating voice all the game sang out "dance all night," and Harper said almost reverently, "I sure wish I could." Liv, on the other hand, gets extremely, and I do mean, extremely, irate at the narrator for insulting her and especially her dad's dancing ability. She screams at Jeremy, "He doesn't even know you!! He doesn't know anything about you!"

The other day Liv was sitting in the living room and told Jeremy, "The living room looks different." And then, in a voice of wonder, "It's clean or something."

Harper made us an "anivshery" card. She illustrated the poem, "Jeremy and Christa, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G." She "mailed" it to us by putting it in the mailbox.

Liv expressed our desire for spring the other day when she found some scraggly dandelions in the yard. She picked them and exclaimed, "Welcome to the earth!"

Wiily Tired

Have you ever asked yourself what would a kid look like who checked out of school sick with a bad cold, was begged by her father to take a nap, but kept insisting she wanted to play Wii and that she was NOT tired and did not need a nap? A little something like this . . .







Don't worry, she's alive, I promise. :)

Harper's Birthday

It's been weeks since Harper Lee's birthday and I still haven't had her "real" party. In the meantime, here is a video of her opening her present from Jeremy's parents at the bowling alley when we got together when my family.

Update to Stair Crisis

Just wanted to update the hundreds of you who were fascinated by our stair problems. Jeremy was able to add a "floor additive" to the paint (basically sand) and repaint the stairs. They look just as good as they did, and now there is a lot less risk of broken bones or other deadly injury. YAY! Now, on to the next project!