Bike to the Park

Mr D has been begging me for weeks now to take a family bike ride to the park. (Not knowing how Little Miss A would fare the distance, I had been putting it off.) The weather has been SO nice here lately that we tried it out tonight. I walked/jogged along side them tonight instead of biking. Until we build up a faster pace and are sufficiently going, I'm going to have to keep doing that...our speed is so random. It won't be long though before we all truly can take a family bike ride together. Then it may be bye, bye training wheels. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one, so we'll see. :)

Picnic in the Park

I think we may have yet another new tradition for our Monday evenings at the Caswell house. Our Monday nights are CRAZY!!! We rush to leave school by 3:15 to take Mr D to gymnastics at 3:45 then it's straight to dance at 5:00 and on to dinner from there which is of course out, cuz who has time to cook in there? Well, we decided to head to the park tonight for dinner tonight. It was awesome. The kids had a blast playing. They were all over the place...from the play scape to the rock wall, to the sand pit then the swings and back again, they were in a proverbial loop...seriously all over the place. It was awesome. :) I think we all needed that. We can't wait for Daddy to come back to Austin so he can enjoy in this fun new tradition with us.

I'm Not Playing

A fun, family game night tradition at the Caswells went from fun to frightful when Mr D had to leave his spot 2 color squares away from Candy Castle to go all the way back to the Peppermint Forrest in a game of Candy Land gone wrong. A tragedy that has occurred SEVERAL times in the past, but today was actually accompanied with the famous "I'm not playing" statement and the biggest pout I've ever seen. (I had been waiting for that.) Even though I truly felt bad for the little guy, it was so hard not to laugh.

Swimming Nitro!

Well, we finally enrolled the kids in swimming lessons and had our first session this afternoon. The Nitro swim plan has 10 stations that the kids will move through as they "pass" each station focus area. We started today with station 1...head under water for at least five seconds. I'm happy to say that about halfway through their first lesson, A & D were moved to station 2, so we're on to the star float. :) The class was awesome. We had an amazing coach and A & D are currently the only kids in the class. (You gotta love that kind of attention.) Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers and toes that the kids will be all out swimming on their own by summer time. :)

Tickle Me Allie

Our little girl loves to be tickled!!! "Mommy, tickle my back, tickle my legs, tickle my arms." The requests are endless. This must be a genetic trait from Daddy. I've heard all the stories from J's childhood and the nightmare he put his parents though every night to get him to go to sleep. Apparently, he has created a little clone in that respect. Let the bedtime games begin. :)

Happy Easter

It was a laid back Easter morning at the Caswell house. A nice slow tour of the Easter baskets, followed by a family breakfast just enjoying time together. A & D were immediately on stage... fashion show of their new bathing suits and apparel from the bunny. Then it was on to playing with their new stuff. (Sounds like Christmas in April, right?) It was a nice family day. We ended the day with a new Caswell tradition...a sunset dinner at the Oasis (the sunset capital of Texas!) AWESOME!!!! :)

Making Progress...FINALLY!!!!

With our pre-construction meeting on Thursday, we were shocked to drive to the lot to see this...

This picture was taken Saturday morning. All this in one day? (Good Friday at that!?!?) WOW!!! Glad to see things are finally moving along. We've been in a stagnant lull for about a month now. Since we are about to be "homeless" it's nice to see that we have something in the "works". We'll see if I can add a slide show gadget to "capture" the transformation. We are about to be known as the Caswell house stalkers! :)

It's Official...

With a SOLD sign in the front yard, it seems official enough to say...we're moving. The new owners are leasing our house back to us, so hopefully we can avoid a double move since we won't be closing on our new house until sometime mid-summer. We're crossing our fingers that this will be a nice easy transition. It's sad that we'll be leaving our very first house...the one we brought our sweet babies home to, yet exciting at the same time at the prospect of our new house we're building to be just the way we want it. :)

Bluebonnets!

As is customary in Texas, we took our pictures in the bluebonnets today!!! Unfortunately, Little Miss A, sat in a stinging nettle plant and refused to take any other pictures after this one, so this is all we have of the two of them together. I'm crossing my fingers and toes this doesn't scar my sweet little girl for life. It seems as though something like this happens every year with her. Honestly, bluebonnet pictures should not = injuries. Poor thing!

Bunny Breakfast

Thanks to Ms A, the Caswells found out about a wonderful tradition through Nordstroms...the breakfast with Santa, and the bunny breakfast!! After having such an awesome experience with the breakfast with Santa in December, we signed up for the bunny breakfast last month and finally got to go today!!! It was wonderful...the kids had so much fun!!! We had 2 jelly bean cupcake kits waiting for us on our table when we sat down to breakfast and then of course the Easter bunny showed up during our meal to say "hi" to the kids. Both A & D were stand-offish at first. Little Miss A has been so shy to EVERYONE for months now that I wasn't suprpised, but even Mr personality had his reservations. About half-way through the Easter bunny's grand entrance into the dining room, Mr D starts saying (very loudly, I might add) "that's just a guy under there." After talking to him quietly about this little discovery, Mr D was very excited to see the bunny in person and even take some pictures. We skipped the craft tables and headed straight to the balloon artist for a super-soaker and a puppy on a leash. (Can you guess who picked what?) After that, we went to face painting...Ariel and Spiderman. (Seriously, could they be more gender stereotyped? That cracks me up!!!) What a wonderful Saturday morning!!!

Easter Egg Hunt Playdate

After a few months of being MIA from our playgroup, school and our other extra-curricular activities have sadly taken over our lives lately, we were finally able to join our friends for a fun Easter egg hunt play date. It was an afternoon filled with fun painting, cupcake decorating and a great time playing with friends we don't get to see very often anymore...the kids had a blast!!!! It was so nice to see our long lost friends! With school rapidly coming to a close, we are so anxious to get back into the routine of seeing our friends again. What a fun Friday afternoon treat! :)

Bye Bye Bunnies

Well, after over a year of a roller coaster ride with male/female bunnies and all the litters of baby bunnies we've experienced over the course of that time, we finally had to say good-bye. With the small amount of space we had to offer them here, we are so excited that Miss Whiskers and Thumper are going to live in a zoo...literally. (A friend of mine from school has a wonderful set of grandparents that have a virtual zoo about five hours from here that have graciously accepted our "babies" to come stay.) Ms J was taking a weekend trip to see them and took our sweet bunnies with her. They are going to thrive on lots of land with other bunny friends to hop and jump around with. :) Though it was difficult to say good-bye, Ms J said we could take a road trip with her to the zoo this summer to see how well Miss Whiskers and Thumper have adjusted to their new life with their new friends. :)