Oakdale Summer Fest

This past Friday we found ourselves unexpectedly in town and decided to check out Oakdale Summer Fest. It was awesome! And much bigger than I had thought it'd be. There were tons of carnival games, food, a giant playground, pony rides, a Beatles tribute band and lots of booths set up in Oakdale's very nice Richard Walton Park. A good time was had by all (Claire in pink ruffle shirt, Abby in pink princesses shirt and Lily in purple Tangled shirt)!

Pushes from Daddy are the best!

Crazy dancing

All copying Claire's funny face

The running-in-circles dance

Ready for ponies!

The walk back to the car with three tired girls (Yes, I knelt in the wet grass and it's a good look, I know).

In other news, we dressed up as princesses (or divas in Claire's case, above) today and went for a Princess Parade in the backyard.

The adorable princesses (Claire in pink as Sleeping Beauty, Abby in blue as a fairy and Lily as Rapunzel)

Claire and Abby have also enjoyed taking more pictures with my camera. Abby took the nice one of Claire, above. They also enjoy taking pictures of their pretty dresses...

... their daddy...

... their Dora cup...

... their toes...

... their toys...

... their sister's hands...

... their smiling faces...

... and their scary faces!

I think they may have a future as professional photographers (or scary face makers).

Catching Up

Whoa! Three months since I last posted? Pretty crazy! Here's a recap of what we've been up to these past three months:

Easter

The girls had a blast dying eggs for the first time ever this year! Ryan showed them how to do cool things, like draw on an egg with crayon before dying it, and he wrote their names on them too which the girls thought was so amazing.

Claire, above, and Abby, below, show off their eggs!

There's my cute family!

Then Ryan thought of a fun new tradition so he took the girls outside so they could each "plant" one of their decorated eggs.

The next morning, we went out in our pjs to find...

... that our planted eggs had turned into Easter baskets!

Pretty cool, right?

We also had a rip-roaring good egg hunt in the living room, and the Easter bunny brought Claire & Abby helmets for their bikes!

Grandma & Grandpa Campbell had given them the bikes for their birthdays but you can't really ride bikes in January in Minnesota, so we waited until now to assemble them. So really, it was perfect timing for the Easter bunny to get them helmets so they could actually try riding their bikes.

Which we went outside and did later that day!

While they're still not bike riding pros, Claire, above, and Abby, below, had an awesome time. I'm sure we have many more bike riding days in our future.

Alex's Dance Recital

We also got to check out Cousin Alex's dance recital this Spring with Grandma Gwen, Grandpa Rich, Uncle Andy, Aunt Steph, and Uncle Kevin. It was pretty darn cool! Claire was SO excited when she was picked by one of the dancers during the first song to dance in the aisle with her. Claire is definitely our future dancer - she is shaking her bootie every chance she gets!

Alex did such a great job and was simply adorable. Who knew nonprofessional dance recitals could be so much fun??

On a random side note, the girls' new favorite outfits are these super cute dresses they got from Ryan, who picked them up while on a vacation in Las Vegas with some guy friends from work.

Bowling!

Abby (in purple above) and Claire love it when Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Wayne come visit, especially when we do super-fun things like bowling for the first time! The girls got some help from Grandpa Wayne...

... Mommy...

... Daddy...

... and Grandma Sharon...

... and Claire even managed to beat Mommy's bowling score while Abby was only 3 points behind Mommy. They're naturals! (I guess it doesn't hurt that I'm just a really bad bowler... )

June

Then there's about a month there where lots of fun things happened, including the Fairy Tale ball on May 13th in Eau Claire (hope you saw my Facebook post of Abby on the news during the ball!); sleeping over at Cousin Alex's house; sleeping over at Grandma & Grandpa Campbell's house; celebrating Aunt Pat's 70th bday with dinner at Red Lobster; going to the cabin for a few days with our friends Amanda, Atticus & Sampson Retzak Krump; then starting to have Lily at our house a few days a week over the summer. I have been very lax at picture taking lately so yep, no picture of any of those exciting events. But don't worry, I'm starting to whip out the camera a bit more again, just in time for...

The Grand Reopening of the Highland Park Aquatic Center!

Aunt Jill & Cousin Lily joined us to check this place out. It has several pools, including a very cool one for little ones, just the right size for these three three-year-olds!

Unfortunately, it rained all day and apparently there's a rule where if it thunders, everyone has to stay out of the pool for 30 minutes. It thundered right as we walked out of the locker room in our swim suits, which means Jilly and I had to entertain our three girls for about 45 minutes before they were clear to swim. Luckily, the pool was so awesome it made up for our long wait to get in it! I have a Groupon to here and look forward to heading back this summer.

Como Zoo

I of course forgot my camera when Amanda and I took our brood of 5 children (Atticus, Sampson, Claire, Abby and Lily) to Como Zoo while they were visiting, so I made sure to take pictures when we headed these just yesterday with Uncle Scotty.

We got up close with many animals, including this tiger (Claire above and Lily below)...

... giraffes...

... a polar bear bobbing for a carrot (yes, that's Lily in the braids and pink shirt)...
... a seal...
... orangutans...
... and Uncle Scotty and Ryan!

My favorite (after Ryan, of course) was definitely this cute polar bear.

Okay, now we're all caught up! Hope you are all enjoying your start to summer. I will try to post again much sooner than 3 months from now. :) Until then, take care!