First Day of School!

Sorry this has taken FOREVER for me to update!  Life has been full at the Lantz house these days!  Emma is so excited to be in First Grade at Meehan Elementary and this year Lucy goes to preschool at Immanual Lutheren School.  We are blessed to have wonderful teachers for both of the girls!  We pray for this school year, that the Lord protects & guides the path of our daughters.

Muffin Tin Crayons

What to do on a HOT rainy day in July?

I was inspired by a friends blog, to bring new life to our old broken crayons!  It was as easy as it looks. Bake them at 250 degrees for about 10-15 min.  (Next time we do it, I will double or triple up on the muffin papers because the wax did leak onto my muffin tin and took some good long soaking to get it clean.)  Emma & Lucy loved this idea, and insisted that all of their crayons be multi-colored.

 

Let them cool for about 15 min. and then pop them out of the papers.  Then...

create colorful rainbow swirly masterpieces!

Look at the Wild Life!

Had a great day at Brookfield Zoo with the Alfredson's today!

Summer Time Fun

We had our niece Shea over for a day, the girls played so well together & we had a great time with her! Nothing better than playing in the water on such a HOT day!

Another Parade :-)

We took Grandma & Grandpa Lantz to Elgin's 4th of July parade...let's just say it was way too HOT and LONG!  Overall, the kids did great...maybe better than us adults, sigh.  Emma was quite out of sorts, which is why she is not in any of the pics...oh well.  I won't bore you with the details of our parking/road closing debockle (did I spell that right?).  I think the lesson learned was that Belvidere's parade is much more kid friendly (short & sweet).

cousins: Lucy, Caed, Ben & Shea

Happy 4th of July!

Had a fun time at the Belvidere 4th of July parade & fireworks last weekend!  They switched the parade route from what they normally do...so we were at the beginning of the parade instead of the end and the girls got TONS of candy, the little sandwich baggies I brought were overflowing into Daddy's cargo pockets of his shorts! It was tons of fun!

Our Day at the Shedd Aquarium...well, not really

Kim & I took the kids (minus Ben) downtown for free day at the Shedd Aquarium. After paying $16 to park we discovered that there was a 3 hour wait to get in to the aquarium.  So...we rather than spoil a beautiful day...we improvised!  We had a picnic in the harbor and watched the water & boats.  Then, we looked at a map and saw the Buckingham Fountain was just a half an inch away! :-) So, we walked through Grant park to the fountain.  I think it was the LONGEST half inch those kids have ever walked! LOL But, we made it and it worth the walk.  The wind was blowing the fountain and cooled us all off with the mist.  It was refreshing!  Lucy did stand in the mist for a long time and ended up completly soaked! But, she wasn't complaining about being hot!  Then we walked back to the Shedd (still a 2 1/2 hour wait) and enjoyed some popsickles next to the Lake.  We finished the day by making it back in time for Kohlman & Ben's baseball game where Kohlman made a great hit, that became a homerun which won the game and put their team into first place! The girls really enjoyed their special day with their cousins even though they didn't get to see any cool fishies!

Superhero Day at the Discovery Center

Well, the girls were being very good helpers at home and as a reward I told them we could either spend the afternoon at Playworld or the Children's Museum in Rockford.  They picked the Children's Museum and I'm so glad they did!  There was a special exhibit going on all about Superhero's!  It was really neat! The girls made capes, masks, did a superhero obsticle course, got comic books, did suction cup target practice, got tattoos and solved a crime and caught the bad guy! It was so much fun!  We did get stuck there for an extra half hour after they closed because a really bad storm rolled in while we were there.  All in all, great day!

Dance Recital

Well, the girls Dance Recital was absolutley darling! Papa Witz and the entire Alfredson family came to support the girls! We are blessed to have wonderful family & friends for sure (many were there in spirit & prayer)! Lucy stole the show as the cutest one in her group (although, I may be a tad biased!). And Emma had 2 routines...one ballet and one jazz (with hip hop infusion). The ballet number was excellent! The girls (especially Emma) got a little mixed up during the jazz routine. We finished the night in style with ice cream at the Sweetery! (And then straight to the tub to wash the glitter away)

Aladdin with the Freund's

For Reese's 6th birthday we got her tickets to the Rockford CYT production of Aladdin. We had a wonderful time spending the day with the Freund family (minus Merrick). The show was great, we had trouble finding the theater (and Culvers too, but that's another story), but we arrived in time to catch the end of the first scene, which was an Indian infused version of Beyonce's Single Ladies. Can't get that song out of my head ever since...such a catchy little tune! 

High School Musical

Had a wonderful date with the girls at the Drury Lane production of High School Musical with two friends from Emma's Kindergarten class, twins Abby (glasses) and McKenna.  They are very sweet young ladies that live just around the corner from us. 

'Tis the Season

Here are my little "helpers". The minute I saw Emma try to pick up this enormous wreath, I immediately grabbed the camera :-) I can already envision a layout...blow it up to 5X7, cut out the circle and use it as the 'o' for the word JOY! If only I didn't avoid scrapbooking. :-)

Girls Day Out

We had a very fun outting with Grandma Witz the other day. We went to Woodfield Mall, and wouldn't you know it, Santa was there! We weren't planning to see Santa..it is a bit early..but there was no line how could we pass that up?! They have a cool Polar Express snowglobe theme exhibit that you walk through on the way to see Santa (and Santa gave the girls Polar Express stickers!!). Emma was dazzled being in Santa's midst, Lucy wasn't so sure. After we saw Santa, we went to Build a Bear Workshop and then for lunch at Rainforest Cafe. What a special day it was for us girls!

Trick or Treat?

Lantz's in the Leaves

The girls got to enjoy the sound of leaves crunching under their feet yesterday on our way to the Sycamore Pumpkin Parade. I have fond memories of going to this parade as a kid, so for me it was nostalgic. Emma really liked all the marching bands...maybe she will walk in her daddy's footsteps and play an instrument someday! :-) It was very COLD! But, the girls were all bundled up and enjoying the parade so we stayed until it started raining/snowing.

Haircut Cuties

I took the girls for haircuts the other day. This was Lucy's first ever haircut in a salon!

Sisters

The girls have been playing so well together lately. They built castles and other furniture with the big legos here for their Littlest Pet Shop figures. It's so cute to listen to them talk to each other as they play. Lucy said "I have an idea Emmie, let's make a other one", it made me laugh. So far they seem to be enjoying each other's company as sisters...most of the time anyway.

Soak up the Sun

It was absolutely beautiful out this Labor Day weekend! Here are some pics of the fun times at a birthday/pool party that we went to. (Considering the kids wore coats today, it's so hard to believe this was just a few days ago!)

The Playroom

Since the girls now share a room, we decided to turn Lucy's old room into a playroom for them. They are loving the new changes around here. We haven't painted or added any artwork yet, but the girls don't mind. I had some ideas for the playroom...like framing sheets of metal/steel painted with blackboard paint, for a fun creative, magnetic wall hanging. We'll see if we ever get around to doing that. In the meantime, they have re-discovered some forgotten toys and they are having so much fun. Before bedtime tonight, we told the girls to clean up their playroom and they did (imagine that)!

Here is Emma showing off her new (cleaned up) playroom.

Here is Emma having a tea party with Bitty (her American Girl baby) and Rosie (Lucy's AG baby).

The Bunkbeds

Well...we put the girls to bed in their bunkbeds for the first time tonight. Since we stopped using the bunks at Scrap Inn, we decided to use them at home. We had been wanting to have the girls share a room because Emma sometimes struggles with being scared at night and we thought it might help for her to not be alone. After we set up the bunks, Lucy says "Mommy, I'm sleeping up top" very matter of factly as she's climbing the ladder for the first time. She was sad at first about not getting the top bunk, but I read her some books in her bottom bunk or "fort" as I called it and then she was happy. And Emma said that she would let Lucy have the top bunk when she turns four. So now there's something for Lucy to look forward to.

Here is a picture of one night a couple weeks ago after Emma woke up and we put her in bed with Lucy. So cute.

Here are the bunkbeds in their new shared room.
Well, so far so good. Please pray that neither of them fall out of the top bunk, I'm a nervous nilly about that.