Flowers, flowers, everywhere and not a one to pick!

We went to the Arboretum last week and saw the beautiful peony garden. It was huge and there were lots of different colors and sizes of flowers everywhere but we couldn't pick any of them, as I kept having to remind the girls. The girls had a great time running around and smelling them, though, and were good to put up with a little rain while I tried to get some decent pictures.
Here's Leah with her hands-off approach:

Some of these flowers were almost as big as my kid's heads!

My beautiful, happy Leah

There were also roses growing along the fence that were pretty and Abbie loved smelling those

You want me to sit on a bench, look at the camera, and smile? Yeah, right! This is the best picture (of about 20) that I could get of them on the bench before they were off and running again.

Just two more random pictures of the girls. Leah all dirty after playing outside...

And Abbie helping to get the dishes clean. Glad I have at least one child that likes to be clean!

My dandelion ballerina

Abbie started a ballet class last week with her friend Nora and so far she loves it! She has always loved to dress up in her tutu and dance around but I've never put her in a formal class or anything so I think she's going to love learning some moves and poses. Here they are after class in their cute tutus.

Learning some moves...

Here they are after class picking dandelions and posing in front of the daffodils.

Abbie brings me bouquets of dandelions all the time now that they are growing everywhere in our yard. I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid and always loved it when my mom put them in water and displayed them on the table or window. Isn't my dandelion ballerina so adorable?

Seeing green...

I first noticed this coming up yesterday...

And by today, it already looked like this!

I love Spring!

It's so freakin' cold...

So we decided to visit the local botanical gardens and pretend that we live in a rainforest for a while. It was warm and green and beautiful in there and Abbie and Leah had a blast running around and smelling the flowers. There were also big palm trees, little walkways everywhere, and ponds with fish in them. Abbie thought the fish were cool and kept asking me why they were eating the water. We weren't able to spend as much time there as we would have liked so we'll have to go back soon since there's free admission one afternoon a week. I couldn't get the girls to hold still and smile for even one picture so this is the best you get!

Summer activities so far...

Here's some of the things we've been up to this summer. We went to Palmyra, NY a few weeks ago and stopped in Niagara Falls on the way there.

We also went to the Sacred Grove...
The Palmyra Temple...
and Hill Cumorah.
We had lots of fun goofing around and seeing all the sights.
We also went to Arboretum recently. Here's Abbie smelling the flowers...

With a friend looking over the fence. I like how Abbie has her hands in her pockets. It's like she's thinking "So, what's up?"

Leah acting shy...

There's my smiley girl!

Walking through the peony garden.Lastly, we went to the zoo last weekend. It was pretty hot the first couple of hours, rained on us halfway through the day, and was cold by the end. We had fun, though, looking at the elephants...
Riding the carousel...

Watching the polar bears swim (and touching their big sharp claws).
It was a fun day but we were definitely ready to go home towards the end.