Kids Rule!

We recently visited Kids Rule! Family Fun Center, a new "jumpy place" in Hattiesburg. It's really cool! The girls' favorite was a huge, fast slide. They also have two big party rooms, a parents' lounge area with free wi-fi, and unlimited jump time for the kids. To read all about it and view a slide show see my article on Examiner.com.

Sophie and Zora climbing up the slide.

Sophie and Zora coming down the slide!

Letterboxing

The girls, my mom, Greg, and I went on a letterboxing excursion recently on the USM campus. The first box was relatively easy to find and was enthusiastically tracked down by Sophie:

The next letterbox had us following clues to a series of landmarks around campus:

We found all of the clues, but alas, the letterbox was not to be found...Oh well! We have searched for nearly all of the letterboxes in Hattiesburg. We're going to need to expand our search to other cities soon!

Clogging

Wow, didn't realize it had been 3 months since I updated this blog! Here are some pictures from the girls' clogging performance at the Purvis street festival last month.

Zora is 2nd from the right and Sophie is 3rd from the left in the above picture.

They had fun, though it was VERY hot, and Zora was continuously distracted by the inflatable jump directly to the left of the stage.

Zoo Trip

With a family pass, the Zoo is one of our favorite places to spend our free time. We took another trip there about a week ago.

Posing in front of the lemurs. I'm not sure why they look so solemn.

I love how close you can get to the animals at our zoo.

The jaguar is only an arm's length away!

A lot of the swans from around Hattiesburg have now been moved to the zoo. This one's our favorite because it's *sparkly*!

We were also lucky enough to see a male peacock on display. So cool!

Introducing...Haley!

Here's our new puppy!

Isn't she just prescious?  :)

She seems to be a strange mix of breeds, we're not sure exactly which! She has a long, weiner-dog like body, short, bowed legs, and a funny, wrinkly face. And very blue eyes! (which don't really show up in these pictures.)

After a long afternoon of running around and playing with the girls... it's nap time.

This and That

I'll start out with a few Easter pictures... Just a little late!

Zora was positively enamored of the Easter bunny.

Easter egg hunt at church.

The following are pics from the Easter egg hunt with our neighbors and Sophie and Zora's best friend.

Enjoying their spoils.

(Sophie in a too-small dress she insisted on wearing, because she wanted to "look as fancy as Zora."

Last toddler class at the Zoo: It was the Zoo's birthday! And we had cake! And games! And party hats!

We just bought a slip- n- slide. I'm hoping it will keep them entertained all summer.

 

So far, it is- And it's also keeping me entertained!

Soccer!

(Yes, she is stopping in the middle of the game to pose for a picture. Gotta love her!)

Sophie played T-ball last year. She spent most of that time talking to the only other girl on the team. Playing T-ball was more of an afterthought. She acually said that her favorite part of every game was lining up at the end and telling each player on the other team "Good game."
So this year she wanted to try soccer. And it's going really well! She scored two goals in their first game. They hadn't even had a practice before that game because it was rained out. The first game was really fun. Both teams did really well. Last week's game was not as good. The other team did not know WHAT they were doing and that slowed things down a bit. She has another game tomorrow and I'm hoping it will be as fun as the first one.
I think Sophie likes soccer because there is more action than in t-ball. When she's on the field (which is most of the time) she is always moving, always doing something. There's not a lot of sitting around and waiting for your turn.
Whenever we get ready to go to a soccer game or practice, Zora always announces that she is going to go play soccer. She has to get on her "soccer shoes":

She says they are her soccer shoes because they have stripes. (Sophie's cleats also have stripes, DUH!)

Last year, she had a "T-ball hat" that she wore to every game:

She also had a pink baseball glove that she brought to every game inside a pink backpack, but for some reason, I don't have a picture of her with it.

She just CANNOT wait until she's four next year and she can play ball, too. She's so adorable! And she IS pretty good at throwing and catching a ball! She could actually catch a ball before she could walk.

Soccer pictures to follow!:

I love the look of concentration!

Getting a little coaching.

She's ready to score a goal!