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We have a love for Shopkins in our house. So, when G’Mom lovingly bought the girls (or, really Jen!) Shopkins fabric, the girls were ecstatic. Molly immediately requested jammie pants, while Leah wanted a new hoodie tunic.

Molly was so excited about wearing her Shopkins jammies that she got her jammies on hours before bedtime just to hang out in them.

Leah was so excited to wear her new tunic to school to show her friends.

A girl in a Shopkins tunic, with her favorite Shopkin.

An older girl in Shopkins pajamas, with her favorite Shopkin.

Two girls, Shopkins attire, and Shopkins.

Silly sisters.

This year, I was asked to lead music at the Easter sunrise service at church. I hear sunrises are beautiful, but they happen really early in the morning. Early mornings are not my thing, but I decided to give it a go. The service was at 6:30, and I needed to be there at 5:50 to set up and sound check. Yeah - early (and outside in the cold).

I asked the members of my family if they’d like to come with me. Jen was a clear no. Molly and Leah entertained the idea until I told them they’d have to ignore their Easter baskets until after we got home. That sounded too difficult, so they opted to pass. I was on my own (except for a friend or two).

The service was very nice. It was very cold, but I dressed the part and brought hand warmers for when I wasn’t playing (gloves don’t work so well for playing guitar). Sadly, it was cloudy and hazy, so we didn’t really get to see a sunrise.

When I got home, the girls were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to go downstairs and see what the Easter Bunny had brought. They woke Jen up and headed down. I think they were excited at what they found.

Easter baskets included candy (braces-safe varieties), books, Perler beads, and most exciting - Shopkins!

Then the ladies got dressed and we headed to church (again for me, a little over 5 hours after the first time).

As in previous years, our church held an Easter Egg-stravaganza. It was scheduled for the same day as Molly’s party, so we were going to miss it. Fortunately for us, they postponed the fun due to weather to the day before Easter, which meant we could go.

We arrived and walked in with Leah’s twin friend, then the girls headed straight for the face painting station.

Molly got a butterfly on her cheek, and Leah opted for a bunny.

Leah’s friend’s parents also introduced us to a friend of theirs from Slidell (just like Jen and me). Turns out she lived one cul-de-sac away from me when I was in junior high and high school. Small world.

After face painting, we headed to the cupcake decorating station. Molly’s decoration style is quick and messy, while Leah takes a careful approach.

I managed to get a picture of their cupcakes before they ate them. Note that Leah carefully placed sprinkles around the edge, while Molly just dumped them on top.

As always, the egg hunt was a highlight. I went with Molly up on the hill with the big kids while Jen stayed with Leah and the kindergartners. When they blew the whistle, all the big kids rushed to the same area. Molly quickly realized there was an empty area off to the left, which earned her a few seconds searching by herself until they all noticed her treasure trove and joined her.

Me, Molly, and a basket full of eggs ready to be opened.

Both Molly and Leah ended up with full baskets of fun-filled eggs.

Lots of fun. We were glad we got to attend after all.

I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but Leah continues to enjoy tennis lessons. She’s moved up from Level 7 to Level 6 now. And best of all, she has gotten to be in the same class with her best friend Everett.

Here’s our little tennis player after her lesson. She’s happy to be in short sleeves now that it’s warmed up.

Leah says she wants to be a tennis player on TV when she grows up. I’ve told her it’s very hard to do that, and she’d have to practice a lot to do so. She says that sounds good to her. In fact, we went and played Sunday afternoon, and she stayed on the court practicing for more than 2 hours. Molly joined us as well, but she alternated between tennis and riding her scooter rather than playing tennis the whole time.

The girls have sung a lot in church recently, and I’ve neglected to post them. So, here’s a catch-up post of lots and lots of singing.

First, way back on Valentine’s Day, Molly’s choir sang in big church (at the traditional service).

Then, at the beginning of March, Leah and her choir sang (and rang) in big church (this time in the contemporary service we usually attend).

A few weeks later, Molly's choir sang His Grace and Every Move I Make in church a few weeks ago. Sadly, you can't see much of Molly from this angle, but you get a glimpse of her every once in a while.

The girls choirs combined together, along with the youth and adult choirs, for Palm Sunday.

Bedtime is always fun when G’Mom and Grampa are in town. But first, the girls need to get upstairs to get ready. The girls ask me to give them a piggyback ride at bed time most nights. Sometimes it’ll be one of them, sometimes the other, and sometimes both in a double piggyback ride.

G’Mom and Grampa were happy to do some bedtime reading while they were in town.

The day after our date night at ClimbZone, Leah got to attend a birthday party for one of her classmates there. Molly even got to tag along for the climbing fun.

Leah did an excellent job climbing.

Like most of the kids her age, she wasn’t interested in climbing all the way to the top, but she got pretty close.

Molly was zooming up to the top all over the place. Here she is on the Speed Wall just before she hit the button to stop the timer.

Happy birthday Liam! Thanks for inviting us!

I finally arrived home Monday night. We tried to swing by Aunt EA’s house in Silver Spring on the way, but found her neighborhood had not been plowed yet. Fortunately we knew we could get to my house and Grams’s house. We came to my house first to drop me off, then Aunt EA and Grams went on to Grams’s house. Thanks to Jen for shoveling all the snow piled up at the end of the driveway by the plow earlier in the day.

While I missed much of the snow, I did manage to get out in it briefly with my girls. A fair amount of it had already melted, but the giant piles covering the sidewalk are still taller than Molly.

The snow was still quite deep, so we sunk down into it when walking around. The snow was also level, despite the ground below not being level. So, occasionally you take a step and find the snow is so deep that your leg has disappeared below you.

The girls and I had a lot of fun sledding in our back yard. Here they are showing how much fun it is.

Here Leah shows off that you don’t need a sled to sled - your bottom will do just fine. This is especially true if you use a track that someone heavy (say Daddy) has already carved out of the snow by sledding down.

The girls call this penguin sliding, which I guess is a good description. They got going pretty fast like this, though ended up soaking wet from the snow.

Or you can lift up your arms and legs for a belly slide.

There were a lot of snowballs thrown, including the blurry one obscuring Leah’s hat in this shot.

This is what I was missing when I was stuck away, so I was glad I got to have some fun in the snow with them after getting back.

With this much snow, and with me out of town, Jen was not looking forward to shoveling the driveway. Fortunately, she found a connection to someone to pay to do it. We weren’t sure how they’d get to our house, but she signed up. They made it, and this Bobcat cleared the driveway in 10 minutes flat (sadly, it was too big to do the sidewalk as well).

The truck carrying the Bobcat had a plow on the front, which is how they managed to get to us. That meant they partially plowed our street - right up to our house. For the next day, we’d occasionally have people try to drive down our street, only to find that they could not make it past our house.

Here’s our plowed driveway. The Bobcat even cleared space on the sides for car doors to open.

The next day, the girls were out to play in the snow again. They were excited to see that the Bobcat had left some giant chunks of snow to play with.

The piled up snow from the driveway made a great snow slide.

The girls decided bringing their sleds in all the time was wasted effort. So, they instead tied them up at our back porch sled dock.

Our street was plowed Monday night, after three and a half days since the start of the storm. That was much earlier than a lot of folks around here, so we’re not complaining.

On Sunday, church was cancelled (since no roads were passable). The girls were ready to have some fun in the snow, and the snow was ready for them. Molly and Leah grabbed their sleds and waded through the snow.

Molly found a good spot to chillax while taking a break from shoveling.

Jen and the girls in the snow, making do on their own while I was away.

The girls got tired of going out the front, so Jen shoveled a path on our back porch for them to get in and out.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last. A few hours later there was a sudden crash outside. All the snow on the back side of our roof had slid off our solar panels onto the porch and ground below. Sadly, this was enough to break the railing on the back of the porch.

The crash also broke the bottom rail on the gate.

Jen eventually went out and shoveled the back porch again, so the girls could go in and out there. She’s such an awesome mom.