I think a baby smile is perhaps the most joy-inducing thing on the planet. Who doesn’t smile back when they see this?

Bike riding together is now a favorite activity in the beautiful early spring we are having in North Carolina.

Last weekend marked another fabulous trip to Ridin Hy with the Kircher clan (Tommy’s mom’s family). We went skiing and swimming and horseback riding and swimming and bounce housing and swimming and tubing and swimming and lots of eating and swimming. Turns out Kaya really loves swimming right now. But we also got her on skis!

We spent last weekend painting (some of) our house. Many thanks to the wonderful team of family and friends who came by to help out – the place looks great! Too bad our rugrats have already scuffed a wall or two. Here’s a picture of my friends Jen and Trent (who are sadly leaving me for Chicago in a few months) painting the hallway – they are rockstar painters and pretty good people too.

Bedtime stories are my favorite part of the day

We had a very studious afternoon at home one day this weekend. And how are my kids this old already? Kaya wanted to practice her calligraphy and Laney said she was in her Jackson Pollack phase.

Birthdays are the best! Kaya has talked about planning her birthday party pretty much daily for the last 2 years – and this has been accelerated to hourly since her friend Megan’s birthday party last weekend. Cupcakes are also a favorite topic of conversation.

We had a few people over on Sunday to cheer on the Carolina Panthers. The girls were pretty excited to set up their chairs in front of the TV and giggled at the commercials. The game was not so exciting for them, and a bit of a let down for us too. Maybe next year Carolina!

Kaya is taking a dance class on Saturday mornings at our local dance studio. She LOVES it – much more successful than soccer class so far. I think the warmth of an inside dance studio is also preferable to her than a cold soccer field. I’m a little unimpressed with the actual amount of dancing they do (they spend too much time standing in line or sitting around) – I think they should just turn on Beyonce and break it down for 45 minutes, but she seems to love it anyway.

We’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately – last weekend to Columbus and this weekend to Atlanta. It turns out the January tennis circuit is quite happening. First we watched the Ohio State men’s team whomp Denver University. And yesterday we watched an old friend Jesse from Emory play a killer mixed doubles match. I’m not sure our Waffle-House-hat-wearing family fit in with the Chastain Park tennis elite (the first thing someone did was bring over a blanket for the baby to sit on after I put her in the (gasp!) bare grass), but we had a great time.