Tender Moments

At 3:30 a.m. I woke up to Clara crying. We usually give the girls a few minutes to see if they'll settle down on their own before we go in and check on them. While I waited to see if she would calm down, I heard Abby singing I Am a Child of God. When she finished the song both girls quietly drifted off to sleep. It was so sweet to hear Abby taking care of her baby sister. Despite their occasional bickering, they really are such a sweet little pair. These tender moments make it all worth it.

Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day this year. I was looking at Facebook in the morning and saw that one of my friends had done a heart hairstyle on her daughter so I asked Abby if she wanted one too. She, of course, said yes.

 



For the girls' Valentine's cards this year, I showed them one of those "50 Homemade Valentine Idea" blog posts and let them choose which ones they wanted to make. Luckily, they chose (with a bit of coaching) easy ones.

Abby picked this Starburst Valentine. She helped open the Starbursts and tape them on.

Clara choose this cute little pirate. We all worked on putting the heart sticker eye patch and taping candy to the back. I was grateful that my mother-in-law sent these cute stickers so I didn't have to bust out the sewing machine.

We attended Charise's third annual Valentine's Day party which was a blast, as always.

We brought these hot dog cupid arrows. We made little hot dog/cheese skewers with the leftover hot dogs.

The kids had lots of fun playing and exchanging Valentines. This picture was taken after about half of the group had gone home. It was pretty wild. I should have posted the progression of this picture. Abby and Ian seem to sink farther into the couch in each photo.

When daddy came home, he surprised us each with our own bouquet. The girls thought it was wonderful to get their very own flowers. Abby and I surprised daddy by decorating the house with hearts.

Don't mind Abby's lack of pants...She is my child after all.

For dinner, we had heart-shaped ravioli (Thanks Costco!), broccoli, French bread and homemade strawberry lemonade. For a treat we ate Pop Rocks that the girls got in their goodie bags. It was pretty entertaining to witness their first Pop Rocks experience.

After the girls went to bed, Sam and I ate ice cream and watched a movie--a perfect night!

Quiet Time

Abby has officially transitioned to quiet time. The last time she took a nap was when she was sick a few weeks ago, aside from dozing off in the car on the way home from Costco one day. She's doing better with it too. She doesn't put up a fight. In fact, she is usually pretty excited about it. Maybe this is why...

 

Why yes, that is an entire Costco-sized box of diapers unloaded onto the floor. Of course there is a tricycle on the bed. And, there is almost always a panda bear (or some other animal) wearing one of Clara's church dresses.

The girl can make a serious mess. The diaper thing was definitely a surprise though. Her messes usually involves Clara's clothes being loaded into suitcases or put onto animals. She would prefer the baby clothes but I put a stop to that when she completely unloaded a drawer I had spent all morning sorting into sizes.

The amazing thing is that she does it all so quietly. The only sound I ever really hear is her opening and closing her closet door. She sometimes comes out of her room to get something without me even noticing.

I guess I can't complain too much about the mess when I can take a nap everyday if I want.

Books We Love

We usually have a small stack of library books on our coffee table. Sometimes the same stack sits there for several weeks. Other times, we are on the ball and change things up regularly. No matter how many books are in the pile, there is always one that becomes the favorite.

 

The current favorite is The Boy Who Wouldn't Share. I cannot even tell you how many times I've read this book. Thankfully, it's a quick, fun story and I don't mind reading it at all. Clara is particularly obsessed. It was missing last night at bedtime and she was not happy. I read it to the kids at preschool and they asked for it the next time we had class, so it's not just a winner among my kids.

Another favorite has been I'm Bored. My girls think this book is hilarious and I think it's pretty funny too. I mean, what can be more entertaining than a talking potato? Though, the humor does start to wear off on your 45th read. When the girls get whiney in the car, we quote this one and the perk right up.

I think Clara was most fond of I Want My Hat Back. The humor of this story is probably a little above most children. Kind of how the wonderful people at Disney throw in some adult humor while creating a product that children still love. When we had this book, Clara was just starting to learn about animals and the simple illustrations were fun for her to look at.

Now, The Lorax was actually the only library book we had at the time. After watching the movie, I wanted to check out the book and we picked the hold up on a day we didn't have time to browse for more books. That being said, Clara wanted to read this a lot. It's definitely too long to hold her attention but, as always, Dr. Seuss's pictures are so charming, she was content to flip through the pages.

 

You Will Be My Friend is another fun story. The girls both loved it and Sam and I found it pretty fun too. I think there's something to be said about a book that doesn't make me want to poke my eyes out after several reads because we have definitely had some of those!

 

Do you have any favorite library books?

Daddy/Daughter Bonding

Abby wanted her nails painted the other night and I just wasn't feeling up to it so daddy stepped in.

 

My girls are so blessed to have a daddy who is so much fun!

 

 

 

 

Mommy Wars

I just read an article that talks about the fight between the stay-at-home mom and the working mom.

http://momastery.com/blog/2013/02/04/friendly-fire-3/

The author has done both and talks about the guilt that comes from both decisions. My favorite quote reads:

“Did you go to all three of those college classes just so you could clean the kitchen and play Candy Land all day? And how is it that you don’t even do those things very well? Can you concentrate on nothing? Look at this mess! A good mom would clean more and play less. Also, a good mom would clean less and play more. Also a good mom would clean more and play more and quit emailing altogether. Additionally, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’re sure you feel comfortable spending so much money when you don’t even make any."

I find myself having a similar internal discussion all the time.

The conclusion I've come to is this, None of us is doing it right and yet, we're all doing it right, for us, right now.

32 Weeks

I had Abby take some pictures of me on the 32 week mark. She's a pretty good little photographer.

 

 

My little buddy had to get in on the action.

Then, both girls needed a picture of them too. They are a part of the experience too, after all.

I tried one more with the timer but I think Abby's skills were better. At least hers aren't blurry.

I've been having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions the past couple of days. We called the doctor last night and she just suggested taking it easy and staying hydrated. Since they aren't painful, she didn't seem too concerned. It's hard to take it easy with two little ones and the whole being a clean freak thing. Luckily, Sam isn't quite as busy at school these days so he's around a lot more to help me out.

Hopefully the little man decides to keep cooking in there for a while but we'll definitely take him a couple of weeks early if he so chooses.