Fun at the park.

The three I love most!

Pointing to her new boots—some hand-me-downs from a friend.  We love hand-me-downs!  She loves boots!

Cute funny girl!

Harriet—7 months (and Elna—almost 2 1/2)

So close to crawling!

These two pictures are a little darker and basically the same picture, but she looks just enough different in each one and I just couldn’t decide, so I included both!

At 7 months, Harriet:

--is an awesome little sleeper!  Sleeping 7:00 to 7:00 at night and two great naps during the day.  She could use another nap at the end of the day, but it never happens.  I love getting her out of her crib because she is so excited to see me.  She gets all excited and then buries herself into my shoulder, then gets excited again, and buries herself into my shoulder again.  I never want to forget these moments.

--has 2 teeth—she was a little fussy at nights when they came in, but other than that she was a trooper!

--is a babbler—she growls and makes a grr sound a lot, and she is even starting to say “mama”…but I’m not sure how intentional it is.

--can sit all by herself.  I LOVE this stage where I can sit her on the floor with toys and she plays happily by herself while I’m nearby cooking or folding laundry.

--is so, so close to crawling.  She can stay in crawling position and will rock back and forth, but she hasn’t done more yet.  She also can go from sitting to on her knees.  I’m sure we will have a crawler by her next monthly post.

--has the sweetest giggle—it’s really easy to make her laugh.  Her feet and tummy and sides are ticklish.  If I nuzzle her chest she also laughs really hard. 

--loves her sister!  Elna makes her laugh harder than anyone else.  If Elna just starts laughing near her, Hattie will start laughing so hard.  So funny!

--is adorable, right?  I die over the cuteness of her big 2-teeth smile!

The shed.

Brian spent a lot of his free time this summer working on tearing down our old shed.  It was an enormous monstrosity and took a while to get down.  I wish I had taken more pictures along the way, but I did take a few and here they are:

Some of the shed is cut out of the picture above, but you get the idea of how huge it was—it was also set at a diagonal so it took up a big chunk of our yard.

This is just the second story of the old shed.

A friend helped him a few hours one morning and they finished getting it all down.  Apparently that was the hardest part—getting the shed down.  It all seemed complicated to me.  I’m glad I’m not in charge of building sheds for our family.

The foundation.

Remember this picture?  Love it!

And a picture of it mostly finished, but unpainted.  So much better than the old one.

Freshly painted!  Now he just has to finish the inside.  He’s hoping to use one side as his home office (if he can work from home some day!) and the other half as the shed.  I’m very impressed with his abilities to build and create the things he wants!  He works very hard for his dreams!

Me and my girlies.

I am usually able to drop the girls off at my MIL’s house, but she was gone for a few months, so I got to take them to several appointments with me.  Here is my sweet Elna and her baby doll.  I think she is so beautiful!

And the two girls together!

I love this picture—they look so cute and I love Harriet’s little tongue!

I took a lot of selfies this week, because I was doing an Instagram challenge to get in more pictures, since I’m usually behind the camera.

My funny chubby baby!

Brian took these of me and Elna dancing in the kitchen:

Blurry dancing pictures.

Playing on mama’s knees in the air.

I took these pictures of Harriet after I nursed her—I love the time we spend together when she eats.  It’s just me and her (she is much too distracted if anyone—especially Elna—is in the room when she nurses) and I really love it!  She is so sweet and cuddly!

Bath time.

Another blurry picture—bath time.  I love that Harriet is able to sit up in the bath now.  She has a blast!

I love watching this girl discover!

I’m grateful to be these girl’s mama.  They push me to my limits some days.  I don’t always feel like I’m doing very well at this mom gig, but I am trying.  I hope my girls are forgiving and I hope they don’t remember some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way.  I can definitely be better, but man, I love my job and I love my little girls!  Oh, do I love them!