Brian and Lucy

On New Years Day we went to lunch with the girls at a fun hamburger place that had delicious veggie burgers. Elna looks so grown up to me in this picture.

I took this picture after we told the girls it was time to go home from Grandma’s house. We do a lot of role-playing where I say, “okay, it’s time to go, let me see your face” and then they are supposed to give me a smile and say “okay” with a happy voice. So, when I said it was time to go, I said, “let me see your faces” and Hattie’s role-playing paid off. Elna’s? Not so much. You may not be able to tell here—she’s crying.

This may be my favorite thing Harriet does—when she kisses us she holds our cheeks. Sometimes she holds our chin with both hands, which is pretty heart-melting as well. Brian caught this one on camera.

And then this one when Hattie realized he was taking a picture. Ha!

In this picture Elna had just announced “I’m going to town!” as she ate an entire half of a cucumber all by herself. I love it when she goes to town on cucumbers!

We spent a few fun hours with friends at the park on a clear but chilly day. It’s so nice to get out of the house.

These two are such buddies!

They built a house underneath the play structure, bringing all sorts of sticks and piney branches in to make it beautiful. They spent an amazing amount of time doing this, and probably could have done it for longer, but we had to go eat lunch.

I’ve been wanting a light fixture that I like in our dining room since before the day we moved into this house, and this month we finally made that happen. I love it! And it lights up our dining room about 20 times more than our last light did. It makes me happy every time I see it!

I can’t remember why I took this one, but it’s cute so I’ll include it.

I took these pictures of the girls so I’ll never forget the reality of motherhood—using the bathroom while your children sit on a stool and stare at you. It’s nice to be loved, right?

A little girl pile-up in my arms early in the morning. Have I mentioned how much I love my mornings with these littles of mine? They are lazy and cuddly and sweet just like this stage of life should be.

Yogurt is one of their favorite things.

You may not be able to tell, but Harriet is holding her doll’s hands and helping them touch the sticky fingers on the frog in this book. She loves to read and she loves her baby dolls!

I made a trip to Ikea with the girls to get anther shelf for the girls toys. Elna went into the play area and played for an hour for the first time and loved it. She was pretty shy about the whole thing at first, and was still pretty reserved seeming when I picked her up, but she said she loved it and kept talking about it. Harriet and I had a nice hour together and had fun riding on this cart out to the car.

I often find Elna reading to Hattie and it makes me very happy how much they both love to read.

Playing with blocks in the newly (and finally, thanks to Brian!) cleaned garage. The girls love playing in the garage now that it’s clean.

(Elna’s sunglasses!)

This is the primary bulletin board that I put together. I love how it turned out. Each of the little sheep have the name of each kid in our primary.

Story time at the library. The girls love this every week. The teacher, Miss Annie is really fabulous.

Holding hands and walking to the car. Some days these two just seem to get at each other’s throats, but then there are moments like these where I feel hope.

Sometimes the girls ask me to take their picture—this was one of those mornings. How can I say no to these smiles? Also, I will never tire of the many times Hattie looks up at Elna during pictures—she just adores that sister of hers.

“Pilates, Mom”? Harriet asks as she gets into position.

We love Costco!

Elna’s Sunbeam teacher is pretty incredible—she has handouts like this every week. This week Harriet got one too because she had extras. Elna is loving Sunbeams and I have loved being in primary to see how well she’s doing. She is reverent and she loves to sing. We practice the primary songs all week long in the car while we drive and she does so well remembering them when singing time comes around.