On what's been keeping us busy lately...

Painting with my baby... Building super tall towers with super fun Uncle Brett...

Movie nights with good friends who recently moved an hour and a half closer to us -- yay!

Hanging out with a favorite cousin, who didn't get permission from me to grow up so quickly...

Playing mysterious hand clapping games with said favorite cousin...

I wish sometimes that I could capture every single precious fun moment on camera...but then I would be glued to my camera constantly and I guess the moments wouldn't all be so much fun.

We spent this afternoon napping and watching the last Elite Eight games, and then trooped outside for some good muddy springtime play, and our second bbq of the year. Happily received my third phone call from a realtor in as many days, scheduling yet another showing for our house back in Spokane -- maybe we'll sell it yet! And now my girls are shrieking as their daddy plays crazy silly games with them, and every time he starts to stand up he's tackled amid cries of, "One more time, Daddy, one more time!"

What a beautiful day, in a beautiful life, from a beautiful God!

Defaulting to bullet points...

Not only have I not blogged for about two weeks, but tonight all I'm bringing to you is bullet points. There are so many things in my head waiting to be blogged, and I hope to have time soon to sit down and really focus on some serious topics, but in the meantime I want to at least record some current happy thoughts about my girlies before time does its predictable thing and erases them from my memory. :-)

• The girls have been paying a lot of attention when we're driving lately. It's great because I've long wanted them to learn how much they can entertain themselves on a long drive by watching what's going past the windows. What I did not anticipate, however, was that we would end up talking nonstop about the things they're seeing through the windows! The other unexpected "bonus" is that I have three emerging backseat drivers. At least half a block before we reach a red light, the chorus begins, "It's a red light, Mummy! You have to stop! Watch out for the other cars! Are you going to stop? Don't forget to stop, because red means stop!" Yes, it's a thing of beauty. Stop signs are another new dislike of mine, for the same reason. Also, because someone had the dumb idea of actually putting the word "stop" on stop signs, which gives us another thing to discuss every.single.time. we come to one. "That's a stop sign, it says stop! S-t-o-p is how we spell stop. G-o is how we spell go...." Bless you, creator of the stop sign.
• We've been making some changes lately toward healthier eating. (This will get its own blog post sometime soon.) The biggest change has been to add a lot more fresh fruits and veggies into our diets, and that's gone over really well because the girls love those as much as we do. However, I've been getting a lot of requests lately for "mac and cheese", which until these recent changes had become more of a weekly staple than I would like to admit. So tonight I was so happy when Ashley ate three helpings of my homemade fettucini alfredo (fyi, this is easy to make with organic ingredients!), and then announced, "This is way better than mac and cheese!"
• The girls and I spent two hours outside this afternoon -- playtime for them, yard work for me. Ashley spent a huge part of that time chatting up the neighbors, social butterfly that she is! I love how confident she is, and that she will just casually talk with an adult about her plans for the summer, etc., without it even occurring to her to be nervous. Anyway, I began the huge task of cleaning up our yard for spring. The previous renters obviously didn't do much of anything with the outside of the house the entire time they lived here, and it is all an overgrown mess! Adding to the mess is all the gravel that got pushed into the yard every time our driveway was plowed this winter, and the whole picture is quite daunting. I raked and raked and raked, and still have plenty of gravel in the yard, so I was super blessed when my sweet girls joined ranks to come pick up the gravel, one little rock at a time, and throw it back into the driveway! It may not be the fastest approach, but it's one that made me so proud of my sweet helpers. :-)

Another day in paradise...

Today:



~I learned that morning is so much better than afternoon for doing school with squirrelly little girls. After lunch the energy is gone and cooperation/focusing abilities seem to vanish into thin air. Oh, and the girls have some trouble as well.

~I wore cute sandals to put the garbage cans out by the road, even though winter is making an unpleasant menopausal exit involving snow and rain and many, many clouds all at once. I'm pretty sure it actually was a more pleasant job because of the cute sandals.

~It occurred to me that maybe with two preschoolers in the house, this would be a good time of life to invest in an electric pencil sharpener.



Pretty sure that the ghost of Carpal Tunnel Future is screaming at me right now.

~I discovered that pedicures and pink toenails all around can cure the blues caused by waiting until the afternoon to do school. That's just one of the benefits of having an 80% female household.

~My baby fever came back with a vengeance, thanks to this post on my friend Holly's blog. Seriously, click on it and look at how perfect and precious he is...do it so I'm not alone!

~It took five minutes for a thrilling game of "pirates' birthday party" to undo half an hour of cleaning and organizing the girls' toy room downstairs.

~My heart smiled when I sat down to read The Cat in the Hat to the girls at breakfast this morning, and Ashley asked me, "Could we read some more of the Psalms today instead?"

"It's ok, it's so nice! It's just another day in paradise -- there's no place that I'd rather be. It's two hearts, and one dream...I wouldn't trade it for anything. And I ask the Lord, every night, for just another day in paradise." Phil Vassar

You may call me superwoman!

Here's a little photographic proof of what I am about to tell you:



This morning my friend Becky and I spent a remarkably fun time taking care of seven children ages 4 and under! It was as chaotic as you're imagining, but the kids were mostly all really well behaved. Still, it was constant motion and questions and snacking, all at very high volumes...so when all seven of the kids gathered and froze in place for a minute while Becky read to them, I had to grab my camera to immortalize the moment!

After Becky ran away home with her ridiculously adorable twins, I managed lunch for my remaining five kiddos (coffee for me!), and then since we still had over an hour until the extra two were going to be picked up and the kids were all still playing happily, I debated how to fill the time.... Naturally, I settled on chopping and cooking a gigantic pumpkin! Wouldn't you?

This big guy has been hanging around (courtesy of my dad, who brings gigantic pumpkins as hostess gifts) since Canadian Thanksgiving. If you don't know when that is...it's been many months, eh! Finally it is getting tucked away where it rightfully belongs: in the freezer, waiting to be made into delicious pumpkin bread and pies.

So now I've gone from 7 back down to 3 children, and the pumpkin has been conquered...the rest of today will surely be a breeze by comparison!

On the last snow days of 2011...

Winter's last gasp has been very impressive this year! Just like the grand finale of a good fireworks show, there's been no quietly slipping away, fizzling out while people go, "Wait, was that it? Is it over now?" No, with over 2 1/2 feet of non stop snow in blizzard like storms that lasted several days, this year winter has made sure we know that it is putting on its biggest, best performance of the year!

Winter, we give you the standing ovation that you deserve!

But please, don't feel the need to favor us with an encore.