Life Lately

When I think about the past month, it feels like we've done nothing of consequence and tons of important things all at the same time. I finally got some photos uploaded and I find that I'm right: lots of mundane things and a few big important events in our family.

A sight that melts my heart every.time. My two babies reading together. If they love reading half as much as I do, I will be a happy mama.

Could he be any cuter or more angelic? Cut lip and all. Let me tell you - when he's awake, Hunter can be quite the little chamaco (little rascal) when he wants to be. I like to imagine him as a mini-Steve :) Mischievous little teaser.

 We have transitioned Hunter to share a room with Ellie. In order to make it easier on us, we put them to bed in separate rooms and move the one to join the other when one or both of them are sleeping. It's a good solution for now. I find myself taking lots of sleeping pictures (since I rarely sneak into their room while they're sleeping - far too great a risk of waking one or both kids, and sleep is sacred around here!). They crack me up every time. I like to call Ellie the child of Michael Jackson. She seems to wear a glove or sock on her hand every time I snap a photo of her sleeping :)

 Ellie playing pretend with her cousin Alice - these two don't get together nearly often enough; but I'm so happy they get along.

 Why does he want to make out with me when he's sick??

This girl's got style

Her first choice of attire would be swimsuits, followed closely by skirts, dresses, or princess dresses. Only out of necessity would she choose shorts or pants (and even then, they would be stretch pants - no jeans for her!).

 I don't seem to make it in many photos, but I'm always around!

Babies in aprons, ready to help bake.

 Well, it happened: Ellie was sent to time out in her bedroom and she had a crayon with her at the time (unknown to me). Luckily, she loudly sang a song about how she was coloring all over her bedroom wall, while she colored all over her bedroom wall. When I checked on her, sure enough, she was serious! I'm happy to report that I kept my cool and managed to clean it all with the help of my best friend, Magic Eraser.

When Ellie unloaded the dishwasher for me, I asked her to stack the colored kids plates in one pile and the heavy adult plates in another pile. This is how she interpreted my instructions...

 After a family night lesson about our bodies, we traced the kids' bodies and hung them up in the hallway. They had a blast with the pictures.

 Three other girls in my ward and I started a little 3-year-old preschool co-op this week. Ellie was excited to go be with her friends and do some learning. This week was B for Bugs. From what I heard, they learned the sign for bug, they made bug imprints in homemade play-doh, and they made a bee out of the letter B. Ellie also said they read a book and played.

Meanwhile, I had time to do some cleaning and get things done around the house. When it was nearly time to pick Ellie back up, Hunter had been calling her name for about 15 minutes :) It's like he knew she wasn't with Daddy, but he couldn't figure out where she would be while we were at home.

 We are officially a mini-van fam! We were lucky enough to sell our car just one week prior to getting this beauty. It's been nice having two cars again, especially one with room for me to get the kids in and out with ease :) Oh, and today our other car quit working - so, we're likely back down to one car for now. It was nice of it to wait a few days until we had two vehicles again...

To celebrate the new van, we went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. The kids had a magical time - free ice cream for dessert and binoculars in the kids' meal? Yes please! :)

And finally - can anyone relate to the following pictures?

 My kids love throwing the plastic bags all over the kitchen.

 They also love taking every.single.toy out of the toy box and scattering them all over the living room (such treasures to be found in the bottom!). Actually, I think their favorite part is playing in the empty toy box. Let's just say, I don't particularly enjoy clean up time...

 Oh the puzzles. This is tame. I mean, really tame. One big floor puzzle as opposed to what I saw today - SIX puzzles scattered all over the dining room floor, down the hallway, and in the bedrooms. Ay, caramba!

 But then, we're happy anyway :)