A Classic

Vivien has been crawling for a couple of weeks now and I realized that I never posted anything to remind me years from now of when she accomplished this skill. In the middle of cooking dinner on Friday night, I stopped to capture her mobility. I have watched this video so many times and just laugh out loud at how it is a perfect glimpse at our little life with these two right now. Some conclusions I have come to while watching it are:

- Anytime I try to spotlight Vivien in an effort to have as many photos/videos of her as we have of her sister at this age, Amity is bound to intervene and take up some of the airtime. At least her intention was to share!

- I see why I go through so many burp cloths in every laundry load. My girls are drooly! However, Words with Friends does not recognize "drooly" as a word because I tried it just this weekend.

- Amity can count. Who knew? I think she has learned to count primarily from us telling her she has until we count to ten to wrap up her sitting time on the potty (after a very prolonged time of sitting).

And, finally...

- Gassiness must be genetic and I am not referring to my side of the family!

Abilene, Abilene...

We were so excited to spend our Labor Day weekend in Abilene. We used to spend so much time there when we were dating and first married and we miss it! Of course, our road trips look a little different these days. First of all, we travel in Homer instead of the G or Pontius. Secondly, we carry a potty with us along with a little two-year-old who likes to use it while waving to the cars passing by on the service road!

We stayed at Papa and Nana Barr's house for what would be their first night in their brand-new beautiful home. They were so sweet to let us stay with them on such a busy weekend as they continued working on the house and moving furniture in.

On Saturday morning, we enjoyed time with Raegan and Baby Adam.
Amity, who hates to have me do her hair, let Linda fix it into the cutest ponytail after watching Raegan get her hair fixed. She knew she looked good! We may have to send her down to Abilene every few weeks just to get her hair fixed!

Raegan with the inspirational 'do!

Vivien watching Adam

Adam watching his toys We stopped by Mom and Dad Barr's house and Vivien gave out some snuggles and smiles. Amity enjoyed their crackers!

We ate lunch at Grandmommy's house with Linda's sisters and brother. The only pictures I took were of all of the kids lunching on the shower curtain liner. The food was delicious and it is always so sweet to see Grandmommy!

Vivien met her birthday twin, Samantha, and shared her Cheerios.

Rosies with Raegan

Amity has finally found someone who likes to do Ring a Round the Rosie as many times as she does!

Our Sunday Best

When I first learned I was going to have a little girl, I started paying more attention to how little girls dressed. I quickly decided that I would be happy if my girl(s) were to wear smocked dresses until the day they graduate from high school. Since that may not happen, I take advantage of putting these two in smocked dresses every Sunday possible. This morning, Amity wore her birthday dress from GG and KK and Vivien wore her dress from Uncle Bill and Aunt Rita. Amity wasn't really excited about a photo session but Vivien didn't mind.

Looking up at her daddy!

Of course, every smocked dress needs some bloomers for added modesty and overall cuteness. These were a gift from the Browns.

And these were a gift from Mrs. Patsy. I think they are 12 months but they still fit!

There's nothing like gradually disrobing after church and lunch in preparation for a Sunday nap!

Maybe we should have worn these to accessorize the dress this morning!

Gorilla Therapy

Amity's fear of gorillas continues! She woke us up screaming at 5:00 this morning and chose to go back to bed in Vivien's naptime pack and play in our room. This is a snippet of our morning therapy session:

And guess what her daddy is considering for his Halloween costume?

Back to School

Dennis left for his first day back with kids this morning. He didn't really wear this Yoda backpack but he considered it. Yoda was our gift to Eli for his third birthday but it now "freaks him out" so Yoda is residing at our house for the time being.

I decided to try doing a letter of the week this school year with Amity on our days at home. I found a whole bunch of fun activites to download at http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/ We started today with the letter A and have been singing "Apple Annie" all day long. Vivien really likes it!

Amity loves any opportunity to use "gloob" and she really liked pasting these apples on the apple tree.

She also did a great job of coloring an apple tree page so I was feeling super-confident and had the great idea to pull out the scissors. I soon decided that we are not ready for scissors yet!

We did have fun making an alligator A. Apparently, this alligator is going to need some braces! :)

The Science of Snarfing

Previous One-Child Hypothesis: ALL children despise the snarfer!

Revised Two-Child Hypothesis: Some children are happy to be snarfed many times throughout the day and actually laugh during the process!

Method: Allow the happy snarfee to hold the hand of the less-happy snarfee. However, this method was eventually abandoned because I had to adapt pin-down and restrain method to accomplish any snarfing.

Conclusion: If one child gets the summer sniffles, the whole family will soon have the summer sniffles. At least someone in the family will enjoy the snarfing!

A "Budding" Artist

The other night, Amity was sitting at her table coloring while Dennis and I were talking on the couch. She started telling us that she was writing our names. Then, she said, "Look at my leaf!" And, surprisingly, it really did look like a leaf!

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

Robert Louis Stevenson