Januarygrams

One of my {who am I kidding?} my ONLY resolution this year was to post an instagram picture of either one or both of my girls each day.  I can't believe it, but I actually managed to post at least one picture every day.  First resolution I've ever kept for the first month.  Let's see how we do in February!

Here are a couple little collages of my favorite instagrams from January and a few full size instagrams that didn't get posted.

Oh You Know, Just Another Catch Up Post...

Yikes -- I took a bit of a blogger break there, didn't I?  David was out of town for the week and both girls were sick.  {And, then I got addicted to watching Homeland on my laptop while Olivia snuggled up and slept beside me.}  And blogging took a bit of a backseat.

So...here's a little catch up for you {in no particular order...because the days just blurred together.}

While David was gone, Mom & Dad helped me with the girls and helped me {attempt to} organize their clothes & toys.  I was also able to organize the hall closet and finally put away all of the Christmas stuff.  Although I keep finding Christmas things all over the house that should have been put up...does that happen to anyone else?  Dad also mopped our floors.  They are too good to me....to us.

Look at that Poppy...riding my bike with the seat entirely too low to take Olivia to the playground.

B-Dubs!  Olivia had to take her {my} two Cabbage Patch kids with her and put them in the highchair while we ate.

And, we hit up the Texas Roadhouse.  Always easier to make a mess somewhere else for dinner as long as the adult to child ration is at least 3:2.

While David was in Palo Alto, I had him spend a good portion of one of his days running some errands for me.  I've mentioned before that Olivia's friend, Tessa, had a bone marrow transplant and is in the Stanford Hospital.  Before he left, I put together a little care package with lots of cut out hearts to show Tessa how much we love her.  After dropping her package off, David headed over to West Elm with my copy of a Young House Love book and got it signed by John & Sherry for me!  

Sweet guy because you know he had NO idea who they were.  

Well, I couldn't stop at cutting out those hearts, so each of my girls got a heart wall in their room.  I love it and it's for sure staying up longer than just Valentine's Day.

We were super happy to have David back, but after driving straight through for 14+ hours, he was exhausted.  I did my best to keep the girls from pestering him on his first day back, so I broke out the paint and tried a new art project with Olivia.  It was pretty fun.

Yesterday, David made up for lost time with the girls and took them to a fun playground for lots of rough housing.  While Sydney slept, David took her to the Groundhog Day Fun at Lisa's Creatures.  That baby alpaca just may have to come home with us.

{We're almost done here...} This morning we headed out to the zoo for a couple of hours to get out of the house and burn off some energy.  Olivia wanted to push her baby stroller through the zoo, but that lasted about 5 minutes total {including the time it took us to get out of the car}.  Thank goodness for our double stroller.

My little pink flamingo.

Look how long her hair is getting!

If you have stuck with us for this long, Thank You!  You must really love us.

I promise I'll try not to go so long in between blog posts.

Words To Live By For My Girls {Courtesy of Dave Matthews}

Keep your head up,

Try and listen to your heart,

Be kind always, no matter

We all grow up and someday we'll say goodbye,

So shine your light while you got one.

Make the most of what you've got,

Don't waste time trying to be someone you're not,

Fill up your head and fill up your heart,

Take your shot,

Don't waste time trying to be someone you're not.

Look and listen,

And you decide what to believe,

Shine your light while you got one.

Once round, just once,

So take your shot,

Don't waste time trying to be someone you're not...

Eeek...this is post number 600 on this little old blog.

Like the Magazine

Oh Sydney, what more is there to say than you bring so much joy into our lives, every minute of every day.  I love you with every fiber of my being.  

Happy 17 months, Sweetest Baby Girl!

Snickerdoodles and Shrinky Dinks

It is safe to say that I am a control freak.  No, my house is not crazy cleaned or straightened up all the time {although, man oh man,  I would love it if it was}, but I have a hard time letting other people do things that I think I can do better.  This includes my husband {sorry, babe} and my kids.  Doing a craft project?  Gotta be Pinterest Perfect.  And, I know that's not much fun for the kiddos.  

I'm doing better at letting Olivia's projects be hers and not mine.  It was fun letting her do the small gingerbread house with her friends and letting her decorate it as she pleased.  Today, we had our first experience with Shrinky Dinks and I had to just let her go with the coloring {err, scribbling} on her little princess pictures.  Fortunately, she let me have a few to do too...I needed in on the Shrinky Dink fun as well!

While I like to call myself a control freak, you could also say that I'm a bit of a helicopter mom.  I may hover a little too close to the girls because I don't want to see them get into trouble or see them get hurt, but I'm trying to give a little more space and a little more freedom to my almost four year old.  

Today, we rode our bikes over to Nana and Poppy's house for a quick visit.  I just google mapped it and realized that she rode her little bike for 3.4 miles round trip.  SUCH a big girl.  Was it scary at some points?  Yes - I don't like those cars even being on the same road as us.  But, now is the best time for her to learn the rules of the road.  And, the best time for us to teach her while Sydney is riding in the Chariot and not on a bike herself.  

And, bless her heart, I had promised her that we would ride to the playground after our stop at mom and dad's house and Sydney was just not having it.  Poor girl is still sick and it probably wasn't my brightest idea to have her out and about.  So, we had to cancel the playground at the last minute and she cried and pedaled the last few minutes home.  We made up for it with some snickerdoodle baking.  And, I let her make the first batch on her own.  {And, then I made some pretty ones for the second batch.  Baby steps.}

Horrible picture of her...sorry Liv.

They looked like Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets before they got baked.  Ha ha.