We somehow manage to keep selecting books that require bursting into random bits of song! And who doesn't love saying words like "Panache" and "Haberdashery!" Very fun book! ♥

Things...

Hannah spent last weekend up at my mom and dad's for some grandparent time.  During her time there she helped...er watched Popsie put these together and then with Popsie and her Gram she painted them.  I LOVE THEM!  They are so cute.  And it makes me smile because I remember when us four kids were all younger, my dad made us all bird houses and let us paint them.  So I love that Hannah got to do this and even made one for her sis.  She was SO excited!

 Also, Hannah really hasn't shown much interest in writing actual letters.  As a three year old ya know, she's got bigger fish to fry.  She has ALWAYS loved coloring and drawing things out on anything she can find.  She's known how to sing the alphabet for over a year now really well, but in the last 2-3 weeks she has suddenly taken off in a lot of areas.  She is able to visually recognize all but about 4 of the alphabet letters separately in any context and their sounds...including the ones with two sounds.  She's shown a lot more interest in actually writing letters out...a lot of H's and E's and O's have been showing up lately...occasionally something that looks like an A...as for coloring she usually just goes with gusto all about the page or draws gigantic "tires" as she calls them. (What we would call swirls.)  But today at the library we sat down to color and I looked over at her and realized she had taken the yellow marker and carefully colored all the stars on the paper yellow.  It's the first time I've noticed her making an effort to carefully color something!  I was pretty excited.  :)  It's just crazy how much can change in the span of a few weeks for our kidlets.

Time...

Ok...today is one of those days I feel that time has to be relative at times.  There's just no way time ticks along at the same pace every day.  Today, for instance, we all got up and around at about 6:30...ish, so I'll say by the time we really got moving it was 7:00.  Ok.  7-10:30.  That's 3.5 hours.  I say 3.5 hours and I think, that's really not that much time at all.  Sometimes it seems like forever but 3.5 hours is really not a lot of time.  Yet, somehow after getting up and around and finally looking at the clock at 10:30 I was SHOCKED!  I could've sworn it was 1:00 at least!  Here's why.  Here are the things that happened around here from the hours of 7 a.m. until 10:30 when I looked at the clock and had to rub my eyes to make sure I hadn't misread it: 
*Up and at em.  Made breakfast for 2 little kiddos.  Twice.  Because the first round wasn't enough.  This included making two different kinds of breakfast smoothies (one for Hanah and one for me), toast etc...
*Did three-four rounds of dishes.  (at least) We don't have a dishwasher in this house.  So I put away all the previous days dishes and did some of the ones from the night before, plus breakfast dishes...plus strays...plus all surfaces touched by kiddos....
*Checked Facebook and email, had a cup of coffee...browsed a kids clothing site for spring/summer clothes.  (Had to warm coffee up twice)
*Ran thru a new worship song 3 times.
*Had a monstrous dance party with the girls.  Several different cds and songs were requested.
*Played a few rounds of soccer and basketball.  Told Hannah to lose the attitude.  (atleast once)
*Took out trash...wheeled carts back in. 
* Saved couch from a yakking dog
*Read a pile of books to Abby. Including (Sonia) Jeremy Kooloo three times.  (This book will never die!)
*Organized our ridiculous collection of books and weeded some out we never touch anymore.
* Helped Hannah with her finding book and pictures, and worked thru the alphabet with her.
* Played the part of the prince to Hannah's Cinderella.
*Showered. 
*Helped Abby brush her teeth.
* Two loads of laundry, including one Hannah style.  Which...if ya know...takes about twice as long as traditional style.  But hey she helped!  Can't complain!  But honey...those clothes in your drawers that look suspiciously like they were rolled into a ball...just smile and nod. :) 
*Talked Hannah into putting her own clothes away...which if you know....takes twice as long as if I were to do it.
*Talked Hannah into putting her pants on.  Which if ya know...well actually this does NOT take longer than traditional style.  She actually does it faster herself than when we try chasing her down and helping her put them on.
*Snack time.  Which turned into Snow White and the enchanted apple game with Hannah, which turned into a picninc of sorts with sparkling cider. 
*Whipped up some blueberry muffins
*Wiped all surfaces touched by kiddos. Dishes....
*Supervised Hannah sweeping the kitchen floor with regular broom....making sure she didn't take out Abby (or me!) with the end of the broom.  Which if ya know...Hannah style sweeping takes twice as long as the traditional route.  But she helped! 
*Vacuumed
* Tackled ant problem that resulted from the use of the broom.  (These tiny, annoying things suck up so much of my day!!)
*Dinner in the crockpot
*More stories, rocking, softing...annnnnd finally nap time. 

Now...does all that seem normal for a 3.5 hour span?  And trust me we weren't rushing from one thing to the next.  So how was it not so much later by the time I looked at that clock!?  I'm a little afraid for what the second half of the day brings...

Argh!

So you know those days where you can just tell it's going to be an off and frustrating day?  Well, today was not one of those.  Not to start anyway!  We all slept so well and so soundly last night, and the girls slept til almost 7 which was great!  Hannah came in and was so happy and sweet...and then BAM.  It rapidly went downhill.  I don't know if we're all off today or what.  Perhaps it's carry over from the crazy Easter Sunday...but Hannah has spent ALL morning complaining and whining about things.  Abby about a half hour after waking up was acting so tired she was just following me around crying...I was grumpy.  Things were not going well.  Hannah had been asking all morning if we could just go outside on a walk.  I think the two wonderfully sunny days we had have them both wanting to be outside full time.  But today is one of those days where it will be sunny for about 3 minutes and then the skies will open up.  Not to mention that even getting us towards the walk was turning out to be super frustrating.   But Hannah wanted to go SO badly she went and picked out her clothes and put them all on herself.  She got her shoes on, and then came into the bathroom where Abby was screaming (she was mad I told her she couldn't do something) and Hannah gave her a sweet little hug, took the comb and started combing Abby's hair.  Abby just put her head on Hannah and let her comb her hair.  Then Hannah took a wash cloth and washed all the tears off of Abby's face and bent down to kiss her and zip her jacket all the way up.  How could I say no when she just did all that to help and be such a little mama.  So I get them all strapped into the stroller and...then the skies open up and it just starts pouring.  Oh well...we're heading out anyway.  We walked to the nearest grocery store to get a small treat for the girls, which they ended up giving us for free.  I am hoping this afternoon goes a little more smoothly than this morning.  But dear Hannah...even in the midst of so much frustration she finds ways to do some of the sweetest things. 
On a lighter note, I will leave you with pictures from Easter Sunday.  Hannah and the other kiddos sang "Jesus Loves Me" as the call to worship in Sunday and it was so great.  It was a crazy and busy day but it was wonderful to see family we don't get to see often, and to worship with friends. 

 Silly Hannah

 Abby is tryin hard not to have to be in a picture.

 Singin for Call to worship :)



Silliness compliments of Hannah G. and Abby Joy :)

Trip to Idaho via Pictures

I love this picture....

 I

 Cute girly

 Shane and Adam with the four girls

 Cousins playin dress up

Sidewalk chalk! 

 Uncle Adam with Lil Harper



Love.

Evening is one of my most favorite times. Yes because it's a time to wind down and read stories, sing songs and chat about the day, etc...and sometimes the break and silence at the end of the day is a welcome sight...but mostly I love it because I get so overwhelmed and over come with love for these girls as I get to snuggle with them and watch them drift off to sleep. Can I just say again how much I love this little family of ours....

Love this book!!

We got this book @ the libray this week. SUPER cute and a great lil message. hehe Plus you get to randomly burst out in song...one of our favorite things to do!