Friday, January 14, 2011

Brrr.....

It is cold here! Very cold and windy. After being stuck in the house for a couple of days earlier this week due to the ice I really looked forward to getting out. After a couple of mornings in a row of being out and about running errands I have to say there is nothing like being in a nice warm toasty home!

For some reason in the past couple of weeks I have been hit with how much growing up both of my girls are doing. Time just goes by so quickly! And for the past couple of weeks I have noticed more just how much they are becoming little people and not so much babies anymore (although they will always be my babies of course).

Samantha just talks, talks, and talks. When out in public she pretends to be really shy but as soon as we walk away from someone she is waving her little heart out, yelling - and I do mean yelling - "Bye!! Bye bye!!" Occasionally, like today in the BJ's parking lot, she will yell across quite a distance to tell someone "hi." At home she is constantly telling on "Dabby" (her name for Gabrielle, maybe it will eventually become Gabby but for now Dabby it is). She isn't always tattling on Gabrielle, sometimes she just really wants to tell me what Gabrielle is doing, sort of a play-by-play of their day. She asks lots of questions and likes to "repeat" what I say and even copies my hand gestures. Her favorite word to say is "honey." She calls me honey, Gabrielle honey, anybody and everybody "honey" and sometimes she'll just walk around saying "honey" in this sweet, sympathetic southern way.

Samantha also loves her books! For a while now I've been reading to her at bedtime but over the past couple of months she will ask for certain books and forget trying to skip that part of the bedtime routine; she cries out for her books if you try. And her attention span for books has gotten a lot longer. She will sit through an actual story and usually requests two or three books. I checked out several board books from the library at our most recent visit and all week she will bring books throughout the day and say "ree" for read.

Gabrielle is also growing up a lot. In general she acts more mature. I'm not sure that is the right word when describing a four year old but compared to age 3 I would say she does act older. She likes to ask a lot of very serious questions about how things work and why things are they way they are - those impossible questions for a parent to answer! She also talks about Jesus and God frequently, talks about how God made her (with her Daddy's help according to her because she has been told she got her pretty blue eyes from her daddy) and talks about how God loves her and she loves God. Her favorite activity is to play Barbies. Yesterday in fact she sat in her room and played Barbies for 2-1/2 hours!!! She didn't come out at all - for anything! If it weren't for the fact I could overhear the drama going on in Barbie's world I would have been very concerned.

One activity both girls absolutely love - dress-up! It is not unusual for them both to have dress-up clothes on first thing in the morning, right after breakfast. And sometimes they will stay in dress-up clothes for the majority of the day, even if they are not playing dress-up. They will watch tv, color, play Barbies or with the dollhouse, all in fancy dresses or tutus, heels and jewelry.

From My Little Sunbeams


My big project for this year is to get the house organized, starting with the closets. So last week I spent two days cleaning and organizing the girls' rooms and closets. I wish I had taken a before photo but I probably would have been too embarrassed to post it but here is Gabrielle's closet currently:

From My Little Sunbeams


I am amazed we have kept it so neat this long! But I think by weeding things out and putting toys in boxes it has made clean-up much easier and quicker for all of us. But Gabrielle's favorite part of her "new and improved" closet is the dress-up stuff.
From My Little Sunbeams


Before the clothes, shoes, and accessories were crammed into a toy box and a basket. We could never find matching shoes and whenever a dress ended up at the bottom of the box it was forgotten so the same one or two dresses were always being fought over. Gabrielle and Samantha both love being able to see everything hanging up and pick what they want to wear.

Today is Friday which means our second family night. Pizza for dinner and board games!! Woo hoo!! Better get the pizza in the oven so we can get the party started. Ha!

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