Rock On

I love that she almost looks like she's playing the air guitar.

Nothing Like Company That's Not Really Coming....

So Tuesday night Jeremy and I found out we would be hosting a new resident family that's house hunting for a week. They were coming Wednesday. We were excited to have them stay with us because of the generosity of other families helping us to get here. But I was a little stressed about it. OK, I was bawling my eyes out Wednesday morning. The girls had puked all over me (nothing like a sour-milk smell to make a first impression), and Katie wouldn't let me finish cleaning anything so I just started sobbing. Then Katie comes up to me and says, "Mommy sad. Mommy tears. Mommy crying." She's observant, I'll give her that. Well, I didn't give up. I worked my tail off and had the bathroom clean, the floors swept, mopped, and vacuumed, and even had a huge dinner made just in time to find out there was a huge mix up and they weren't really staying with us. Jeremy and I had to just laugh about it. Nothing like total strangers coming to get you to clean your house. At least we can enjoy that and plenty of left-overs.

Katie loves to play in the little fountain we have in the middle of our garden - which means she ends up getting a little dirty. I couldn't help taking this picture - she's so beautiful! She picked our first flower for us, that's the tulip in her hand.
This is Cora getting on Pele's level. Or Pele on Cora's. I can't believe how strong her little neck is! Although tummy time usually creates excess vomit. That's the real reason Pele's so calmly waiting.

Kate's hair cracks me up here. We'd had her hair up in a pony-tail the day before, and the day we took this picture she looked like I'd had her hair in rollers. Two hair-do days for the effort of one. I like it.

And just a quick message from Cora and Sydney. To love and believe are two of the greatest joys in this life. I am constantly relearning not to get too caught up in day-to-day life to forget that.

The Ants Go Marching.....

It started with seeing these poking around the kitchen:

Then we caught one of these:

Then as Jeremy was playing with Kate he discovered one of these latched onto her head hiding in her hair:

Don't get me wrong, bugs have their place in the world. I don't think it's wise to be afraid of things not even 1/1000 of your size, but these creatures have been coming into our house in full since the warm weather and there's only so much ant-smashing I'm willing to do in the kitchen. We are declaring war on the creepy crawlies in the house - I called the pest control and they'll be here tomorrow morning. Not a bad deal either - they guarantee against mice, rats, wasps, bees, spiders, millipedes (threatening, I know), ants, basically anything but termites. That's extra. Good thing we have a stone foundation. So I hope all the little things pack their bags if they want to keep living, otherwise they will be making a trip to bug heaven soon.

Dog Tired

The tiredness seems to set in most when I hold still long enough to realize how tired I am. Or on those other days where I feel like I'm still dreaming when I'm really awake because we were up so much at night. Though at three months, I think we're getting longer stretches of sleep now than before. As tired as I may be, this is still WAY better than pregnancy.
You see those green plants poking up there? Those are our tiger lilies. And we have raspberries growing after all of our planting efforts last year. I'm so excited for our garden! Katie and I have been having a lot of fun outside. I'll admit it though, I was really struggling with burn-out before General Conference two weekends ago. I couldn't have been more grateful for those messages that seemed to hit right on the nail everything I was struggling with. I really loved Sister Beck's and Elder Ballard's talk that both seemed to reaffirm the importance of being a mom, the value of women in the world, and the necessity of seeking the guidance of the Lord for every day things. So I prayed for help with our family. I needed so much more patience and strength to enjoy these kids and not just survive them because I was so tired.

Well, the answers and strength came. I'm not claiming to have amazing patience, but I feel a difference. I play more with Katie now and am better about letting things go that I can't do and loving and laughing more. I really needed to hear all of the messages about families; that being a mother is the only calling in this life you are never released from - it's an eternal calling, that the greatest good you can ever do in the world is the work you do with your own family, how precious every individual soul is to our Heavenly Father, and just that peaceful feeling of hearing the prophet and apostles of the Lord speak. And I'm so grateful that modern technology lets me see Conference at home, even in New Hampshire, so I don't have to worry about what to do with the three munchkins during the sessions.
These dresses were gifts from a very dear friend. Anyone able to tell the difference in the two girls? Cora's on the left and Sydney's on the right. They smile so much now (though I never seem to get a picture of both at once) and coo a lot. Katie imitates everything I do with them with her dolls. She wants me to swaddle her dolls for her the way I do them. We call it "tie them up," which she asks me to do if they start crying. She rocks her dolls and says shh to them. She puts them in the car seat, the swings, and her double stroller to "go to the park." She will even lift up her shirt to "feed them." She puts them up on the changing table to "change their bums" when I change the girls. She will "burp them" and give them "tummy time" and also help me show them different toys. She says all of the things I put in quotations. It's a little intimidating to see her act out everything I do. And even more bizarre for me because I didn't play with dolls a whole lot growing up (I liked my stuffed animals and toy horses). So she and I are learning things together.

And yes, they still puke.

Egg Hunting

We had a lovely Easter, and Katie was happy to look for Easter Eggs. This was the point she decided her basket was too full and she dumped it all out.

I bought (I mean the Easter Bunny brought) a puppy with bunny ears for each of the girls. Kate picked them out at the store and couldn't stop kissing the puppies and I suckered into it. It gets easier to say no when they get bigger, right? Oh, well. I figure at $3 a piece, this was an OK splurge.