Their Sunday Best

My family has loads of pictures of my sister and me as tots in our little dresses on Sunday morning.  It must have been a tradition for a little while. :)  I've recently started trying to do the same with my girlies, partly because of all the pictures of Heidi and me and partly just because they look so sweet in their dresses and wear them for such a comparatively short time!  

I have found, however, that it is much, much easier to get one girl at a time, however! (Who is surprised? heh.)

On this particular Lord's Day, I happened on Ruthie at the little play kitchen, unnoticed at first.

Loved the light!  And yet her face was in a shadow, so I tried luring her over toward me, and eventually just moved her around a little bit, trying to get her face in the natural light.

Perfect look!  Too bad Bio Bio Bio had to do a photo-bomb . . . 

Suddenly it feels like spring!  With daylight savings time yesterday, we were able to do our first outdoor lunch of the year.  It was a very odd day, because all the families near church and the church itself had an ice storm and lost power, but we only had a very soggy day of rain.  Church was cancelled due to the outage and some of our friends gathered in our living room with us to worship and eat outside together afterward.  It actually turned out to be quite special.

Oh, the dentist

Three years old . . . she had her first successful dentist visit this week.  Six months ago, she wouldn't open her mouth enough!  The hygienist asked if I'd read her a book about the dentist, and I felt like a failure for not evening thinking of that!  This time, when we got the reminder call, I quickly placed some dentist books on hold at the library, but they were delayed, and then the library was closed because of snow . . . yet thankfully she had matured enough to open her mouth this time!  

There was a TV in the office playing children's programs, which was quite enthralling to the child who didn't want to take off her mittens, hat or sweater.  :)

She had such a good time that she asked me when we got home if we could go back soon.  Not for a while, sweetie!  

There have been many things like that in her life recently.  Little by little, her mispronunciations are correcting themselves.  She says "walk" instead of "wot," for example.  She sits in a big-girl chair (on her knees) and puts her dish in the sink when she's done eating. Her hair is getting very long, and I'm debating trimming it for a second time.  She gives actual puckery kisses...with her tongue sticking out a little bit!  And she's getting to the point where she can talk about feelings and perceive my feelings.  Moments like that make all the discipline a bit more worth it.  

Gemma's birthday, cont'd

I mentioned that Gemma was rather overwhelmed with birthday gifts from her loving extended family :) but I thought it would also be fun to share the little something I made her for turning 3.  It's a little bath set for her baby, who has been named "Bio Bio Bio" once and for all, I believe.  :)

Poor Bio Bio Bio . . . she got dropped in a parking lot last September, and I believe that she had a rough encounter with a car.  We're just thankful that we found her after the fact!  When Gemma first saw her, she put heart stickers on her eyes, but now she has come to terms with her dolly's permanent injury.  If asked, she repeats what we explained to her: "Baby's eyes are a little broken, but she can still see!"  In public, people frequently ask if Baby is an old family hand-me-down, but she has just known that much love from Gemma in her two years of ownership!

I had some leftover terry cloth, seam bias binding, and fleece, so I put together a wee hooded towel and sponge.  These little projects just delight my heart!

I packaged them up with an empty baby bath bottle which was a hospital freebie.  The writing is coming off, but Gemma doesn't seem to mind.  :)

Whenever Gemma takes a bath, she likes to have Bio Bio Bio bathe in the upside-down bathroom stool, so I staged her this way for you.  :) Besides that, we just bought her a new pack of undershirts.  How many things does a kid need, right?  She and her sister's birthdays are both so close to Christmas, that it just makes sense to keep things simple, at least while they're little.  Maybe we'll start a tradition of taking them someplace special instead of buying them something special as they get older.  But for now, it was nice at least to spend some time making her something.  :)