Faith-y

Faith is totally into braids these days. She asks me every single day for some variation of a braid. She wanted two braids the other day, and a lot of days she wants "one braid with my hair down, Momma." It's so funny. Of course, I love the practice. I always loved braiding my doll's hair when I was little, and now I have some willing daughters of my own!

My Flop was so funny today. She and Maddie play together every waking second of every day. The second that they wake up in the morning, they are either downstairs or in their room making their 'set-up's' for that given day. Today was the first day in this new house that they played separately for the majority of the day. They had their own set-up's going; Maddie was in the living room and Faith was in their room with Abrie's blocks. She was building block beds for Aurora and Snow White, and even made "bunk beds" for Prince Phillip. I had to videotape her playing by herself, because it was so sweet. When I watch her, I realize how much she emulates her Maddie and does things the way that Maddie has "taught" her, and yet I see how much of Faith has rubbed off on Maddie too.

It will be so fun to see what Abrie thinks of her big sister Faith as she gets older.

Sisters

These three grow closer and closer as the days pass.

Today they had such a blast having a tea party all together with Abrie on the bottom bunk. Baby girl loves going to their room, which will eventually (probably sooner than later) be room for all three together. I'm just waiting on the screaming in the night to wane a bit before moving her over with her big sissys! But, anyway they have so much fun playing on the bottom bunk together. And, Abrie of course loves to climb the stairs. So, Faith and Maddie thought it was funny to try and get her to the "club" by playing songs to her on their instruments. It was quite a riot-- Faith on the harmonica!

Princess Pottery Party

Today was a fun day on what would have otherwise probably been another boring winter day.

We went to Tia Rosa's work (eventually one day maybe she'll be Aunt Steph, but for now I love that these girls still stick by the nickname I Christened her with back when Maddie was a little baby) at her side job, a place called 'Jen's Pottery Den.' Today was a Princess Pottery day, which combined 2 hours of crafting 4 different things and princess themes; in other words, this was an awesome time for both Maddie and Faith.

One of the helper girls was even dressed up as Pocahontas, who happens to right now be their idol. Boy, were they pleased! I took their Aurora and Snow White dresses, and they were so happy to be "so fancy" for the afternoon. They got their cheeks painted, they got to paint an awesome pottery light for their room, they fashioned a princess hat, wand, and necklace, and had some great snacks. Maddie just loved the red velvet cakes that they served and they loved the pretzel princess wands, which we have made before. The owner of the place, Jen, was very nice too and so creative with what they did. She had each of the girls help put a story together using the fun that is Mad Libs. They thought the story was hilarious, and kept doing their fake laugh over and over again.

And, our little Beeba Show was not to be outdone. She and Daddy had a little "date" together. Dan took her over to Oregon Dairy (which used to be a favorite of ours when Cran was a tiny baby and we lived in Lancaster with Nene for those 2 months) and he said she loved it. She saw the cows and the deer, and they picked up some delicious apple sausage. She was quite happy to see me, but she and Daddy had a great time together.

Shamu

Big girls have been so sad about everything that happened at Sea World on Wednesday.

Oh, how they adore their killer whales. Faith still affectionately refers to them all as "Amu" and they both love what they call 'Free William' (as in, 'Free Willy'). Not to mention, some of their favorite parts of "Blue Planet" and "Planet Earth" (they call these their 'science lessons') are any clips with killer whales, even the ones where they show them hunting baby sea lions off the coast of Argentina. They just loved seeing them at Sea World last year and loved the 'Believe' show there in Orlando.

They were both so sad to hear about the trainer being drowned.

Highlights

Baby girl is 10 months old today. Double digits. Ridiculous!

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Big girls' favorite movie these days is 'Pocahontas.' They are obsessed. Faith says John Smith is "sooo handsome" and then pretends to fall over in love.

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We have "set-up's" everywhere in this house. We have been instructed to not take down or clean up any of these set-up's. I just love set-up's. It is amazing to me how hard they work on putting everything just-so. The ponies are downstairs ready for a talent show and parade tomorrow morning, and upstairs we've got some princess dolls sleeping in Abrie's Thumper blocks. It's funny too how often Abrie now crawls over to see what they're doing, and more often than not will sit and "play" with them too. I can already see a glimmer of how it will be watching all three sitting peacefully and playing. I think it will be sooner than later, and it's exciting.

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In lieu of the impending snowfall that we are supposed to get tomorrow, a friend and I went to the museum this morning thanks to the library's free museum pass. These girlies just love that museum. We took a lunch and had a really nice time, and they ran on the paths and over the bridges afterwards. Considering it's going to be nasty starting tomorrow, I wanted to spend as much of the day as possible outside.

Valentine's Party

We were supposed to have a Valentine's party at a friend's house the weekend of Valentine's Day, but because of the blizzard, it was postponed. So we had it here today instead.

Aside from cousins, these girls only have a handful of friends. But these friends are near and dear to our hearts and are all good friends. Maddie has two little girl friends from her dance class last year- Veronica and Ciara- that both she and Faith really like. We rarely get to see them, but did do a Halloween party at Veronica's house and decided to do something here for Valentine's.

I like this kind of stuff because the girlies get to help with all the preparations which they enjoy. We got everything for 75% off at Target which was also another great part about it! Maddie and Faith made candies and lollipops, they helped make the princess punch (which wasn't as much of a hit as it was at Maddie's birthday party-- of course, Maddie loves it though!), the food, and they loved making Valentine's for everyone including Abrie. One of my favorite Valentine's was the one Maddie made for Dan which was a Carl valentine from the movie 'Up,' and when I asked her why she chose that one she said "because sometimes Daddy is grumpy and loves to crack his back." Hahaha.

Girlies had a fun time and made little foam mailboxes together which was a hit. Then they "delivered" their Valentine's (it was a trip watching Faith with her mailbox that had glue dripping from every angle!) and got all their little favors. They had a blast, and Abrie was a hit with her lightning-fast crawling and climbing abilities. Of course, the girl is totally a Momma and Daddy's girl and won't go with ANYone and bats her little eyes while curled up into my shoulder. She's my precious.

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Totally unrelated, but these girls love wearing dresses. I like to put Abrie in dresses, and if Maddie and Faith see that they're not wearing a dress when Abrie is, they get upset. They want to wear a dress every single day! I don't remember enjoying wearing dresses as much as they do. They are too funny.

Abrie has succumbed to the girlie's cold that they started earlier this week. Baby girl has a runny nose, but is as happy as a little clam.

The three of them have a blast these days when Abrie is climbing the stairs. Both Maddie and Faith start running to the stairs when they see Abrie headed in that direction and want her to climb under their legs. They call it "London Bridge!" time. Abrie hasn't mastered clapping, but she does this little dance while waving with Hitler type motions and you can tell she is beaming with pride. It's really cute. And, then she crawls as fast as possible into one of her favorite rooms- Maddie and Faith's room. They love it! She heads straight for their bed and loves to crawl onto the mattress and then put her little head down on their pillows. Maddie and Faith call this their 'sleepover.' It's so fun to watch them playing so sweetly.