Day 67

Samantha eats pizza! OK, she didn't actually eat too much of it - maybe one or two very small pieces - but she sure did have a good time wiping it all over her face and high chair tray!

Day 65

Yard sales are a regular event for us it seems. I have to laugh about it because somehow within a year's time we have accumulated enough stuff to have a yard sale. How does that happen?

So this past Saturday, March 6th, we had yet another yard sale. We didn't have one last year as planned so I guess at least I can say it took us two years to accumulate all this! This photo is actually a couple of hours into the yard sale. We actually had already sold quite a bit at this point. Hard to believe looking at all the boxes in the photo, isn't it? At 6:00 am that morning we realized we had underestimated just how much stuff we had. We had not yet finished unpacking things when people showed up at 7:00. We told them to feel free to go through boxes but no one put too much effort into it. As we were packing things back up a little after noon that day I couldn't help but think if certain items would have sold if they had been taken out of boxes earlier in the day. I guess I'll never know. All in all I do consider the yard sale a success and am so thankful to have it over with and all that stuff out of my house!

Day 62, Photo 62

A day of messy painting!

Day 59, Photo 59

The planning for Samantha's first birthday party has begun!! I've decided on a Teddy Bear Picnic as the theme. This week a creative mood struck me so I decided to work a little on invitations for the party. Here is a sneak peak of what I'm hoping to use as her invitation...

Day 58, Photo 58

We spent our Saturday at the Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh. This was the first visit for Ed and the girls. We all enjoyed and had a great family day. I decided I would post photos of the exhibit that was probably the biggest hit with everyone - the dinosaurs! Between watching "Curious George" and "Dinosaur Train" on PBS, Gabrielle has gotten really interested in museums and dinosaurs. The entire museum was very cool and I definitely recommend going regardless of how old your kids are or if you even have kids at all. I'm sure Ed would have liked being able to spend more time at each exhibit reading all the information but a 3-year-old kept insisting on moving quickly from one thing to the next.

Day 57, Photo 57

I have got to start taking the five minutes it takes to post my photo of the day everyday. It is getting really difficult to keep track what day is what!

Matching outfits - one of the great things about having two girls (in my opinion anyway)! Gabrielle is wearing an outfit passed down from my sister's girls. Samantha is wearing an outfit my sister bought for Gabrielle for her first birthday, the same time she bought the outfits for her own daughters. The shirt and and skirt on Samantha still have a little room so maybe she'll be able to wear it once or twice next fall. She is such a big girl! Fortunately she is tall for her age too or else she would really be a little butterball!

Day 56, Photos 56

Gabrielle loves to color and draw. For the past week she has been going to her little table a lot more frequently to sit and draw on her own. I love seeing her creativity on paper! As I was sorting through my craft supplies for an upcoming yard sale I came across a Crayola circle stencil. Gabrielle asked if she could have it and has loved creating her people with it. Once I showed her how it worked she did the rest completely on her own. I was surprised at how well she did with it. Here are some of her creations.



This is the first time I noticed her drawing five fingers for hands instead of the usual circles.

This one cracked me up. The lines in the mouth are not teeth - they are germs! I have no idea where she gets these things!

My sister sent me a link where I could print off lined paper with dotted or dashed letters for Gabrielle to learn how to write. This was the very first time she has ever done anything like this. I helped her with a good bit of the top line but the rest she did on her own. I was proud at how well she did for the first time, especially since some of the dotted letters were difficult to distinguish from the "lined paper". Gabrielle is going to love school once we finally get her in one. I wish I took more time to do stuff like this with her. She absolutely loves it.

And more people. This time she made circles for the ears and smaller circles inside the bigger circles for the eyeballs.