My little helpers...

...Um, part of the time ~ at least as far as Alayna is concerned. Now, Briana...just exploring and, well... in training!?!

Alayna is actually a pretty good helper, when she is willing. She does like to set my table with plates, cups and silverware...and does a pretty good job for a 2 year old. She knows where things are placed for the most part. She loves to find stuff for me and will go around looking for things too that we're "missing" or lost, following with a phase like "Nayna find it". She's rather proud and excited when she does find stuff. Last night, her and Briana helped pick up puzzle pieces and put them in the box. Briana is in that stage now where she likes to put things in purses, bags, boxes or whatever. They really worked together. It was neat to see.

The dw and Briana is like what honey is to bees.
It sends her coming every time, whether clean, dirty or empty!
Even though she tries, no, she is not allowed to stand on my dw door. I caught her red-handed!

Alayna loves to help with putting away silverware. When I wear an apron, she needs to wear one too. So I have to alter one of mine "a little" to fit her.

Now that she is more familiar where things go, she teases me and puts things in different places and asks me "here?...here?...here?" knowing she is choosing the wrong places on purpose.
She does love to help me cook in the kitchen too. Which does not always go well for the both of us. But, she is so ready to tell daddy when he walks in the room that "Nayna help momma!"


She loves to make brownies or cookies with me and/or daddy...and wants a taste and lick the beaters. Where did she ever learn that one?

Bumps and bruises - Ouch!

~ 5 days before we leave for my sister's wedding~

Sunday, June 6th was a day filled with bumps, bruises and tears.

Briana wakes up Sunday morning with something on her right side. Didn't know what it was, but some that had looked at it thought it was a spider bite?!? However, as the days went by, and it seemed to heal and scabbed over, which looked like a burn. We have No idea what or how it happened. I am not good and identifying things like that, so if you think it looks like something familiar, let me know.

Sunday night after dinner, Alayna decides she wants to kiss her balloon in the kitchen... and after I hear "Nayna kiss it" I hear "pop" (the balloon) then "thud" Alayna's face on the floor. She leaned over to kiss it, and ended up popping it with her teeth and hit our wooden floor...biting her bottom lip, etc...

Later that evening... we had some family night where we all spent some time together. Scott pulled out his guitar, and was playing along as I played the piano (that we're storing for friends). Briana was on the floor next to me and she either bent over to pick something up and hit the piano bench, or she fell down and hit the piano bench. (she just started walking 1 week or so before) It instantly swelled and there was a tiny puncture ~ that bled a little. Thankfully, the eye was unharmed and no stitches were needed. But, boy it looked pretty bad.

Things sure do happen so quickly. Thankful the Lord is watching out for them ALL the time ~ and their care and keeping are in His hands.

I'll post some pix of my sister's wedding soon...however I didn't get as many as I wanted since things were quite busy, and my camera man was looking out for our 2 little ones! But I can share some.

Officially Potty trained

Potty training has been an absolute breeze with Alayna. Even though "accidents" were rare after the first several weeks when we started in January ~ (and usually dry EVEN at night right from the beginning) I still wore pull-ups on her at night, if we were out doing errands, or traveling~although she technically didn't need them, mom wanted a safety guard just in case for that one time. Then, for the last few months, she has been only wearing pull-ups at night ~ with only very very rarely being wet in the morning. But the last month or so she has been fighting me to not wear them to bed. I was a little apprehensive, but eventually gave in to "no pull-up panties to bed". My big girl, just got bigger. She also did really well last year when we transitioned her to her big girl bed and weaned the pacifier. She is setting a very high standard, I know. And, I know they won't all be the same. I can already see that with Briana. But, no need to compare. I'm just glad that so far, at least she has been fairly easy...as far as those things go...And who knows, maybe the others will follow their big sister's lead!

BTW: One of my friends from church said potty trained is when they don't wear anymore pull-ups! I guess I didn't know that.

p.s. note the curly hair! I had it half up in a ponytail, but those ringlets seem to bounce right out! It seems to be getting curlier and curlier. It's fun and not much to fuss with...just trying to keep her still!!! It gets messy pretty quick, though. My mom wanted me to post some pix of her hair. I might do that in the future as I got a few pix together.

Easter and dinner at the Banks' Farm

I know I posted some of these pictures earlier...but thought to include some in my "Easter" post.




They'd rather look at eachother than mom and the camera.

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Scott ended up working on Easter...and the girls and I got invited to go up to the Banks' after church for Easter supper with their whole family. There were a lot of little kids there, so Alayna enjoyed spending time with them. I think this was the first time she was on a real farm walking around in a real barn ~ getting the true experience ~ "fragrance" and all! (other than Columbus Zoo ~ but I don't think that counts.)

There was a cow that got loose, so off the men went. This is also what we rode to get over to the barn.




Larry told me he wanted to show me their "pony". It was only about 7ft.? tall!!

Alayna inside the barn on top of a lot of hay bales, with church friends. The children loved running around on the hay

Baby kittens 1-2 days old