Life with the Girls

Life with the girls lately has been pretty fantastic.  I love the ages that they are, watching them both learn, grow, explore and play in their own wonderful ways - often together.  Wherever Emma goes, Olive is pretty close behind.  Especially if Emma has a friend over in the house, Olive will not be left out!  It is sweet to watch her charge up the stairs after the big girls.

Emma is counting down the days until she will be a 1st grader - although I am certain she is going to miss her fantastic teacher.  I am enjoying any alone time I can find with Emma as of late, I think she needs a little alone time - focus solely on her!  We have been garage sailing, I took her to a dance concert and out to eat super late, we had a fire just us two girls last night - those are special times for me and I can tell she feels the same.

Olive has been such a joy to watch as she takes on the true toddler stage.  She is fairly independent and knows what she does and does not want - and is not afraid to let you know!  She LOVES to be outside as much as her big sis.  She could spend all afternoon pushing around a little stroller with nothing or anything in it.  She also loves to play and draw with chalk, kick the ball, or go visit one of the many dogs in the neighborhood.  As a matter of fact she is down right exuberant at the sight of any dog, bird, gopher, butterfly, airplane, or animal!  She'll let out a little squeal and then her whole body does a little jump.  Very sweet.

 Emma is the queen at making Olive laugh or giggle and took over here.  We love uncanny resemblance to my late Grandma Dorothy in the above picture.

 Playing hide and see with Daddy!

 One of my favorite pictures of her so far this spring.  She has that little pout on...  We have had not had very many warm days, so anything even close to warm we have been out in full force.

 Above is just a sampling of an afternoon of play in our neighborhood, especially after school.  There are a number of children missing in this picture, but I think you get the point - a plethora of kids to play with!  I love it.

 Emma reading "Goodnight Moon to Olive" - Olive trying to say cheese to the camera!

 Emma and Daddy had a special sleepover in the basement a few weeks back - he let her stay up as late as she wanted, certain she would konk out "any-minute" - she lasted until midnight!!!!!!   He build this awesome fort in the basement and the kids used it to play in for a number of days to follow.

 Emma has one very exciting night a few weeks back - she lost TWO teeth in one night!  They had be ridiculously loose for a long time, and finally one kept getting stuck pushed backwards!  Finally I told her she had to pull them, or had to let dad do it.  So, Elliott got  the bottom one out, and she chickened out on the top one.  We said no, no, she had to do it.  So she grabbed the kleenex, pulled, I said "pull hard", and out it came!!!!!!  She was ELATED and SO PROUD!  I told Elliott that that was one of those moments that I specifically remember as a child, and it was so exciting to see her joy and rememebr how genuine it was.

 The picture below is one of my most favorite pictures ever or Emma.  That smile on her face is what true joy and happiness looks like.  I hope she continues to find it many times throughout her life.

 We/I had a simply lovely Mother's Day... .spent the early morning freezing with my mom and the girls at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market - bought lots of veggies and herbs to plant.  Emma and El went golfing, so I was able to plant lots of what I got that afternoon.  My mom and Denny came over for dinner, and El made us steaks on the grill with bakers and corn on the cob!

 THEN!  I was surprised with this fantastic wheel barrow (I had actually mentioned to my mom that I would like one, and she passed the message on to Emma who passed it on to Elliot!).  Can you see the excitement on my face??????

Me and my girls.....  I feel very blessed to be surrounded by such love.