swimming

Over the weekend we went to help my brother and his family move into their new house. It was an exciting for them but for my girls the whole weekend was made because we got to go swimming at the hotel (sorry Nick & Amy)!

Jennifer has been asking for weeks to go swimming, even in the midst of it snowing outside she just wanted to go swimming. So needless to say Jennifer was excited. But how quickly I forget that Mikayla may be excited about swimming as well. When I set her down she nearly ran into the pool, good thing Bill was already in! It was very sweet to see her excitement.

Very happy to be in the pool!

Mikayla was loving to jump in.

And of course Jennifer thought the whole thing was pretty great too. She loves jumping in as well.

Jennifer's timing for pictures was, well not there, every time we tried to take her picture she looked away just as we snapped the picture! A cute picture regardless.

Mikayla "counting" to 3 before jumping in.

For a few minutes Jennifer was in her own little world on the steps, playing and singing. She really does love swimming.

I should have taken more pictures of the big moving day but of course while chasing around kids one forgets to take pictures. Here Jennifer is helping Papa get some blinds up in Ben's room.

Mikayla thinking she should help out as well too. Getting some tools out of Papa's bucket.

Nick & Amy, your house is beautiful, we love it! Thanks for moving so the girls could go swimming!!

sleeping sisters

Last night Bill and I were going to be gone for a while and we were going to be gone during bedtime. One of the girls' favorite people came to watch the girls, Nick. Our girls do not, I will repeat that, they do NOT go to bed well for other people. Nick is one person who has tried to put our girls bed before and it did go well, when we arrived home several hours after bedtime Jennifer was still awake. So last night we told Nick to feel free to do whatever he needed to do, not necessarily to get Jennifer to go to sleep but to help himself from not going insane! Bill and I arrived home shortly after 10:30 and much to our surprise the house was quiet, we did not see Jennifer in the living room, we did not hear the sound of little feet coming down the hall, there was no crying. Could it be, could the girls, both of them, be asleep?! Nick said they did great, Mikayla cried for just a minute and Jennifer came out of their room only once! I went to peek on my sleeping girls, as I must admit I do each night before I go to bed, and this is what I found...At some point after Nick put the girls to bed, Jennifer crawled into bed with Mikayla and much to my surprise they fell asleep this way. Earlier in the week the girls had gotten in trouble at bedtime because Jennifer had crawled into bed with Mikayla and they were been kind of crazy, giggling and talking.

I think my kids are pretty sweet and do some pretty sweet things but for me this has topped the list for a while. A few night earlier they get in trouble for the same thing but on this night it was just too sweet for words. These two girls fight like normal siblings, they have moments when they don't want to be close to each other but oh how they love each other as well. Jennifer is one of Mikayla's biggest cheerleaders, Mikayla gets so excited to see Jennifer after she has been at school all day and Jennifer is very protective of Mikayla, don't mess with her sister! That is why this picture is so sweet, it is the love of two sisters. I can only imagine that Jennifer crawled into bed to comfort her sister and possibly to comfort herself a little too. Gotta love these two girls...

beautiful nails

This past week my grandma turned 80. So to celebrate my mom, aunt and I took my grandma on a little outing. My grandma had never had a manicure or pedicure so we decided that it was time for her to have them both. Of course if we were taking her, we were all getting them as well! Today when I got home Jennifer noticed my painted fingernails and she thought they were beautiful. I then showed her my toenails and she thought they were great too. She then asked if I would do her nails. It really was very sweet, she has never, ever wanted me to paint her nails before. I have tried and she has refused, today in all her sweetness she wanted to look like me! So we found some polish and painted her nails. She sat still while I did her toes and hands and she loved it!

We started off with the toes, she is trying to show dad the foot that is already done.

She was excited the whole time, talking none stop. It was really sweet.

Of course Mikayla can't be left out of much these days. She noticed right away that Jennifer was about to do something fun so she was not about to miss out on this action. So she got her nails done too. She was excited too but I think her excitement was more because she was getting to do what her sister was doing.

Bill was trying hard to get a "smile" out of Jennifer of course that was not about to happen.

After the toes were done it was onto the fingers.

Not sure if Mikayla was trying to help out or just trying to give me a hug at this point.

Aren't they beautiful?!

Finally, a good smile! She was so happy with her painted nails.

Once again Mikayla needed in on the action.

Trying to show her fingernails to dad, she just didn't get her hands turned the right way! She too was very excited to have painted nails!