Something to Smile About

Preschool Crush

I have no pictures to accompany this one, so hopefully the story itself is good enough.

When I dropped Aidan off at Mom's Day Out today, one of his little girl friends, Victoria, was being dropped off by her grandfather at the same time. (A little aside about Victoria - she is a supercute little brunette who is always wearing a huge, fancy bow.) I must have called Aidan's name as we were walking up, because Victoria's grandfather said, "Oh, so this is Aidan." Apparently, on the drive to church, he'd asked Victoria about her friends at class, in particular if there were any little boys that she liked. She talked about Aidan the rest of the way there.

Victoria overheard Grandpa telling me all of this, and you should have seen her light up when she realized Aidan was on the other side of the door. As we opened the door to let Aidan in, she immediately comes out and starts bestowing hugs on him like crazy...all while he was hiding behind my legs and trying to get away from her. It was cute, cute, cute.

Grandpa also warned me that I may be in trouble when Aidan gets to be a teenager. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, I suppose.

Neglecting my Feathers and Eggs

Over at the Nesting Place, the Nester is hosting a Mr. Linky party for those of us who purchased Feather and Egg prints from L. Herbert Designs to show off where we have proudly displayed them in our homes. I am sad to say, this is where mine are still living.

Every once in a while, I take them out and gaze at them. (No, I'm not kidding.)

Aren't they pretty? I think so. I was so eager to have them, since I missed the first go-round, that I purchased them without putting any thought into where they should hang. I'm thinking about here.

That's my nearly-naked entryway. Once upon a time, I had a pretty little hook board hung there, but the command hooks weren't strong enough to hold it and it broke when it fell. I've been wanting to put a console table or a bench there, so I'm thinking that I'll just make sure whatever I get coordinates with my feathers and eggs so I can finally hang them!

And maybe I'll quit being a procrastinator one day, too.

Sweet Babies

Look at my sweet babies, playing together on the kitchen floor. Now that Neely's sitting, Aidan is starting to pay a lot more attention to her. Sometimes it's not what I want, like yesterday when she was in her jumparoo and he was twirling her in circles, but most of the time it's sweet. He'll sit with her on her blanket and play with the baby toys with her, showing her what to do with them. It's going to be really fun once she starts crawling!

Madely Clairoline (and Aidan)

Whenever we go to visit Auntie Stephanie and Uncle Pants, we typically don't do anything other than eat, sleep, lay on the couch, and sometimes shop. I don't usually take a lot of pictures, but we had to get some of the kids all together, because they were so cute! (Maybe Stef will post the picture of Aidan pretending to be a cat in the window with Claudia. I wasn't lucky enough to capture that one.) Anyway, for your viewing enjoyment, here are Neely, Madeline, and Aidan.

The girls are already sharing secrets.

We were halfway home when Aidan asked, "Mommy, can we take Madeline home?" Aidan really likes Maddie, because Maddie thinks Aidan is hilarious.

(FYI: Madely Clairoline is Stefandra 2.0, a funny combination of Madeline Claire and Neely Caroline.)

News

Neely has a tooth!

Three Cuties

We made it to Fort Worth yesterday with only one minor incident. The kids were awesome. Hank was pretty good. But 15 minutes from Stephanie's house (according to the GPS, anyway) the pickup truck in front of me ran over something on the highway. I'm not sure what it was. It looked like either a piece of carpet or a big strip of tire from a blowout. Whatever it was, it flew up and swiped the driver's side of my car before I could even brace myself for the impact. When I looked over, my driver's side mirror was gone! When I pulled off the road at the next exit, I was sure the paint was going to be scratched down the entire side of my car. Lucky for me, it wasn't. Just the back of the mirror was scratched, and the mirror part itself and popped out with the impact. But arg! It's so annoying. I have to turn all the way around just to see if there's a car beside me right now. I tried to find somewhere to get it fixed before we drive back home on Sunday, and nobody can get the part in time. So I get to drive back to Shreveport that way. I think I'll just ride in the right lane the whole way so I don't have to merge left.

Anyway, that adorable picture was taken when we thought I'd be dropping my car off at the body shop and piled all three kids in the back of Stef's Pathfinder. They're so sweet.

AND within minutes of putting them in the playpen together yesterday, Maddie leaned over, grabbed Neely's face (gently), and kissed her on the cheek! I think my heart melted. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen a baby do.