six on saturday

(one)  Monday was Jilly's last day of gymnastics.  It was so fun and so good for Jilly, we will miss her coach Miss Rachel very much!

(two)  The girls have been way into books lately.  Jilly has a few books that she has memorized and will "read" to us, and Mattie will open up a book and start jabbering to herself.  Makes me so, so happy.

(three) Did you know that you can listen to audiobooks on youtube?  This week I had some housework to do and didn't have a book to listen to so I found The Giver on youtube which made my chores a million times more fun.

(four) A couple weeks ago we celebrated Mattie's birthday one more time at Farrell's.  Mattie was feeling a little better and was all about getting her own ice cream sundae.  

(five) Thanks to a combination of the heat, lots of time playing outside and swimming, and 5:30 wakeup nearly every day since it is so stinkin' light already the girls have been extreme nappers lately.  Mattie will take two 2+ hour naps a day and Jilly has even been napping almost every day.  There are few things more lovely than a quiet peaceful summer afternoon.

(six) Today we took the girls to the Disney Store and they thought they had died and gone to heaven.  Mattie hugged every single stuffed animal in the store (and there are a lot), Jilly drooled over all the sparkly princess dresses, and then they noticed "Let it Go" playing on the big screen.  Jilly belted it out for the whole store.  I didn't get my phone out til the last seconds, but you get to see the best part here:

Seeing Double

L- Jilly, September 2011  R- Mattie, May 2014

Mattie turns One

We've had a lot going on lately so I've been stressed and less than patient with the girls.  I planned for Mattie's birthday to be a low-key family day.  When Mattie woke up with a cold our plan sounded even better.  It turned out to be a perfect, relaxing day.

Birthday pancakes

 What are sisters for if not to help blow out candles?

I really kind of let Mattie do whatever she wanted that day.  Take all the ziploc bags out of the box and spread them throughout the house?  Sure.  (I paid for this later, but that smile was worth it)

After her nap we went to Toy Time at the library.  Mattie loves this car so much and luckily there was hardly anyone else there so she got to play with it the whole time.

We picked up McDonalds to have a picnic with Bryan at the temple (Jilly's location choice)

It was a terribly hot day, but we walked around for a bit til we started to melt.

While Mattie slept Jilly and I made a little cake for her in a mug and also some cupcakes.  We had our friends the Clements over for hot dogs and cupcakes by the pool.  Mattie wasn't her usual perky self, but she still enjoyed her cake once I cut it up for her (she wasn't into the digging in.)

It was a fun day celebrating our sweet girl.

To The Sea

Our family was made for the beach

On Saturday we spent the day in Santa Cruz

The girls were in heaven-

building sand castles, digging, and rolling (yes literally rolling) in the sand

Jillian wore her first swimsuit without any kind of skirt or ruffle

And her hair in a ponytail/bun

And suddenly she was all grown up

Mattie was messier and happier than I'd ever seen her

Bryan stayed in the water for three hours straight

And I snuck in a nap and some quality book time

After playing and relaxing and snacking all day 

We stopped at Pizza My Heart on the way home-

a perfect ending to our perfect beach day

q

three and a half

Jilly turned 3 1/2 last week.  Sometimes she seems so grown up, but then other times she's still a crazy little girl.  She loves to dance and do tricks for us.  And, she loves to sing- she'll belt lyrics to princess songs and primary songs any chance she gets, especially when we're out shopping.  Her favorites are "I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands," "I am a Child of God," and "I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream."

Another favorite activity is to discuss her Halloween costume.  She always starts with the princesses then gets silly, "Maybe I will be a table... or a tomato!"  One night right before saying prayers she said, "Maybe I will be Jesus!"  She has 5 long months to decide and I'm 99.9% sure she'll end up being Elsa just like every other little girl in the universe.

Jilly begs alllllll day long to watch movies.  We both pretty much have Frozen memorized, and she loves all princess and Barbie movies.  She spends the whole week talking about what movie we'll find at the library on our weekly visit.  (It hurts my heart a bit that she's more excited about the movies than the books, but what can you do.)

Jilly loves chicken nuggets, pb&j sandwiches (cut into a heart shape), "granolar bars," strawberries, broccoli, chocolate milk, and rice.

She has started asserting her independence.  She loves to go through a different door or take a different path when we're walking somewhere.

She's already turning into me.  All the time I'll catch her saying the exact same thing I would say, and even in the same tone.  When Clark was upset about going home one day she said "I am so sorry you're sad Clark but we will just have to play another day" in her very best mom voice.  She's quite the bossy big sister (she learned from the best!)

Jilly is turning into such a great little friend for me.  I love that we can have real conversations and do fun things together.  She can drive me batty, but she is also sweet and funny and helpful and cheerful.  

Happy Birthday Mattie Claire!

And, just like that, she's one.  

Twelve things about our twelve month old:

1. In one month she went from tentative steps to speed walking.  She has great balance and walks everywhere.

2. Unfortunately this means she tried to walk down the stairs and tumbled so is celebrating her birthday with a scraped nose and bruised forehead.

3. She has finally chosen a special blankie, and it is nearly identical to Jilly's (we have dozens of beautiful hand-made blankets and they both chose fuzzy store-bought ones.)

4. She loves peaches, applesauce (but only in a pouch), smoothies, yogurt, cheese, goldfish, and all desserts.

5. This week her first molar showed up and it's been awesome... not.

6.  She sleeps through the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (except for when Mr. Molar causes trouble)

7. She is super chatty.  We have incomprehensible conversations all day long.

8.  I love her dark hair.  People tell me all the time that she looks like me which is funny because my hair was light like Jilly's when I was little.

9. She loves to dance and will often dance on command whether there is music playing or not.

10. She's a mama's girl through and through and even though it's occasionally inconvenient I secretly love it.

11. She looooves dogs.  She'll say "dada," wave, and run over whenever she sees a smelly furball (I don't share her sentiment.)

12. That smile?  Takes up her whole face and it's the best thing in the world.

Happy Birthday sweet girl, we love you!

Thanks to Lisa for taking these pictures when we visited last week!

Stroll down Memory Lane-

Mother's Day

I always always knew I wanted to be a mom.  Playdates, library visits, snuggles, books, cute kids, no need to get dressed, sign me up!  I had no clue how physically/mentally/emotionally exhausting this gig would be.  But, I also never realized how deeply I would love these darling little troublemakers of mine.  There are times (many times) when I feel like I may just explode from happiness because they're mine!  Forever!  I truly couldn't be any luckier.

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom and mother-in-law, and to all the women who have helped to "mother" me (there are a lot of you- both young and old!)