Our Lives Currently

The weather has been incredible, so we have been enjoying it while we can.

 This picture of Laynie cracks me up.  James thinks she looks like Chris Farley. 

Marlee loves for me to paint her nails.  She usually says "Dada's gonna love it!"

Marlee is still our little bookworm.  She likes us to read to her and she also likes to read to us.  She has memorized a lot of her books.

Laynie runs from us a lot.  She loves to grab Frank's food and run from us and eat it?  I thought she would realize it was gross, but it is her favorite snack.  She also loves to run with the remotes or anything she thinks she isn't supposed to have.

I bought this Elsa dress a couple months ago and it has been worth every penny.  Marlee immediately strips when she walks in the door and puts this on.  Then she likes to take it off when she eats (so it won't get dirty) or when she rides her tricycle (it gets in the way), so she spends a lot of time in her panties at home too.  I'm cool with it.  Frozen is not old at our house yet.

James and I sent the girls home for a night and went to see the Avett Brothers at the new amphitheatre in Rogers.  It was an amazing concert and a good time with my hubby!

Some more facts as of recently:

• Marlee loves to talk.  She always talks to me the entire ride home from school.  And we cover about 20 subjects.  She also likes to say "sure am", "sure do", "sure is".  I think its funny and I have noticed that I answer her like that a lot.
• We are working on getting Marlee to sleep by herself.  It is not going well.  She is all about it until it actually comes time.  She had big tears in her eyes the first night and said "This is a disaster!".  I would love for her to sleep by herself, but I also know it is going to be really hard because she still wakes up multiple times a night.  We will see.
• Marlee and Laynie are becoming really good friends.  Laynie just adores Marlee and Marlee adores her for the most part.  Laynie annoys Marlee a lot and Laynie also runs with Marlee's things just because she knows they are Marlee's things.  But, they also play together a lot...and it melts my heart
• Laynie still isn't talking.  We thought she was saying "Dada" and "Hi", but I don't think so.  I think she is just babbling and got lucky a few times.  She has been babbling a lot more in the past week and it is sounding more like talking, so maybe soon.
• Laynie has had a never-ending ear infection for the last month.  She went through all three antibiotics they use for ear infections and she is currently doing a 3-day sequence of shots that they do when all antibiotics fail.  I'm thinking tubes are probably in her future.  It is just strange because before this, she had never had an ear infection before.

Just one more picture because I think she looks precious in her ruffle bottom pants.

I love these babies to the moon and back!!

Bernie

We traveled to Bernie to celebrate my great Aunt Helen's 100th Birthday.  Then, Marlee got sick and we didn't get to go to the party.  We spent most of our time at my Grandma's house.  My Grandma stays at the nursing home a lot with my Grandpa, so we just made ourselves at home.  The girls did really good in the car on the way there.  Laynie had a 1-2 hour spell on the way home, but other than that, they did good.

 Marlee and I went to the Bootheel Youth Museum in Malden one day to get out of the house.  

 She had a lot of fun at first, but then started crying and saying that her head hurt.  She started running a fever when we got back to Grandma's house, so we skipped the party.  She was fine the next day, so maybe the noise at the museum got to her.  Or maybe it was too overwhelming.  She was so sad and pitiful that night.  It broke my heart. 

Here, There, and Everywhere

How is it possible that I have two climbers?  And two kiddos that are constantly in motion?  Is that normal??  Like having them so close together wasn't tough enough...God thought He would just go ahead an make me chase them 24/7...and yes, it is 24 hours a day because I am up every night with at least one of them.  Which leads me to another topic...will Marlee ever sleep by herself??  Someday, I'm sure.  But she always tells me "Not today".  They are exhausting, that is for sure.  But, I would rather have exhausting kiddos than boring kiddos any day.

Now that Laynie has mastered walking, she climbs on EVERYTHING.  I am always finding her in new places.

 Here she is grunting to get up on the stool, which ends with her up on the toilet.  She will stand on the toilet for awhile and then start to panic because she doesn't know how to get back down.  Oh, and Marlee is going through the band-aid stage.  They are her new accessory.

And this girl never stops moving either.  I finally resorted to a video the other day after 10+ failed attempts at a photo.

Our First Apple Festival

Some friends of us told us about an annual apple festival in Lincoln, AR.  We had never been to Lincoln, AR and we had never been to an apple festival, so we thought, "why not?"  They had a bunch of arts and crafts, a play area for kids, a ton of food, and free apple slices.  We had a really good time and the girls really liked the apple slices.

Marlee with her apples

Laynie and I spent a lot of time walking up and down the street while Marlee played in the play area

 I think we will go back next year!