Easter

Here's a peek at our Easter celebration...

Some pictures of the girls in their nice dresses before they got all messed up.

Aren't these cheeks just so irresistible?

And those big blue eyes! Combine that with the fact that she's still kind of a baby and hasn't yet entered the "terrible twos" and oh my... this girl just steals my heart a million times a day.

Attempting to wrangle the cousins before setting them loose for our first ever (and definitely not the last) Easter egg hunt.

Jeremy helped Lola and she actually really got into it.

Clara was so totally excited about the hunt! I've got some cute videos of both of them that I'll put on my Facebook page.

Listening to Oompa read the Easter story.

And opening some special Easter gifts from Nana and Oompa.

March recap

Here's a recap for myself of what March looked like in relation to my New Year's Resolutions...

1. Daily Bible reading - I finally felt like I was getting into the groove of waking up before the girls and spending some time in the Word and then we started putting Lola in Clara's room overnight and that totally messed up our early morning routine, and thus my Bible reading habit. It used to be that if Clara woke up before 7:00 I would change her diaper and get her a few books and make her stay in bed. But since we put Clara and Lola together they wake each other up and then Lola will often just cry in bed because she doesn't understand the concept of looking at books until I come to get her. So this is an area that needs some work again.

2. Work on my 2011 reading list - I didn't read a ton in March, partly because I was trying to venture away from parenting books, but really all I want to read right now is parenting books. Eventually I decided just to go with it and I picked up Simplicity Parenting. I'm almost done with it and will plan to write a brief book review of it here soon. Then I think I'll be moving on to Last Child in the Woods.

3. Get into a habit of having family devotions - Yay! We finally improved in this area in March! Several of the evenings that Jeremy was home we would clean up after dinner and then we'd put blankets on the living room floor and sit down together to read a Bible story and then sing a song or two. Clara really likes it. Lola wanders around the room sometimes, but at least she's hearing what's going on.

4. No TV or internet for us between dinnertime and the girls bedtime - We're decent with this, but not 100% committed.

5. Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits - I have to say I don't think about this one very much. I know there are improvements we could make in our diet, but I'm choosing to spend my limited time on other things right now. Though in March I did place an order for some organic, free-range chickens to purchase this summer from a friend of my cousin. My biggest motivation in doing that is to make homemade chicken broth.

6. Potty train Clara - well we're SLOWLY but surely working on this. We have a sticker chart on the wall and she gets a special treat when she goes potty. Honestly I'm not diligent about it at all. She mostly will go #1 on the toilet after she takes a bath. She has yet to go #2 on the toilet because she has a complete fit if we try to get her to. Maybe someday soon I'll work harder at this and try to get the job done once and for all.

7. Work toward a routine for me and the girls - I did write up a daily routine awhile back, but we didn't do so well at following it in March. And now that the weather is getting nicer it will probably change to include lots of outside time. Plus we recently joined Life Time Fitness so I'll need to work that into our routine as well.

8. Have two Norwex parties per month - well we've actually decided to up this to four parties per month so we can hopefully make extra payments on our school debt. In March I just did two parties, but in April I have four on the calendar!

9. Take the girls outside on every nice day - This was a non-issue in March because there weren't many nice days. I think we got outside maybe 3 times. This month will be a different story though. We've already been out a few times, including this morning.

10. Do more crafts - My mind might be failing me, but I don't think I crafted much in March. Yesterday I did some sewing though!

Starting my own business

In my post the other day about our office renovation I mentioned that I'm starting my own business. A few of you have asked about that so I thought I'd just link you back here for more info.

The office reveal!

Well I've been wanting to redo our office for months! It was ugly and a mess and just really not functional for us. My wise husband said we had to wait until we got our tax refund back so I waited (not always patiently) and waited and I'm glad I did.

Two weekends ago we painted and picked out furniture. And just this past weekend we put things on the wall and took care of the finishing touches, so to speak. For the week in between we disagreed on how to decorate and what colors to use for accents, but finally we were able to come to an agreement that we're both very happy with. If you know us well you might be surprised to see how modern it is. I'll confess I'm surprised too because that's not what I usually gravitate toward, but I took a chance on Jeremy's ideas and it paid off.

So here he is painting the ceiling...

There used to be shelves above my desk, but we took them down before I thought to take pictures.

Ta da! A pretty, freshly painted, organized and highly functional office! I like to call it "the IKEA special" because pretty much everything is from Ikea - desks, printer cart, chairs, wall file, shelves, cubby bookcase and the fabric that we put on canvases and hung on the wall.

We got a cubby bookcase that has tons of storage space so we're still figuring out how best to use it, but we're well on our way. And we painted the walls a very pale gray that I think turned out really nice. It's subtle and neutral and great!

Especially since I'm starting up my own business it feels really good to have a nice, organized space that I can walk into and feel motivated and ready to work. Thank you, tax return money!

Happy 1st Birthday, Lola!

My dear sweet, darling girl.... you are ONE today!

At 6:00 AM on March 9, 2010 I was largely pregnant with you.

And at 12:49 PM we got to meet you and see your beautiful face!

You wasted no time in stealing our hearts. Since the day you were born you have been nothing but sweetness and joy. Okay, maybe not EVERY moment, but pretty close. Almost without exception everyone who spends time with you tells us how sweet-natured, happy and smiley you are.

You are getting to be a big girl now. Not so much a baby anymore, which makes mommy a little sad at times. I will miss the cute little baby things you do.

Like the time you were playing in the living room and you literally just put your head down on the floor and passed out asleep.

And the way you scooted everywhere on your bottom rather than learning to crawl.

And your yummy, chubby cheeks! I could kiss them all day long!

You aren't taking any steps on your own yet, but for the past few weeks you've been pulling yourself up to standing by the furniture. You've gotten very good at it, but it seems like you sometimes don't know what to do once you get up there.

You don't have many words yet. You say "ba" for "bye" and if we ask for a kiss you put your hand up to your mouth as if to blow a kiss. You make other sounds like "da" and "ga" and "ma" but they still seem to be just jabber rather than real words.

We are beginning to wonder if you might be really easy to discipline like your mommy was. If you're going after something and we tell you "no" you usually stop right away and just start crying.

You really like when we put sunglasses on you. You'll sit there just looking at us with a silly little smirk on your face, as if you know you're super cute.

You have six teeth now and no more patience for pureed foods of any kind. I can occasionally get a little spooned foods into you, like oatmeal or cottage cheese, but for the most part you definitely prefer anything that you can feed to yourself with your fingers. You eat lots of banana, Cheerios, graham crackers, apples, peaches, pears, dried prunes, avocado, lunch meat, turkey hot dogs, cooked carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese, pancakes, toast. I'm not sure if there's anything that you don't like right now. This morning mommy had a piece of coffee cake and you were very quick to scoot over, open your mouth and say "ahhhh" and beg me for bites. You loved it!

We are SO happy to be your parents, and your big sister loves you SO much (even if she does steal toys from you all day long)! Happy birthday, Lola!