Mom, take a picture of us!

I'm not sure why holding hands with the store dummies at Old Navy was photo worthy, but Ella assures me it was.

This was on our quest for flip flops for Charlotte. Ella's still fit from last year. But flip flops this year have been a bust. Ella has these nice foam-y soft comfy flip flops, and in all my flop searching I could only find the hard plastic-y kind. Charlotte doesn't like them very much. Although, she pretty much hates all shoes, so it's really not a great indicator.

Friends

Ella likes to make lists. Sometimes she makes them on her own with random letters and squiggles down the line. But often she sits patiently and has me spell things out letter by letter until her list is complete. Shopping lists. To do lists. Lists of her friends.

Last week she wanted to make a list of my friends.
"Sure," I replied.
"Okay," she said, thinking for a minute. "How do you spell Jesus?"

Yep. Jesus was the first friend on my list.

I'm glad she knows we are tight.

Bright idea.

Today the kitties, I mean, girls, decided to put their bowls of peas on the floor and eat them in the true spirit of felinity.

Bonus: no forks required = less dishes.

Ella's kitty.

At least three times a day, Charlotte reverts into 'cat mode'. It can happen at any time. I'll be walking along in the grocery store, and I suddenly look back and see her on all fours meowing at me. Luckily, it tends to happen at home.

More often than not, Ella takes this as her cue to find a 'leash' and take her cat for a walk, parading her around the house and giving her many instructions. This has also caused multiple situations where I've had to explain that the downside of cats is that hey rarely do what we ask them to.

Last night, Charlotte decided to be a cat when Ella was in the other room with Paul. Always the supportive mother, I pet her back and gave her little head a scratch. And said, "Are you my little kitty?" To which she promptly responded, "No, I'm Ella's kitty."

I guess cats are also pretty loyal.

Spring in Dallas.

It's here! Although, the temperature is about the same as it has been all winter. But all of a sudden there are millions of gorgeous wild flowers.

Love it.

She basically rocks at hide and seek.

We've entered this really fun stage in parenthood when our children are finally old enough to play games that are actually fun for us, too.

Hide and Seek is a perennial favorite. As is Red Light, Green Light.

Tag is also up there, but since Charlotte doesn't like tag as much, I mostly end up chasing Ella (or being chased) while carrying Char. The upside of this is that it really evens out the game. Six months pregnant lugging a two year old vs. a spry three year old. You can only imagine.

She is getting better.

My phone was completely wiped out on Saturday. And for some reason Ella has had it kind of a lot since then. Because now there are 177 photos on my phone from Sunday and Monday alone. But I have to say, her photography skills are really improving. She got some good ones of Charlotte and at least twenty of a turtle sunning itself by the pond today. And, I would say less than five percent of her photos are blurry.

She does take after her father, in that at least fifty percent of the pictures are self portraits. Can you ever really take too many pictures of yourself, though?

So we moved.

Remember that day that we decided to look for a new place to live? And then exactly six days later we moved into a new house. And now our old ward thinks we're crazy people. Or maybe that we were evicted or something. :)

But really, we just wanted to get it done while Paul had some time off work and we didn't really plan ahead. (Sort of. Long story.)

So now we have a crazy messy house, and I regularly wander around aimlessly and wonder if it will ever get put away.

Probably not.

But I can always find the most important things. You know, my children. And my cell phone.

Just kidding. I can't always find my cell phone.

Any guesses on who these girls are?

We spent the better part of an afternoon at my grandma's going through old pictures.

So fun.

Biggest disappointments of the afternoon?

1- I found not even one picture that might land us a spot on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

2- I used to think I was so darling as a child. But now, I am so accustomed to looking at Ella, and she looks so much like me, that all the pictures of me just look a little "off".

Oh well, I'll just have to revel in her cuteness. Both my sister and my step-dad thought this picture was of Ella and Charlotte. Except they couldn't figure out why Charlotte didn't really look like herself. :)

***Update. I just showed this picture to Paul. He looked at it and said, "Whos's the little girl on the left?". I told him, "Laurel," and he said, "Whoa. It's official. Ella is going to look just like you."***

Conversing today.

Ella: Mom, when am I going to be four?

Me: In June.

Ella: My last birthday was in June, too!