these sisters

While Caroline's crib escape has been a large dose of reality in how big she is really getting,
there is one thing that I love seeing as these girls grow...
their love for one another.

They genuinely love each other,
they love playing together,
celebrating together,
and spending time together.

Of course not every moment looks like this.
but when I see one reach for the others hand,
hear them playing and singing together upstairs,
or catch them reading together...
my heart swells to borderline bursting.

It's so sweet.

Back to School

Today was the girls first day of school.
Both my girls.
Caroline is also attending Mother's Day Out this year, twice a week,
while Lauren will go three times a week.

Both our girls were SO excited.





We dropped Lauren off first this morning.
She walked into her classroom, before we could even hug her.
That girls has been ready for school to start for months.
And that confident smile she gave us, as we waved and said goodbye
was all the reassurance we needed that she was going to have a great day.
And she did.


We took Caroline to her classroom next.
We were told to expect tears, but as we walked to the classroom we noticed everyone was calm.
Caroline walked right in and never turned back.
Matt and I couldn't have been prouder.
We received a few texts of our littlest school girl enjoying her day
and smiling on the playground.
When I picked her up she was napping,
with her beloved bunny and a dolly from the classroom.

Mama spent her first school day meeting a girlfriend for coffee,
stopping at homegoods to search for a fall wreath,
and doing some laundry.

It's going to be a great school year.

Meet the Teacher

Today was Meet the Teacher.

All went well.

Caroline played bashful for all of four and a half seconds...

then she saw the dolls and made a mad dash for them in the classroom.

Lauren has been waiting to walk back through those doors from the minute she left them in May.

Speaking of our strong confident girl,

when did she become a little girl!?!

And starting this week, she dropped the 'Laurno'... she's Lauren.

cue the tears.

and this girl.

there are no words.

Fall in Texas

It takes a while for fall to really kick in here,
but the calendar gets me every time.

That...
and the dollar bin at Target.
We've got pumpkin notebooks and stickers folks.

we're still here

We've been a little quiet lately.
In our post-Harvey haze,
it felt a little strange to be posting 'cute' pictures
and telling funny stories about our daily happenings.

But we're starting to return to some sense of normalcy
and the focus seems to be shifting to the 'rebuilding'
part of Hurricane Harvey's aftermath.

While our daily lives may have felt a little off the past week or so,
the two girls in our house haven't slowed down one bit.

eclipse

The eclipse glasses supply has been sold out locally for a while now,
so this morning we made our own eclipse viewer.

With a cheerios box.


this photo has nothing to do with the eclipse.
but it was taken today during afternoon snack of two girls who recently discovered a love for mom's granola bars.

drumroll please...

i know I've shared how big dress up and tea parties are at our house right now,

but this week, we stepped up our game...

We wear gloves now.

love

I love how much they love their babies.



The rock them,
read to them,
feed them,
dress them,
and fight over them

They bring them to bed,
to the grocery store,
the library,
and on walks to the mailbox.

The pat them and talk to them in sweet little voices
and ask me to 'swaddle' them.

I can't get enough of it.
I love these little girls and their dollies.

Can this phase last forever?

days like these...

Well, this is the first day since I've started this picture a day game
that I didn't bring out the big camera.
Because that's real life,
and there will be days like these.

I still got a photo,
but it was with my phone.



We did the dentist this morning.
Successfully.

Mondays are hard...

... have a tea party.

gonna bake a pie with a heart in the middle

Dad is in Galveston this weekend on a fishing work trip.
While he's busy catching sharks and stuff...

{literally, he sent us a picture bright and early this morning}



It's just us girls.
Since there's a heat advisory and AC is in our best interest,
we decided to stay in and bake a pie.



We also had a dance party,
organized the playroom,
watched Frozen,
and let Lauren wear her shirt backwards all day long.
Because...
girls just wanna have fun.

one summer afternoon

today was a busy day.
We went to the pool & splash pad.
Came home for lunch &
left for a painting playdate at our local Little Gym
with some open gym time immediately following.

Both girls fell asleep on the way home.
Because they were exhausted.

But they didn't stay asleep.
Neither one completed the transition from car to bed.

So, I did what any smart mother would do
on a hot day at the end of summer....

I put on Daniel Tiger's Family Trip.



Here's to an early bed time.

cheers.

dance. dance. dance.

There is a lot of dancing happening in the house.

It's mostly free style moves
to all different types of music,
but I can't get enough of it.

I know that when these little girls aren't so little anymore,
this will be one of the things I miss the most.

The twirls, the giggles, the dresses...

and that at any moment a dance party can end dressed like a bird.

weekend project

this weekend matt and I finished up a little backyard project.
My parents had a little hammock that they weren't using,
so we hauled it to Texas,
cleaned it up and bit, put some new stain on and sewed a new cover.

Today the girls and I broke it in and read some books together


But Caroline had the best idea...

I'm already carving out a spot in the calendar next weekend to do exactly this.

home again

which means popsicles on the front steps.

And with a  3:30 am wake up call, we may be having multiple popsicles.
Because anything goes today...

splash pad

A summer vacay isn't really complete until you've visited the splash pad.

According to our girls, anyway...

painting

this mornings painting project

lead to a bath before lunch.

zoo day

I felt brave today
& took these two monkeys to the zoo.

We saw the giraffes and the longhorns.
We wore our swimsuits and played in the splash pad.
We ate a lot of snacks.
We rode the carousel.
We brushed goats in the petting zoo.
And I got to see a lot of smiles out of these two sweet sisters...

I also learned that mid-week dead of summer is a pretty good time to go to the zoo.

sprinkler

summer tradition

I think it's official.
We like popsicles in the summer on the front steps.


Also, we divided and conquered while getting the girls ready this morning.
Can you guess who dressed who?