Today we dyed Easter eggs with our neighbors - we have a really great community. The girls and I took some photos of the eggs during our lunch hour. Gotta document a little bit of this with the big camera. At one point, Holly stuck her egg under her dress and pretended to sit on it. And then she encouraged Greta to do the same, but Greta took her quite literally and got herself into a deep sumo squat to sit on her egg. We were all laughing!

This reminded me of a funny little story from my Mother's childhood. My mom's sisters are quite a bit older than she is. When she was little they put an egg in between the cushions on the couch and then they convinced my Mom that she had laid an egg! I love this story - what memories!

At lunch my daughters ate their hard boiled eggs like it was their job. I guess the trick is to let them dye their own!

I'm sure I'll have more Easter photos to share at the end of the weekend. Or hopefully. We don't do the Easter bunny in our home. Instead the girls will go on a little scavenger hunt and find a treat from Momma and Papa at the end of it (why should we give mystical creatures all the credit!?). I've tried to keep Easter small, but you know... it's hard. I love to give to my children.

Hoppy Easter!

My computer was upgraded, and that makes it so much easier to take photos and edit them. Honestly, the laptop I was working with was getting old... it was swelling the screen edge had snapped... it began to be downright miserable to use. But, now I'm upgraded (to an existing laptop) and it feels so good. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that my blog will most likely no longer have the long stints of no new posts.

I'm clearly obsessed with Heather Ross's Briar Rose line of fabric. I've used it all. All the quilting cottons for quilts for my daughters as well as a quilt for a friend. I'm hoarding what I have leftover. It's borderline embarrassing. I've now used all 4 of her knit fabrics too. These hopscotch dresses are big hits. The girls love to wear them. Conveniently, they come together really easily and wear well. You can bet I'll be making more... at least one of these and maybe a couple t-shirts are on my list of things to make for Holly's kindergarten wardrobe. Making lemonade out of lemons. If my baby girl has to go to school, then I'm gonna make her cute clothes to wear there.

Oh and by the way, Holly's working on her modeling poses and she has be cracking up!

Each of our daughters have duplicates of their lovies. Each has eventually picked a favorite and rejected the other. Holly called her favorite duck "nice" and the one she rejected was the "angry duck." Greta followed suit also labeling her bunnies, but lately, she's showing her previously rejected bunny some love. Maybe because he's softer than the very loved bunny? I'm not sure. Either way, I love seeing her with her arms full of bunnies. Really adorable.

This set of photos helps to show the range of facial expressions Greta's demonstrating these days. Kiddo is a crack up!

For a long while, our photos older than 2010 were unaccessible. I've seen so little baby photos of Holly in the last few years. It's a weird sort of painful to look at baby photos of her... my heart swells because she was just so "Holly" from the very beginning and we loved her so much. Add to it the fact that she's coming up quickly on 5 years old and I'm one nostalgic Momma. My oh my, I love my Holly Bear. What a complete darling she was and is.

When Holly initially asked me to have a short haircut like Greta's, I took a deep breath and said, "let's talk about it." Cutting off her long, blond locks felt like a really big deal. She's Holly with long, blond hair, whereas Greta's the one that wears her hair in a bob.

I'm a firm believer of trimming off those whispy, scraggly baby locks no matter how much it makes your heart hurt because the child looks so much crisper on the other side and it makes one wonder why the trim didn't happen sooner. And so I've done that with my girls, and then Holly's hair got to the point where it was ready to grow out and so that's what I did. Let me tell you, it was beautiful. So soft when it was brushed. The perfect shade of beachy blonde. But.... it tangled like none other (she has my hair - fine and thick - so I know exactly what it feels like). We were always braiding it or doing something because otherwise, there would be big tears (Holly) and frustration (Me). I also believe in (or am trying to) letting kids choose their hair cuts. Kids have so little control over anything. Their hair feels like an ok place to hand them the reins (within reason obviously). Holly was sold completely on having her hair chopped off "to here" she'd say, holding her hand up at her chin. So we did it. And she hasn't looked back. She loves her new hair cut. She's still as beautiful as ever. I've tried not to utter any words of regret around Holly just because she's so thrilled and I don't want to teach her to regret a haircut... there's enough time in her life for that. So I'm letting her and encouraging her to enjoy it. With each passing day, I love her little bob even more.