Eve's Birthday Party

Eve and Josh decided weeks ago that the perfect party for a four-year-old was a zoo party. We planned the day, shopped for presents for the guests, and made zoo cupcakes. The morning of the 10th dawned sunny and warm and that afternoon we all headed for the zoo. Eve had received a beautiful dress for her birthday and Sophia had a matching one, they looked adorable and Eve loved matching with her sister.
When everyone had arrived, we gathered to eat cupcakes and exchange gifts. The cupcakes were sadly melted beyond recognition, but everyone was a good sport and ate them anyway. Eve loved each and every present and when we had all finished we set off to see the animals.
The kids ran from animal to animal and didn't get fussy or tired even though it hit 100 degrees and they had all walked a very long way.
When we got home that night we were all tired and thirsty, but Josh made a yummy dinner, the girls had baths, and we all felt much better. So ended "the best birthday ever" according to Eve.

Animal cupcakes.

Cute baby kangaroo!

Cheetah! My favorite cat.

Eve discovered this bunny and sneaked up on it. :)

Eve in her new cooking gear.

Full, clean and happy.

Tape Faces

Eve has discovered the hilarity of using tape to make silly faces. I taped her nose to her forehead (That sounds a lot stranger than it really was.), and told her to go look in the mirror. She walked away to the bathroom and there was a pause while she turned on the light and climbed onto her stool, then she burst out laughing. She wanted to tape my nose too and we laughed and laughed. She kept saying "You're the mommy pig and I am the baby pig!". Who needs the latest and greatest toys when you have a roll of scotch tape? Sorry if the pictures are a little blurry, I had trouble holding the camera still while I was laughing so hard.

Crawl Baby Crawl

Sophia is crawling! She started last week, going very slowly doing a perfect baby crawl. Now she is much faster and we are all rushing to baby-proof the house. She looks so adorable I had to capture it on film.

Bread from Scratch

Eve and I made bread from scratch last week and it was very yummy! This was our first attempt to use yeast. It was my turn to do the story and craft for the kids and we were going to do the story of the widows oil. I wanted the kids to make bread as their craft so I looked up a recipe online for bread. The only yeast we had was three years past it's date, but we tried it anyway and it paid off. Here is the recipe, we hope you like it!

Yummy in Your Tummy Bread

5-6 cups flour
3 T sugar
2 t salt
2 pkg yeast
2 cups water
1/4 cups veggie oil

Combine 2 cups flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Blend well. On stove heat water and oil until luke warm. Add warm water and oil to flour mixture. Blend till moist, then beat with electric mixer for 3 minutes. Stir in remaining flour until the dough pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl.
Knead the dough for 10 minutes adding a little flour when the dough feels sticky. Grease the lump of dough and put it in a bowl to rise covered with a cloth. (For me I had to put it in the warm oven at about 100 degrees for it to rise well; may have been the 3 year-old yeast.) Let the dough rise to double the size, punch the dough down and divide into 2 loaves and let rise again under the warm bowl. Reshape the dough and divide between 2 greased loaf pans. Place pans in a warm place to rise until the dough is 1 inch above the pan. Bake 30 minutes. Brush with butter (optional).
Remove the bread immediately and cool on a wire rack. Serve when it's cool enough to eat. Enjoy!

My Dancing Princess

Today I am sitting at the computer doing my morning catch-up-with-the-world thing, listening to the new Jack Johnson CD and Eve is dancing. She put on the beautiful, peach ballerina skirt that Aunt Lizzy gave her and she's just twirling and smiling. I love to watch her dance. She gets so into it. She tilts her head just so and has a sweet, romantic look on her face. I can tell she just feels so beautiful and grown up. Every girl wants to feel that way... sometimes I'm surprised by how grown up she seems when she dances.

Funny Daddy

While looking through pictures recently, I've noticed a reoccurring theme. Josh likes to do out-of-the-ordinary things to make Eve laugh; this is generally accomplished by sticking something somewhere on his face. Sometimes we exercise his talents by seeing how many pieces of popcorn we can fit in his mouth, or trying to fit 20 whole Cheetos in his mouth. (We succeeded with this by the way.) While I was unfortunately unable to capture the previous two endeavors on film, here are a few exampled of the many talents of Josh Lanier. Enjoy!

Our Little Ones

Josh and I were watching Sophia play on the floor last night and we started thinking about how unplanned and unexpected she was. We had both been fine with living out the rest of our lives with our one sweet Eve; then along came Sophie. It was so hard to adjust our expectations and lives to welcome her, but we did it and here she is.
When Eve came along, I felt so unprepared and young and I rushed her babyhood. I was always impatient for the next stage and now that I know how fast it goes by, I am determined not to make the same mistake with Sophia.
Sophia is such a joy to me. She is so sweet and cheerful. When I go in her room to get her up from naps she is usually awake and laying there quietly waiting for me. Now that she's eating enough she's getting chubbier and I can't get over how cute she is. She adores Eve, who can always get a smile out of her and make her giggle. I love the pictures I get of the two of them together. They are so silly together.
Before Josh and I were married, we would talk about how we wanted two girls who could grow up to be friends. We wanted them close enough in age to share life experiences and far enough to have different friends. How lucky we are to have received all of that!
I should be used to how sweet and wonderful Eve is by now, but every time she does something extra sweet I am taken aback. She continues to be generous and kind and loving. She will be wandering around the house in all her beautiful things, singing to herself and following some elaborate story line in her head, when she will drift up to me and say " Mommy, do you know what? I love you so much." She is always gentle and patient with her sister and eager to show all of us how much she loves us.
If I had tried to design the perfect children, I know I would have fallen short of the perfection I have received in my two girls. They are not only what I've always wanted, but they are exactly what I've always needed.