How many grandmas...

...does it take to wash a baby?  Oliver takes two - one to hold open the chubby folds and one to clean them.  My grandmparents came for a delightful visit while my mother was here helping us. 

I love it how he's watching them out of the corner of his eye.

Now all clean and worn out from the bath, before we put his feeding tube back in place:

Isn't he handsome?

And finally, all dressed up for a photo with great-grandma "GG":



Mama's hats

I know I post a lot of photos of Elsa all dressed up and making dramatic faces, but that's just what she does all the time!

And I know I post a lot of photos of Nora copying Elsa, but that's just what SHE does all the time!   At least I have more than one hat so they can each dress-up at the same time.

My grandpa had to keep handing Nora her hat because our wild bucking bronco kept making it fall off.

Outside

The girls' favorite way to spend their time is playing in our tiny but lovely backyard.  My favorite game of theirs is when they traipse hand in hand in and out of the trees and all around the yard with Elsa narrating where they are travelling to and what they are seeing and doing along the way.  As much as we're working with them (mostly Elsa) to be patient and kind with each other it is so sweet to catch little moments like this when they are playing so imaginatively together.

And sometimes, it's just sweet to sit pensively alone with your cat.

I hated letting the garden go this year, but everytime I see the dried-up garden beds and the struggling perennials I keep reminding myself that I'm growing children this season instead.  My seedlings are growing fast and need all the tending I can provide. 

So, the most I'm doing for gardening this year are keeping up the few pots I can see from my kitchen window (because that's where I look outside the most!) and maintaining the ponds and fountain. 

One morning I discovered that a little frog had come to play on the water lily pads!

Coiffure: the style or arrangement of hair, from the French 'coiffer'

Elsa has enjoyed doing her own hair for some time now, and recently has been inspired by Fancy Nancy in designing her morning coiffure, to use a word Fancy Nancy would would approve of. 

I think Barnaby is rolling his eyes.

She loves pencils, pens, crayons, markers...

Ready to join the circus

We took the girls to the circus a about a month ago.  They were thrilled, but Joel and I were a little disappointed to realize that Medford only gets a small, barely-one-ring-with-no-animals circus.  The performances were almost entirely acrobats and trapeze artists.  They were all very good, but we thought the artistry was probably lost on Elsa and Nora.  Elsa appreciated it more than we thought, however, and has been practicing her dramatic "acrobatics" at the playground and on our hammock ever since:

  

Nora, of course, does her best to copy her sister:

   

Totoros for a two-year-old

Nora's favorite character right now is Totoro, and, thankfully, a round, blue forest creature is relatively easy to make out of a cupcake for a last minute early birthday party for a nearly two-year-old.

We had an early party (about a month early, but she doesn't know any better!) so we could celebrate while my mother and grandparents were visiting.  We invited her favorite two-year-old friend over to play and eat little "Tote-ros" as she calls them. 

Big sisters are very good at helping little sisters unwrap and investigate their presents.  And I should know because I'm a big sister too.