Oddly Enough...

      My girls are at my in-laws house for the night, and I have the whole day to myself! I went to school this morning, and have just spent the past 2 hours cleaning my apartment. It's funny how I often crave moments like this. When I'm at my wits end and have not washed my hair for 2 days I often think to myself "I would give anything for some peace and quiet!" And oddly enough, now that I have a whole day to myself, I am missing my girls. Usually while I'm cleaning, I can hear Ava's sweet voice singing some made up song about South America and the ocean. (Those are her latest obsessions.) And mixed with Ava's singing is Halle's constant baby chatter. I'm usually interrupted 5 or 6 or 7 times by Ava hollering that Halle's pulling her hair, or things are a little too quiet, and I find my girls dumping gold fish all over the floor and walking over them.
     So, while my house is unusually quiet and peaceful, I was thinking about what I did with my time before I had kids. And I dare say that my life was quite dull. Don't get me wrong, I did fun things and went fun places, but I never knew what it was like to truly laugh or worry or cry. Sappy, I know, but it's true!
    Days go by so quickly and I just want to make time stand still. My kids are in such fun stages in life, and I don't want them to grow up. I don't want to have to worry about them dressing scandalously or if they're having sex with their boyfriends. I don't want to worry if they're doing drugs or if they're out drinking themselves senseless. I just want to enjoy these simple days where my biggest worry is telling Ava that alligators don't live in the ocean and that it's ok to have strawberry jam on her sandwich instead of grape jam. I want to enjoy watching Halle walking.... she walks like she's drunk and trips over everything! Then she'll get up and say "Whoa". I realize these days won't last forever, but for now, I'm going to enjoy washing grubby fingerprints off my computer screen.
     So, here are a couple of pictures that I could look at over and over again...

 It's hard to believe Ava was ever this little!

She loves to talk on the phone.

She loves to eat "cold cream"... Aka whipped cream

 I love this pic of little Halle. She has such a sweet look.

 It's crazy how absolutely tiny she was.

 Ava loves to do Halle's hair. 

What's funny is Halle actually sits still long enough for 

Ava to put hairbows in it.

 I was cleaning out the girls' clothes and came

across one of Halle's preemie outfits. 

She wore preemie sized clothes for the first 

2 months of her life. I thought it would be fun to have a comparison

20 months later...

Halle was thoroughly annoyed at the prospect of having to

lay down and get her picture taken.

 Halle loves to climb and swing. 

She recently discovered how to go

down the big twirly slide at the park.

She will hang and swing from the drawers 

and table in our house.

She is so adventurous!

This is what my couch looks like on almost a daily basis.

They were using it as a slide.

Both my girls just adore their Daddy. 

He loves to wrestle with them

and flip them around.