We've been...

Hitting the park -- the weather has been so beautiful! In fact, yesterday was a pretty near perfect day, I must say! Daddy was home with us. The girls slept until 8:00 this morning (a true miracle, considering Taylor never sleeps a minute past 7:00). Avery slept until almost 9:30! Bless you, children! The girls played so, so well together and had a blast at the park! Kaiya even went down the slides head first (she is usually way too timid to try anything like this)! Taylor nearly dove head first down the slides -- typical for adventurous Tay! She also tried everything in her power to eat all the snow and bark she could before mom and dad knocked it out of her hands! Stinker! And Avery slept soundly in the car-seat so mom and dad could spend some good, quality, much-needed time with the other girls!
Lunch at Old Grist Mill. Home for an hour worth of riding around the neighborhood in the jeep (we've been promising Kai she could take the Jeep out as soon as the snow melted and she has been DYING to get into her favorite toy!) Then a WONDERFUL Skype call with grandma and grandpa in Germany -- the girls were so, so excited to see those happy faces on the computer screen. And Chris and I were pretty excited too! How we miss them! And all 3 girls took nice long naps so mommy and daddy could relax! How nice of them! Avery gave me her first REAL smiles -- not the sleeping, gassy smiles. She was wide awake, so totally focused on my face and returned my big smiles with some of her own. How I wish I had the camera -- they were the most sweet, bright, beautiful grins I've ever seen! It melted my heart! Finally, snuggled up to a good movie with honey last night! Perfect day! Almost perfect enough to make me forget the horrible game that my BYU Cougars lost! DANG!

We've also been loving our new baby. The girls adore her! Kaiya loves to read to her and get up really close to her face and stare at her and talk to her! They both love to hold her. (Taylor with a little help!) And baking with two of the cutest little bakers in the world! They love to help make cookies. Well, actually they mostly love to help so they can dip into the dough. But isn't that why we ALL like to make cookies?! I agree 100% with them! And of course, I am enjoying having a cooperative soul to take pictures of! Well, she doesn't have much choice, does she?! Sure is a whole lot easier to take pictures of a gorgeous little babe who can't run away from you, like her sisters do! I have almost given up on trying to ever get any pictures of Kaiya and Taylor -- I can't move fast enough to catch them! Oh and we've also been doing lots of laughing! These girls CRACK ME UP! Seriously, they are too funny! This was a good one -- the other night, Kaiya comes out after we had put her to bed to tell us she had to go to the bathroom and she was wearing these very sparkly silver shoes. Apparently, she had gotten into her closet and felt like it would be fun to wear her shoes to bed. She was still wearing them the next morning when she woke up!It's been a great week and life is slowly starting to creep towards normal! Well, our NEW normal, that is!