A Project Finished and Some Hats

I finally finished the project I've been working on for the last few months. I would do some things differently if I did it again, but I think it turned out pretty cute. And here are my cute girls.

In The Garden

I am so grateful to live in an area where there are four seasons. And, I am very grateful for winter, because it gives us a break from hard work outside! But now, the ground has thawed, we are having some warm days, and the break is over! Back to work! Yesterday we got our garden started outside (we have already planted seedlings in our house) by laying drip and planting onions. We also harvested our carrots which had been left in the ground during the winter to preserve them. We cut back our raspberries, tilled and raked. And so the season of gardening begins!The girls enjoyed the warm Spring day too. Grandpa Johnson came over for a short visit and shared his hat with Maren.

Goings On

Here's what's been going on around here:

Ellie and I made popsicle stick flowers. When the glue was dry, Ellie found a mason jar, filled it with water (which I promptly dumped out) and put the flowers in the jar and placed them on the kitchen table. Ellie decided she wanted to be Minnie Mouse, so she found her ears and my high-heel church shoes.

Just being cute...

Maren is not crawling yet, but she definitely isn't staying in one place either. She scoots herself around and usually, somehow, stays sitting. She occassionally ends up on her belly and gets mad.

I made chocolate chip cookies, which are not as good as Nick's (we all agree that dad should be the one in charge of cookies)...however, they weren't bad either, and they sure looked yummy.

Maren Eating Stuff

Three Year Old Moments

We have had some pretty great three-year-old moments around here lately. I picked Ellie up from nursery last week and her leader pulled me aside to tell me that Ellie and a friend were not listening to their teachers and they had to be taken out of an activity. Lovely. This had better not be the beginning of bad reports from school. This does not surprise Nick and I as we've had a lot of 'doing what mom and dad ask' talks at home, and even implemented a sticker chart with prizes when she does what we ask her to. I know this is all part of growing up and learning some independence, but I tell you what, being a mom is hard! And it just gets harder! Anyway...I've been trying to spend some quality one-on-one time with Ellie while Maren naps. It has been really nice and I can already notice a big difference in our attitudes (that's right, mom has an attitude, too). The other day we colored and drew pictures together and I was impressed that Ellie wrote her name with minimal help from mom. Oh, and she draws very nice pictures of people with the following features: head, eyes, nose, nostrils (yep, nostrils!), and legs. Sometimes she'll add hair, arms, fingers, and toes. She is drawing pictures of Grandma and Grandpa in the above photo. After saying all of that, I must also say that Ellie really is a sweet girl. She plays well with her friends and is so polite (she always asks, "May I..." - Nick and I don't really know who taught her so well). She is usually happy and pleasant to be around and makes Maren laugh SO hard. She just has moments, you know, like we all do. Besides, it surely would be frustrating to be 3 feet tall...

Markers

I was doing some coloring with markers this morning with Ellie and this came to mind... This is a photo from my mission with my companion after a mighty marker fight. My good friend, Jai, was also there, and unfortunately, I don't have the photo of her scanned on my computer (and I'm just too lazy to do it now, truth be told). You all would enjoy it though, as she has a big smiley face on her forehead. Gosh, good times.

Snap Happy

Warning: there is a lot of cuteness to follow. I have really enjoyed my new camera, and have loved figuring settings and etc. This leads to much taking of photos. At least I have cute subjects!
Here's Ellie wearing an earring:Maren taking a bath in the sink. And yep, those are dirty dishes in the neighboring sink. We enjoyed having Alicia and Jonathan over yesterday. I took this photo, but she took the next two.

Notice Ellie's owie on her face? I did that with my fingernail on accident. I felt so bad.

Tonight for FHE we had a weinie roast at Nick's parents house. S'mores too, of course. Ellie holding one of the puppies. Like her choice of clothing? And yes, I do her hair most days.