My favorite things

More than anything in this world, I love my family. I know that this blog primarily chronicles my girls and their happenings, but do want to add a note about how very much I love my husband, Gerry. He is the perfect match for me, and we balance each others 'character shortcomings' so beautifully! Not only is he a wonderful husband who takes great care of me, but he is a fantastic father who loves his little girls dearly. I love to watch their little faces light up when they realize that their Daddy is home from work! God has certainly blessed me with these three wonderful people, and I don't want to take a second of it for granted!

OK, now that the mushy part is over, let's get on to some new pictures and videos! The big update in our home is that Natalie now pulling up on the furniture (and the toys, and people's legs, and anything else that will stand still long enough for her to get a grip on!)! Here's a quick video...

She's into absolutely everything now, and is positively mesmerized by the camera...so a lot of our pictures are starting to look like this:

Did you notice all the teeth in her mouth??? She has a total of 6 teeth now, the last 4 of which have all appeared in the last two weeks. That was fun...NOT!

We had several very nice days last week before it got cold again, and on one such day, I decided it would be fun to take the girls out for a walk around the neighborhood. Ella decided she wanted to stop at our neighborhood playground to play, which was fine with me (I'm woefully behind on my exercise and every muscle was screaming!). It gave me a great chance to catch them in action, and I was able to get some wonderful pictures, including a great pic of Ella on the 'big-girl swing' for the first time! Can you tell she was proud of herself?

I always bring snacks along for such an outing, and we decided it would be fun to stop at the picnic shelter by the pool to eat our snacks. I snapped a few more cute pics, including Natalie's failed attempt at getting the Cheerios in her mouth and Ella just hanging out.

Another big event in our house this week was that we were finally able to bathe the girls together in the tub! Ella has been pretty protective of her bathtime alone, so I wasn't sure how long it would be until we would see this happen. On this bath night, Natalie was playing in the tub and Ella decided she wanted to get in, too. Gerry asked her if she was sure she wanted to get in WITH Natalie, and she said "Yes, pwease" in that sweet little voice. He started getting her ready for the bath and I ran to get the camera, and here's what we came out with:

One of Ella's Christmas gifts was a set of garden-themed foam bath "stickers". Ella loves wetting them and sticking them on the sides of the tub. Natalie, on the other hand, found another use for them:

I'll leave you with just a few more of my favorite pics from the last week. One of these days I'll actually put these in an album, but this will just have to suffice for now. Enjoy!