Settling In

We're not yet a week out from getting back from vacation but are pretty well settled in now.  It was a relatively quiet, if not somewhat challenging weekend.  Seems our girls were struggling a bit too.  I finally got to the grocery store Friday and so we had a pretty quiet night in.  They actually started the weekend in quite a silly mood.  Isla found some of my heels and is enthralled - she is definitely a girly girl so far - loves shoes, purses, chapstick, looking at herself in the mirror, being complimented by her Dad when she's wearing a pretty dress...she revels in it.

And she loves walking around in these heels...and is surprisingly good at it.

Sawyer did a little posing of her own, first in her "Fancy Nancy" outfit.  Not really - but she was supposed to dress up as her favorite book character for school, and Aunt Jennifer gave her this pretty dress as an early birthday present, so she wore that and a fancy bow in her hair, and brought her favorite book.  She's holding on to her candy necklace as well, a treat from our vacation.

When it came time for bed, she managed to pull this outfit together.  Sun hat...check, Sleeping Beauty dress....check, snow boots...check, and wand....check.  A perfect outfit and great way to stall bedtime.  

I was clearly getting ahead of myself thinking they'd be perfectly behaved this weekend.  On Saturday, Sawyer got up early and went with me to the farmer's market.  She was in her pajamas, and her hair wasn't combed but all in all, she was good.  We came home and got ready for the pool and the wheels started to come off the track.  Once at the pool Sawyer refused to go to her swim lesson and cried for a good 15-20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, Isla and Mark could get in the pool, so her crying stopped and it became pleading to go swimming.  Perhaps I shouldn't have picked this battle, but I made her sit on the side of the pool until her lesson was over (10 minutes) - if she wasn't going to go to the lesson, she wasn't going to just swim on her own.  Once I did let her in, the crying started up again after about a minute.  Nothing Mark or I did was right, and Isla started to get in on the action.  Thankfully the pool had like 10 people there because we had two bratty babies.  We lasted 30 minutes in the pool, about 5 minutes at the picnic area where they cried over everything I brought, and we were back in the car headed home.

Thankfully, they each took 3 1/2 hour naps and emerged better people because we had a birthday party to go to....a 5th birthday party for our friend's daughter.  Was a lot of fun and they had a bounce house which provided lots of entertainment.  Mark literally dragged each of them out when it was time to go. Sunday emerged much nicer and we just had a relaxing day.  Mark and I both got runs in, we went out and bought some new patio furniture for the backyard, and even took the girls to play tennis before bed.  Mark and I enjoyed playing a little on vacation, and so we let them run around a bit while we hit.  We probably only got 30 shots in and then spent time throwing the ball to Isla and letting her chase it, and letting Sawyer try to hit the ball.  I think we all had a good time despite the lack of real tennis.

A random pic of Isla eating a gummy worm - girl has a sweet tooth.

And because I found a random post I'd started, but never finished, some random thoughts/stories about Sawyer and Isla:

• I recently took Sawyer and Isla to church by myself.  I'm not the best at going every week, but I do still like to go and want our kids to attend as well.  However, they are just not at an age where it's at all enjoyable.  On this occasion, Sawyer had me laughing pretty hard in church and totally at a loss for words.  As soon as we sat down she kept asking me "when is God going to get here?"  Trying to explain that God is a spirit is a bit tough, especially when we shouldn't have been talking.  Isla was being pretty good, but mid-way through found the holy water, which at our church is a giant marble bowl.  She walked over to it, lifted herself up so she was balancing on her arms on the edge, and started flicking the water with her hands like it was her own personal water table.  As soon as I grabbed her she started to scream, so I quickly grabbed Sawyer and we were out of church just before communion, which proceeded to make Sawyer cry because she wanted to stay till the end of church.  Super.
• Sawyer told me she wants to go to outer space the other day, but that first we need to get some superpowers so we can fly there
• Sawyer's been practicing writing her name, but has started writing S's as backwards 3's.
• Isla is starting to talk up a storm, often repeating whatever we say, or at the very least the last word we say.  She likes to sing her ABC's, and anytime you ask her to sing a song she goes there, but also pretty much anytime she feels like singing - whether we're in the car, at a restaurant, etc.  She also likes to count.  She will count with us up to 10, but can't do it on her own.  She likes when we say 1, because 2 is her absolute favorite number right now.  She also likes to say 1,2,3, GOOO!!
• Sawyer continues to be our little singer, memorizing songs like I can hardly believe.  Isla seems to be more into the dance.  I will catch her in her car seat start to wave her arms and shimmy in her seat if she likes a song that comes on the radio, and she'll do the same wherever she's at if she hears a tune she likes.
• We are starting to take Isla's binky away from her.  She is highly attached, and we let her have it on vacation so as not to disturb the rest of the family, but at home she's now only allowed to have it when she's in bed for a nap or for the night.  We're hoping that in about 2 months or so we'll cut the cord entirely and get rid of it for good.
• Isla is also starting to show us that she's ready to be potty trained.  She tells me when she's gone to the bathroom and will sometimes even say she wants to go to the potty - usually after she's gone in her diaper.  So far, the closest we've gotten her is sitting on the toilet with all her clothes and diaper on.  We're not pushing it, but are watching her pretty closely because no diapers would be pretty cool!

More to come later in the week once our patio furniture gets delivered - our backyard is so wonderfully comfortable to hang out in now, we love it!