My little gymnasts and models

So back in the fall I took on a new venture. I decided to start selling children's clothing for a company called Orient Expressed. If you have never seen their clothing you should check out their website. It's very traditional & classic children's clothing for boys and girls. But they really do have a variety of traditional and some fun variety for some older children as well. Of course I'm a little biased since I am selling them, but I think they are excellent quality and have held up well! As I'm often buying girls clothing for EC that Mary Etta will also wear---but of course I can't help but buy a few new things for Mary Etta too! And I still have a love for sewing and making them some fun things---but the reality of having 3 young children under the age of 5, laundry, cleaning, cooking, preschool, errands, etc. etc. well, I just don't always have as much time in my schedule as I'd like to sew as much as I'd like.

So all that rambling to say......about a week before my open house to showcase all the spring/summer clothing we had a little fun trying on lots of different clothes. These two are naturals as far as being all girls and loving trying on clothes---who'd ever know how much of that really is in our nature! So here they are having fun with the bathing suits and EC decided to try her gymnast skills---and of course Mary Etta followed suit!

Having fun modeling all the pretty dresses....this girl LOVES to wear a dress; it's either that or leggings!

Some of these aren't super clear as I think I kept moving while trying to take the picture or they did; oh well, they are still really cute pictures!

Insta-Friday

Friday (well really it's now Saturday; I started this post on Friday and am finally finishing it up on Saturday). I know I've been very absent in the blogging world these days. Just busy, busy, busy around here. And I guess just life in general has left me unmotivated in blogging---as well as many other things these days. We've had a full week here. From story times, playtimes, school days, Valentine parties, & sickness--yes I've had a lovely out of season sinus infection. I'm sure thanks to this "not typical weather."

Not sure why this is so tiny...probably something to do with how I downloaded; oh well. But these are the beautiful roses my sweet husband brought me home this week! Love the pink!

My only other Valentine picture from the week.....seriously I am slacking in my picture taking lately! My girl and I attended a local bookstore storytime on Valentine's Day. She loved it! And it was special for her to do her own thing since both brother and sister had parties at school.

My big boy writing all his letters this week! I came into the room before we were about to start some school work and saw he'd written these all by himself! I didn't even ask him to! He did ask me how to make an "s"...so I wrote samples for S-Z....but basically he did this all on his own!

And last, but not least, this was my Saturday morning. I got to go to a workout class and Daddy occupied the little people for several hours while I exercised, planned for the week, and read. Good, good morning!

May this be my heart and prayer as deeply humble as the Puritan writer......

"O how desirable, how profitable to the Christian life

is a spirit of holy watchfulness

and godly jealousy over myself.

when my soul is afraid of nothing

except grieving and offending thee, the blessed God,

my Father and friend,

whom I then love and long to please,

rather than be happy in myself!"

Is this winter?

So I haven't really blogged much lately. I think after all the holidays and excitement I always feel like the first of the year kinda puts one in a slump of sorts. I even find myself hardly taking any pictures......I think in the whole month of January I took maybe 10-15 pictures?! Not really like me who ends up with over 100 pictures typically every month! And we've been busy--adjusting to our new "normal" I suppose too. I've been up and down with all that, we still have been doing preschool, homeschool, figuring out kindergarten for next year, ballet again, fun play times with friends, and this "not normal winter" we are having. Usually by now it's snowed multiple times and the weather is just so unbearably cold....but now it's February and it's been really mild. We've even had quite a few 50something degree days and been able to play outside for more than 15 minutes?! Nice, for sure to not be cooped up in the house all day long---but just not what we usually experience this time of the year. I finally took the camera outside while they played yesterday afternoon and thought I'd play some with it...kinda feeling like it was collecting dust just sitting on my counter!

"let me catch the ball Reed"

This boy is seeming so big to me more and more everyday! How did that sweet little baby grow up so fast?! We truly have a little boy for sure. He will start kindergarten this fall and we are really praying through what is best for him and our family. We've been talking about all of this lots and what is best for us all---lots of registration deadlines are coming up in the next couple weeks so it all is very consuming and overwhelming to me right now. I can't believe it's time to already begin this new season!

So this looks like a real old picture I know.....I overexposed it and tried to play with it in the editing, but I obviously still couldn't "fix" the lighting issues. But it was the only one I had of her with her hands on her hips and it's just too cute not to post. She kept putting her hands on her hips all day yesterday.....so cute!