What We've Been Up To

I haven't had any blogging time the past couple of days, because we haven't had rest-time at all.

Our afternoons the past couple of days have looked like this:

That is precious Missy A in between my two youngest.  We go to church with Missy A and her mom, and mom asked if I could watch her on Monday and Tuesday afternoon. 

Missy A is four days older than Abigail, but at least 10 pounds lighter, and several inches shorter:

My kiddos (all 6 of them) were thrilled that we got to watch A.  They wish she were coming back again today!

She is very soft-spoken, with the sweetest little voice.  She is constantly saying, "Uh-huh", agreeing with anything you ask her. (My oldest kiddos had fun with this.)  And she is smart as a whip!

She doesn't go to just anyone, so my kiddos tried hard to win her over.  She finally let Daniel hold her near the end of the second afternoon. 

 And she started passing out kisses to all of us on the second afternoon also.  So sweet!

It was very interesting having two 18-month olds in the house.  We did have a few rough moments.  Like in these photos below, A was trying to close Abigail in the cabinet.  

A got frustrated, but Abigail (being so much bigger and stronger) just thought they were having fun!

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I mentioned several months ago that Elisabeth is participating in Cotillion classes this year.  The students had their first ball this past weekend...The Winter Ball.

 Elisabeth wanted her hair curled, so we got busy.  In the past we have used hot rollers (my set from high school!), but this time I used a curling iron.  It worked well:

I asked Elisabeth if we should stop here...

...but for some reason she wanted me to do the other half of her head also.

When it was time to head out the door, we snapped some pics (of course!):

E with her buddy, Rebecca

Our sweet babysitter, Kalyn

G wanted in on the picture action!

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While Jas and I took the girls to the ball, Kalyn stayed with our other five kiddos:

Kalyn is the selfie/us-ie queen...I love getting pics like this when we are away!

After we dropped the girls off, Jason and I got to go on our first date of 2016...woohoo!

We tried out the new Thai restaurant that just opened in the town next to us.  The service was a little scattered - they were very sweet and trying real hard, but this was only their third night open.  But the food? Sooooo yummy!  And I ordered a Thai tea.  Oh. my. word!  After tasting it and almost dying from how yummy it was, I googled it (the help wasn't so helpful on questions like this) to see how you make a Thai tea.  It had sweetened condensed milk in it!  NO WONDER!  I politely declined when they offered me a refill.  

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I saw a precious hairstyle on my FB adoption and skin care group.  So I gave it a go on Abby-girl:

Four flat twists in the front, small twists covering the rest of her head.

It took about 3 hours total to put all the twists in.  But I did that in three different sessions over 2.5 days.  (I completed the flat twists last, and that section was just in a cute puff until I got the flat twists done, so it still looked presentable.  Actually, it was downright cute like that and E wanted me to keep it like that.)

The style stayed in her hair for almost 5 days, which is probably a record, actually.  I am trying to not look at new hairstyles only as Wins or Fails.  I am trying to look at everything I do with her hair as a learning experience.  And just be thankful for what I learn - the good and the bad - from each experience.

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Yesterday we woke up to freezing temperatures.  It was literally 31 degrees out there...which we don't see too often in The Deep South!

I took G to look out the window at it, and he asked if we could ice skate in the pasture.  Then he piped up, "Look at the poop!  It is turning into ice!"

George Franklin (almost 3 months old now) and Chelsea didn't seem to mind the cold one single bit!

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Our oldest four participated in soccer for 5 straight seasons...and then we all took ALL of 2015 off.  The practices and games were just too much with an infant and a 2(turned 3)-year old.

But now LK is back in a uniform...but not a soccer uniform.

 I want to do a whole post about this athletic little girl!