Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! We hope everyone enjoys this special day. Lizzy giving her very best most cheesiest smile for the camera. Lizzy loved her new dress and how it poofed out like a princess. I tried to curl her hair all curly but after spending a half-hour and not getting it the way I wanted, I gave up. She just isn't meant to have curly hair.
I told Nellie that if she smiled for the camera she would get candy. So I tried,

and tried,

and tried,

until I finally just gave her the darn candy and then I was able to get her to at least look at the camera.

I know, I know

It has been forever since I have posted, but I have good reasons I promise. I have been so unbelievably busy these past few weeks. Let me fill you in on my last couple of weeks. I am really only saying this to make myself feel better for everything I have let go these last few weeks, namely my exercise routine and my house cleaning.

I drove down to Oklahoma Friday the 7th and helped my amazing sister-in-law move her and her three wonderful kids to Tacoma. We drove the next four straight days. And then the next day I got up at 3:30 a.m. to get on a plane home, we didn't arrive home until 7:30 that night because it is a four hour drive home from the airport. Then that weekend I was in charge of our primary activity so I had quite a bit to do for that. Of course it turned out like everything seems to for me, only five kids came, all of the leaders kids, I am sure glad spent all the time on that. Also I am in charge of sharing time this whole month and I have class to teach each week as well. In addition I have been making Easter dresses for the girls.

Just a little tidbit of information for anyone thinking about sewing don't believe it when a pattern says easy. I bought a pattern that I thought would be pretty easy to make since I was making one for Lizzy, Nellie, and their cousin Brinlee. What a joke, next time I buy a pattern I am going to look at every step because then maybe I will notice that about a third of the dress has to be hand-sewn. That's right HAND-SEWN. Not to mention the fact that my machine doesn't have a zipper foot so I go buy one, doesn't fit, so I call my mom and she goes to the Pfaff store and gets me one and ships it, doesn't fit, so I go online and find the right one for sure and order it and get it and it DOESN'T FIT!! So then I decide to borrow a machine from the Church and sew the zippers on with it and don't worry after spending four hours trying to get the machine to sew properly I can't get the machine to work. So guess what I get to sew the zippers in by hand too. I have never really done much hand sewing before this but I am just too darn stubborn to give up. And doggonit I will get these dresses done before Easter! I actually am almost done with them which is why I haven't posted, but I will post pictures of the girls on Easter in their pretty dresses. They really have turned out so cute.

Just Nellie and Me

Lizzy spent Friday in Tipton with Brinlee, Kelli and Grammie, so I had little Nellie all to myself. It was so much fun to just spend time with her and give all of my attention to her. She just ate it up too. She really loves Lizzy and they get along really well most of the time but she also loves when Lizzy isn't there and she gets me all to herself.

We had lots of fun, we went out to eat and ran to Walmart and did some shopping and just hung out. Nellie is completely over her difficult stage horray! She still throw fits just like any other kid but thinking back to how she was as an infant, it isn't even like the same kid. She is really happy now and even kind of independent. She is so loving and sweet, but man she really does have an opinion about things (I have no idea where she gets that from, must be her dad) She is still quite stubborn and she still seems to win most of the battles of will, but she is also kind of shy. She is so tough, I guess she had to be to go through what she has. She has such a strong spirit, I love it, I guess she reminds me of myself in some ways. She is even left-handed, I guess that is a sign. I sure am crazy about the little gal. She sat all snuggled on the couch and watched Dora, she didn't move from her spot the entire time that I got ready
She found Lizzy's monkey backpack/harness and decided to wear it all day, she had to wear it to the store and everything. I couldn't get a good picture of it because Nellie is not real enthusiastic about getting them taken.

Park Day... Horray!

We have been getting about 1 warm day a week sandwiched between some really cold days, but I'll take it. It was warm enough this past Tuesday (in addition to being the first time this winter that there hasn't been any snow on the ground) for us to go to the park. It was so nice to get outside. I am starting to get cabin fever and really need winter to end. I am sure a lot of you are all feeling the same way. Lizzy kept saying "Thank you so much Mom for taking us to the park! It's so much fun." We really did have fun even if it was a bit muddy. Nellie has to go down the slide by herself, something she has been doing since last fall. She is such a monkey, she has to climb the stairs by herself as well. It was hard to get a picture of her because she didn't even hesitate at the top, it was just down and climb the stairs and do it again.
Monkey #1 likes to climb as well, she climbs all the way to the top of this and it probably higher than ten feet. She also is fearless on the swings, she always wants me to do Underdog and they are really tall swings so she really gets up there. She is such a pansy when it comes to other things like swimming but not heights.

Poor little Nellie's eyes just water like crazy in the cold but she doesn't care. Nellie is so opinionated about her clothes. After I let her wear this jacket she absolutely will not wear her coat. I try and hurry and grab her coat out of the closet before she can see the jacket, but she isn't fooled, she just starts kicking and screaming until I let her wear the dumb jacket. She is the same way about her shoes, she has specific shoes she wants to wear each day and it has to be those shoes or else meltdown.

Valentines Day

Lizzy was so excited about her Valentines party, the night before she couldn't get to sleep because she was so excited. It was so cute. She brought home all her valentines and laid them all out and started going through them and telling me about them. She is getting so big! I can't believe how grown up she is getting. I think she was just a little bit excited about her Valentines.

For Valentines Day I decided to draw some portraits of the girls for Kevy. It has been years since I have drawn and I am just grateful that I still have the ability. I had some great black and white pictures of the girls from last summer that I drew from. This is very hard for me to post them because I am very critical of my own work. I look at them and all I can see is what is wrong with them. But I know people wanted to see them so I am posting them. Kevy loved them and all in all I am pleased with how they turned out. The pictures are dark because the flash made them pretty much disapper so I had to take them without it.

Cookie Decorating

It is a Hansen Family tradition to decorate cakes for Valentines and give them to friends or teachers, etc. Well, I couldn't find any heart cake pans so I just decided to do sugar cookies. For family home evening we decorated them. The girls did such a good job didn't they... just kiddding those are the ones that Kevy and I decorated. These are the ones the girls did, Lizzy was supposed to be decorating it for a friend, but I don't think that friend would appreciate the bite marks in it.
They didn't really do much decorating, they did have fun eating the candy though. That is pretty much all they did. When I went to put the candy away I found a whole bunch of half eaten ones that Lizzy stuck back in the bag, nice.
Nellie has been a really terrible eater lately so I have taken her completely off sweets as best as I can, but I couldn't not let her participate, don't worry all she did the whole time was see how fast she could stuff it in.
Llizzy was very proud of her cookie. She really loves doing stuff like this and she gets so excited about it. All day that was all she talked about was decorationg the cookies. "I so excited Mom we get to decorate the cookies tonight!" We sure had fun. I love making memories.

My Little Helpers

I love to cook and it has always been my dream to one day have my girls help me in the kitchen. We made cookies the other day and if managing to get sugar everywhere, and then flour and get that all wet, then they are great helpers. It was a serious disaster but I would have to say it was a lot of fun and they really loved being there with me and licking the beaters too. Notice my counter ape, that is my Lizzy as soon as I go in the kitchen she is right there on the counter.

Fashion Show

we are going to Wichita next weekend with the cousins and the hotel we are staying at has an indoor swimming pool, the girl's swimsuits from last year don't fit anymore so when we were at Target and saw these darling swimsuits we just had to get them. As soon as we got home Lizzy had to put hers on, so I decided to put Nellie's on too and do a photo shoot. Lizzy loved to pose and cheese it up while Nellie was as you can see a little less than thrilled. Kevin's only hope for a tomboy is Nellie because it just isn't gonna happen with Lizzy, she is the prissiest little girl.

"Are you seriously making me do this Mom?"

Flour Angels

The other night I was on the phone for a total of 3 minutes, but in that time the little monkeys managed to get flour all over the floor and proceeded to make flour angels. I walk in there and Lizzy says "Look mom, it's pretty." Of course they had to do this when they were already in their jammies and ready for bed. Those little stinkers, I had to just laugh because it did look quite funny.

Nellie decided that the flour tasted really good. Nasty.

Monkey

Yes I have a monkey at my house, well actually two of them. I was hoping after the first one started climbing out of the crib at 18 months that maybe I would be able to have another baby that would stay in a crib for longer. You may be thinking who cares if the baby sleeps in a crib or a bed, but the problem isn't sleeping it is the time before sleep when they can't go anywhere if they are in a crib so they decide to give up the ghost and go to sleep. Things get a lot more complicated when you have to lay next to them and pretend that you are sleeping so that after 20 minutes of playing around they finally decide that they will go to sleep, and hopefully you got enough sleep the night before because if not you are toast and all that fake sleeping made you fall asleep too and you get nothing done that you were going to get done while your crazy child was finally asleep. Yes, I have had a lot of experience with this.

It wasn't too long from the time Lizzy got into a grown-up bed that she was no longer taking naps, shortly after two years of age to be exact. That's right Lizzy stopped taking naps ALTOGETHER when she was barely TWO. I am starting to see a pattern developing with my younger monkey that is looking very similar and it scares me to death.

So monkey #2 has decided that she needs to try and climb out of the crib, so that means a lot of practice climbing all over everything else so she can perfect those climbing skills. She climbs up onto the table all the time, I always will find her on the table or under the table trying to get up on the chair to get onto the table, or she likes climbing on the toilet too. One day I hear her crying and I run into the bathroom to find her hanging out of the sink because she climbed onto the toilet and thought "I'll bet I can climb up into the sink too". Another new thing she does is climb up on the couch and jump from the couch to the ottoman and back again. Oh well she sure is a cute monkey.

Some Hair!!

I was starting to get a little bit worried that our little Nellie was never going to get any hair. Today I finally was able to stick a little barrette in it. Yay! By the time Lizzy was Nellie's age she had hair down to her shoulders, so I was starting to get a bit nervous, but in the last month or so she finally started to sprout some hair!! I am hoping it will continue to grow at the rate that it is right now, so by the time she is two she will have a normal head of hair. See the tiny barrette that is barely staying in? I will take whatever I can get at this point.

I had to take a picture of this outfit because it was one that I wore when I was a baby. I found it a few months back in my hope chest and thought that Nellie would look darling in it. I think it even looks like it is in style.
It really is growing, in this picture you may not thinks she has much hair, but in real life it looks like more.

Tutus and Doggies

Aunt Chanelle made these tutus for the girls and I would have to say they look pretty stinkin cute in them. Thanks Chanelle, they love wearing them.
Grandma and Grandpa Hansen gave the little gals these darling doggie purses for Christmas. They love them especially because they look so much like real dogs and they can put their pretties in them. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!