Fun Times

I know I've said this before, but I seriously can't believe how hard it is for me to find time to blog anymore. It is in part due to our slow internet connection, in part due to the fact that I must be sitting at the desk rather than somewhere comfortable or with my husband on the couch after work (subtly stating that I wish we had a laptop), but also majorly due to just having two kids and working part time...there's not much time left! I know there isn't anyone waiting with baited breath for me to post or anything, but I LOVE looking back over old posts and reading where we've been so I really want to keep blogging but man it's hard to find the time!

Speaking of working  part time I really haven't said much about how much I am adoring being home with the girls more. You know, when I first went from full time to part time I was working all day M, W, and F with some fill-in shifts when others needed off. Then, after I had Avery and our daycare bill began costing more than my mortgage payment (yep, that's right!) I cut my hours in  some more so now I only work part of T, all day W and every other Saturday. So...I have WAY more time with my girls than I used to and I am really enjoying it and feeling blessed by that time. I can tell that Kennedy is enjoying having more time together and Avery has become quite the Momma's girl so in her own way she's showing me she enjoys it too. We've been swinging:

Exploring new things:

Swinging some more:

My girls love to swing!

We've been baking ~

She doesn't really get the whole "less is more" thing ~ oh well!

So proud!

Despite being home more, I still have a hard time finding time to clean the house as well as I'd like. Last Thursday I cleaned ALL DAY (I'd like to state for the record that from the looks of our house now - YOU'D NEVER KNOW! So frustrating) so my girls kind of had to entertain themselves. At one point when I was vacuuming I turned it off to run and check on them real quick and this is what I found:

Love these sweet smiles!

In Avery news: she is sitting up on her own, eating all sorts of Mommy-made solids and using a straw cup ~ it's so cute seeing her hold that little cup up and use it.

When I was taking these pictures of her the other day playing in the floor in this dress I had serious dejavue of Kennedy and a picture I took of Kennedy in this very dress playing in the floor so I went on a mad hunt for it. It was a seriously odd feeling! Above and below are Avery... 

This is Kennedy:

Kennedy is a little older than Avery in the above picture so I went looking for one where they were about the same age and here is Kennedy at Avery's age now - I am still seeing LOTS of similarities. What do y'all think?

Kennedy's Aunt sent this fun little flip flop wood cut out in the mail and we had fun paiting it on one of my days off last week. It challenged me to the MAXIMUM to totally let her paint it - WHEW! She was so proud when it was all said and done though...

Thanks Aunt A!

I've been so thankful lately for Kennedy's ability to self-entertain. I mean, this girl can play ALL DAY by herself: seriously! I try to do stuff with her every day that I'm home but sometimes I gotta clean or work on the computer or do dishes or whatever and before I realize it half the days gone and she's still in her jammies (sad, but true). She'a all in to playing with her "babies" lately. I thought this particular picture of her playing with Funshine Bear was so funny:

Thankfully when Tim gets home, he plays with Kennedy and allows me to have some time with just Avery or vice versa. Not sure what they were up to in this particular evening - but I love the picture.

This past weekend we all went to see Janine and Josh for Josh's 30th birthday. I'm going to go ahead and admit to myself that Lord knows when I'll be able to blog about it so if you want to see all the bday pics - check out Janine's postings here and here. Janine's been doing some really cool things with photography lately after taking a class that taught her bunches so she snapped some pics of Avery that turned out really cute...I'll share those soon...hopefully along with Avery's six month and Kennedy's 4 year pics from Jes. 

For a total subject change - I'm running in my first 1/2 marathon since having Avery - THIS SUNDAY! Oh.my.word. I like to think I'm ready but we'll see about that. Hopefully I'll get to post about that soon too. So much to say...so little time. Ha!