My girls as I see them:

Pear is 21 months old. I continue to be blessed daily by her presence. She makes me laugh daily. She can count to 10 now and knows some of her colors. If she does not know what color it is, she'll say that it's pink. Here are a few things she's said over the last few days that have brought me joy:

While driving through town over the weekend I told Stephen, "you're a crazy driver." About 10 minutes later, after taking a turn Pear exclaims, "dad, crazy driver!"

Today, Jovie was crying in the car on our way home. Pear began to get fidgety as she always does when Jovie cries. I said, "it's okay, she's just hungry." Pear said, "mom, feed her scooby snacks!" (When Stephen gets Pear a snack or a treat, he calls it "Scooby snacks".)

Pear was eating a cupcake the other day and blurted out, "It's so tasty too!" Repeating the lines from one of my favorite I Love Lucy episodes: Lucy Does a Television Commercial.

Yesterday, while getting ready for her nap, Pear walked over to me and whined, "grumpy, how come?" In all sincerity, she was talking about herself. She was grumpy and ready for a nap.

Last night, Stephen let me get out of the house for a little bit, when I returned I asked how the girls were, he said that they were great. Pear ran over to me and said, "horses, daddy's game." I interpreted this and returned, "oh, you played daddy's computer game with daddy that has the horses." Stephen quickly said, "shhh! You're not supposed to tell her!"

Today, Pear bumped her leg on her bed. She began whining and said, "Bonk, leg. You okay? Ooooh, come here. Show me." I guess she decided she doesn't need to come to me for sympathy, she'll do it all herself!

As for Jovie, she is 4 weeks old now and she hasn't made me laugh yet, but she makes me smile constantly and I will admit she has made me cry. It's been a tough couple of weeks; rewarding, priceless, and oh so tiresome. Jovie doesn't sleep. Let me rephrase that, she doesn't sleep by herself. If you hold her, she'll doze in and out of sleep for as long as 45 minutes! And, if you're lucky, she'll go into a deep sleep state where it's hard to wake her up and that can last as long as 2 1/2 hours but that is few and far between. We are working on training her little body to sleep but it's not an easy task with a noisy 21 month old following and narrating my every move at a 21 month old volume. When I do lay Jovie down for a nap and she wakes up, Pear tries to beat me into the bedroom to climb on the crib and look over the rail to comfort her by saying, "it's okay Jovie." At night Jovie will sleep some. I got a 4 hour stretch last night! That was marvelous. Jovie began smiling this last week. It's so sweet. I am still soaking up the newborn stage and I can hold her for hours just looking at her without tiring. I seem to be getting farther and farther behind with my housework but I am choosing to soak in and enjoy this time rather than stress-out and worry about housework. Don't get me wrong, I am still doing housework but I am trying to spend some quality time with my girls rather than constantly clean which seems to be what needs to be done in order to have a clean house with a family like ours that cooks a lot, makes a lot of laundry and a baby that is constantly spitting up!

Jovie's "happy look".

A Pretty Smile!

This is Jovie's face the majority of the time.

This is Jovie's face the other majority of the time.

Aren't those beautiful blue eyes?

Just checking things out.

Yes, I am proud of my girls. And yes, I love them ever so much!