Red Velvet (or more like Burgandy Velvet)

Where have I been the past week, some of you may be asking. :-)  It's just busy and I don't think things will calm down much until the new year, especially now that we're gearing up for the holidays.  Thankfully though, my boss has said that I can work from home starting in January so that cuts my driving time in half from 2 hours to probably just under an hour (dropping the kids off at their Nana's house and then picking them up after work).  I'll gladly take that hour back and I'm thankful for the flexibility to work from home (which I am doing today since I have a late afternoon meeting).

Big Girl is doing really good with her school work.  Some days its a struggle to get started, but once we get into it, she often does really well.  Although still not super neat, her handwriting has improved tremendously in the last couple weeks. I can definitely tell she's trying, but it's a struggle for her to write her letters and numbers neatly.  She is really excelling in her reading!  I love to hear her read.  Most of her school work for 1st grade involves lots of reading (Bible, History, Science, and of course her Phonics book).  And she is really enjoying math class!  I usually save it for last since it is the most fun!

L'il Girl turns 3 next week!  She's getting to be such a Big Girl.  She is wearing 4T pants, 4T/5T shirts, and 5T dresses already.  She is so smart too!  The other day, just completely out of the blue, she asked me who made God.  I never thought a 2 year old would come up with that!  But we often talk about how God made everything and she understands that, but wanted to know who made God.  I explained to her how God has always been, had no beginning, and no one created Him.  I don't think she understands, but then again, it's not an easy thing to grasp.  To another topic - potty training - it's going pretty well, but she doesn't have the independence part of it down.  As long as I remind her to go every couple of hours and go with her to the bathroom, she stays dry.  But she won't go on her own or even tell me that she has to go.  So that's the next phase that we are working on.  Hopefully she'll have that part down soon!

And it wouldn't be proper to not include an update on Baby Girl.  She is saying a lot of words now and repeating a lot of what we say.  She doesn't say very many phrases yet, but often just says just one or two words when she wants something like "Look", "Eat", "Outside", "Shoes", "Milk" and her favorite - "Where's Shadow?".  That's Nana's cat and she asks about him a lot!  After that it's just a lot of babbling which I don't understand.  Sometimes I think she just likes to make noise like her sisters. :-)

Here are some pics of our beauties Sunday in their dresses.  The first ones were taken at church and didn't turn out great.  I try to get a couple pics before we head out the door because when we get home, Baby Girl is often asleep.  But this past Sunday we didn't have time because we had to be at church 30 minutes early for Hubby to practice for a men's ensemble.  So I took the camera to church.  Since Baby Girl was actually awake when we got home, I had to take a few more pictures.  They just looked so cute!!!