Finally... keeping up with the Jones's

Finally! Finally I have my brand new shiny red camera, and I finally got some time to work with it and take a few new pictures of the girls that aren't all grayed out. Finally I can select shots that are really the ones that I want and not just have to settle for the half decent ones. So I celebrated by trying to take a few shots of what we did today.

It was such a lovely warm day above freezing, mostly all the snow has melted and so the kids were itching to get the bikes out for the first time in months. Norah is still too short for the real bikes, or even the tricycles, but she can scoot. And she's pretty darn fast at it too!

Not as fast as Abby though, so she settled with yelling "Abby!" over and over while her big sister lapped her around the driveway.

Abby was delighted she still knew how to ride her bike and spent at least a half an hour riding in circles and giving me a play by play whenever she got close to the flower bed.

Abby and I made homemade turkey soup and homemade buns for supper. Whenever I make homemade bread or buns I always ponder why I don't make them all the time. Unfortunately with Seth on a low-carb diet buns aren't really a staple food but once in a while they really hit the spot. And my kids love homemade soup so much! More than pizza, more than chicken nuggests, and only slightly less then french fries. (seriously, french fries are the most sought after food for my kids, but not the crappy ones, they have to be big nicely seasoned Steak fries.) Abby is really good at eating the soup broth and the bits, but really Norah is a broth girl through and through. So tonight HandDog came to visit and help Norah eat her bits so she wouldn't be all full of liquid and hungry in two hours.

At first HandDog was such an anomaly that she wasn't too sure, that silly handdog masquerading as Daddy's hand this whole time had her stumped for only a few seconds.

Then they were best of friends and HandDog quickly helped Norah eat some bits from the soup bowl by trying them first and proving without a doubt that the bits were indeed edible. She was very upset when Hand Dog had to say goodbye and help Daddy do the dishes and walk the dogs. Ultimately HandCat that tried to help Mommy do the bath was not nearly as popular and very nearly drowned via angry toddler.

Sometimes when we're tired or just plain wanting the kids to "do what we say when we say it," it's easy to forget that a lot of parenting has to be creative. A situation where we struggle to get the obstinent child to comply can be easily diffused with something as simple as HandDog. Even though today ended well I am still struggling with trying to balance time between the kids and things that I want/need to do. But when all else fails looking at the world through the imagination of a little girl can really change your perspective.