By the time Landon got home from his morning run, I had most of our stuff packed for the beach.
Quinn was packed, too...
Check out this ensemble. Quinn is known in the neighborhood as the bag lady because she often carries all of this stuff with her. Here, an easter basket, a baby, a dog purse, a stroller...
I heard Landon telling someone that she comes by this legitimately because this is how I look every morning when I exit the house - lunch boxes, work bag, nap blankets, breakfast, preferred toys for car, cup of Joe...
Quinn DOES have cute PJs, I promise, but with her wanting-to-dress-myself for bed trend is her and-I'll-choose-my-clothes-trend. We fight the trend in the morning for school; we're not crazy enough to fight the trend for bedtime.
Notice the headband? She's been doing this a lot lately.
April 5, 2014
If you ever need a picture of something that makes me happy, the pic above is it. Or any of the pics below. So happy.
Quinn has been carrying this Target babydoll from 2 years ago everywhere this month. We constantly hear, "My Baby". Just last weekend, we were all in the car after church running some errands. Quinn had been quiet for a really long time - we were even doing a regular subtle glance to see if she was asleep. Out-of-the-blue, unprovoked, we heard a demanding, "No. My baby".
In fact, she says it so much that now when she reaches for something, anything, she also says, "My baby".
I worried the beach would ruin the doll. Landon reminded me that he counted 16 similar babydolls in our house that could be put in this dress and she'd never know the difference. Fact.
The whole time we were at the beach we kept commenting on how easy this beach phase is. Both girls are scared of the waves right now, so they wouldn't even think of running in. The beach is empty this time of year, so they'd have to wander really far for us to lose track of them. Neither needs to constantly potty or have a diaper change. And they basically eat the same foods we eat, so packing for the beach was like packing for us to go in the old pre-kid days, except for the big bag of castle-building equipment we hauled. OF COURSE we're starting all over in August, so another 2 years of sand-eating eye-rubbing puff-packing beach days.
Landon was doing some push-ups; everyone joined in for a push-up session (he'd remind me to tell you he has better form than this - this was completely a break for a push-up lesson).
I love that Quinn decided to lose her arms on this one. Why not?
Ah, poor Quinny. Eat my dust!
Some beach flops.
We were a little surprised - neither of us realized she had gotten so good at this.
Quinn had to give flopping a try to; it usually just involved standing with her hands up in the air and thinking about flopping.
The girls were watching a little girl their age playing alone with her Mommy two blankets over. Cora kept asking that we ask her if she wanted to come play; we insisted that she go ask. She of course enlisted the help of Quinn. The rest of the day consisted of play with Lucy, age 3.
It's the first weekend in April. I promise we sunscreen our children; this particular morning in April, both were wearing SPF 50. Still, they turn golden brown. Our little coppertone babies.
Cora has been practicing the splits. I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be able to hold off on ballet or gymnastics class. She pretends like she's on her way to dance class all of the time... I'd like to wait until Quinn is old enough to enroll with her. We'll see.
We came home. Quinn napped. Cora and I made invites for the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, then went for a bikeride to distribute the invites. I came back to find Quinn asleep on the driveway like this. She woke, so Daddy brought her out to cuddle in a chair. She got hot and laid herself on this blanket, snoozing for another hour. Our sweet Quinn.
