A Convincing Argument

This morning Ladybug asked if she could watch "Dora de Esplorla".

"No, not this time," I said.

"But I have a picture of Dora de Esplorla on my shirt.  I just have to watch her!" said she.

And there she currently sits, in all her Dora pajama glory, happily watching "de Esplorla" video.  I couldn't help it.  I think it was the logic.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

If you are friends with me on facebook you will probably have already seen these pictures, but I can think of no better way than to tell our recent story than this.

{pretty}

Pretty are these two wonderful girls who gave up ten days of their summer to roast in Arizona with us.  So we took them to the beach in San Diego, which is also very pretty.  But it can't compare to who our nieces are growing up to be.  Pretty inside and out.

{happy}

My little Sunflower was one happy baby the first day at the beach.  She couldn't get enough of the sand and wanted nothing more than to roll around in it as much as possible.  Of course it was cold and she was wet and sandy, which later did not lend to a happy baby, but we'll not talk about that part.  :)

{funny}

Dan and our older niece worked very hard on these giant shoes and basketball.  While I worked to keep the little girls warm and happy.  And of course what is a beach trip without burying someone in the sand?  Fritter is really a very good sport.

 He's working hard to fill the shoes set out for him.

 {real}

After family leaves, and I get that left behind feeling, I realize there is really nothing more real than family.  We are in between visitors now, and peeling the rind off of the house has been...real, but it's so worth it.  We are really going to miss these girls.

Stacks

Fritter loves to draw.  Everyday after rest time he picks up his trusty markers, gets 100 a few pieces of construction paper and goes to town.  The drawings range from genius to adorable to questionable.  Anything from the solar system (specifically Jupiter), to dinosaurs, to cockroaches, to the inside of the human body.  If he thinks it, he draws it.  It is a quality I have encouraged and one that I mostly enjoy.

There is one problem though.  I never know what to do with it all.  I have a stack of about 20 pictures waiting to go on top of the much larger stack in my room, and they in turn are waiting for a bulletin board to be pinned to that they will never fit on.  And the current pictures waiting placement?  Those are just from yesterday and today.

I have thought of spiral bound drawing notebooks, but he would complete one of those in about a week.  And yes, I do make him use both sides of the paper.  I'm currently thinking of sorting the pictures into genres and stapling to make books.  I do occasionally go through them all and throw some out, but I can't keep up.  Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

I realize this is a good problem to have.  We are blessed to be able to provide him with all the drawing materials he needs (that is until we run out of construction paper :).  And it's fun to be able to actually see what goes on in his complex little head.

But I'm curious.  Do you have this problem?  Have you found a solution?

Imported

We have been having a wonderful visit with our nieces from Georgia this past week.  I can't tell you how fun it has been to have teenagers in the house.  Two of them.  They bake cookies!  They play with my children!  I went to the grocery store by. my. self!  Best of all they are really great girls and so fun to be around. 

Dan took Friday and Monday off, so this past weekend we all drove out to San Diego.  SO fun.  We were hosted by a great family that basically adopted us while we were there. 

They are here until Saturday morning, and it's going to be really hard to see them go.  It's been two years since last we saw them, and I'm not sure when the next time we'll see them.  Until then, we are staying in the present moment and enjoying every bit of it.