ten smile tuesday

my goodness...where did time go. when i posted the granola bar recipe i fully intended to come back and post smiles later. clearly that didn't work out! but here i am...chock full of smiles.

1. snowy fun....this was our second playing in the snow adventure this year, and kate was absolutely thrilled! this time elizabeth wore snow pants so she could zip down the slide...and was delighted to literally "fly" off the end of the slide! and, of course, what would snowy fun be without a cup of hot cocoa to finish it off!

2. whole wheat and berry waffles for dinner...

3. heat. seriously...the past week of frigidness reminded me just how grateful i am that God has provided us with a warm house to take shelter in!

4. to fill our chilly days we enjoyed LOTS of coloring...

...and elizabeth amazed mommy with her growing writing skills. we have done lots of practicing tracing, etc. but i haven't really emphasized her writing her name or letters, as she just didn't seem to be there yet. so imagine my surprise when she wrote her name....she had me write each letter to show her, and then on her own paper she'd try it on her own. here is her very first attempt at writing "elizabeth"...if you look closely all of the letters are there....the z doesn't look much like a z, the a is more of a lower case a than uppercase (which is what i had showed her)--the a is the first letter on the lower part, and the t seems to be hanging out on its lonely down below. but seriously...my heart was bursting at the seams to see her accomplish this!

5. ...and then there's kate...our firecracker...our goofy girl. its seems she is picking up more words and more ability to communicate each and every day! her current vocab consists of mama, dada, go-go (mugho), doggy (sounds like dough-gee), shoes (oosh), hi there, bye, more (which is more like MOW!), peas (please), and pat pat (she loves to pat the Bible and other books) among a few others....as well as her budding animal noises...dough-gees say "woof-woof" and she definitely likes to tell us that a sheep says BAAAAA! what a girl!

just in case you are wondering why in the world she is wearing a t-shirt over her PJs...that would be because the lil' stinker has figured out how to take her jammies ALL the way off in the middle of the night (as i discovered one morning when i walked in the nursery to find a diaper clad kate grinning at me over the crib rail!--and yes, i'm quite thankful the diaper was still on!). since the weather was SO frigid (and our poor little heat pump just couldn't keep up...meaning even the inside wasn't overly warm), we decided a t-shirt would do a fabulous job of covering the tempting zipper just in case she had the inkling to strip down in the middle of the night!

6. our blanket fort. when stuck inside and bored one surefire remedy is a blanket fort...after all, EVERYTHING is better in a fort...snuggling up with books, watching a show, playing with blocks, or just getting tickles from daddy!

7. getting out. once it finally warmed up a bit we were all excited to get out of the house for a nice visit to the library...and dinner at chick-fil-a....gotta love their playland for burning energy!

8. an afternoon out. mike's sister, kim, was in town this past weekend, and on sunday afternoon i met up with my m-i-l, her twin sister, and kim for tea downtown. it was a lovely afternoon. (i didn't have my camera, but kim did...so perhaps if she sends a picture i'll add it to the post later)

9. a wonderful fresh encounter prayer service on sunday evening. we weren't planning to go since i was at tea all afternoon, but plans changed, and i'm so glad we ended up going. my heart so needed the worship and fellowship...good times.

10. last but not least...i just love this picture...so i thought i'd include it. kate LOVES her daddy...thats for sure. she had just finished dinner and wanted nothing more than to be in his lap....can you see the little grin on her face. priceless! i'm so thankful for my husband...and my girls are so blessed to call him daddy!