Wren turns 2

Wren! It's a super late, but very photo-heavy summary of your second birthday. I hope that someday you will treasure these photos. I already see a couple family classics as I glance through all the pictures of your adorable face.

For your second birthday we decided to have a shin-dig with all of your favorite things (brought to you by the number 2) You invited 2 friends, Della and Theo, Dad made you a cake with a sprinkle number 2 on top, there were balloons and sweet treats and you were in heaven.

This photo is a great representation of you at two years old. I dressed you in your party outfit, but you felt it was lacking something. Of course you added a skirt - rarely are you without one these days. The picture below shows your temporary tattoo. You and Ellie are really into those right now. Once you learned where the gummy bears were you just helped yourself (though you hadn't nearly the appetite for sweets that Theo displayed). There were also blueberries on the menu and those are always a hit with you.

Silly girl, I'm glad to see your love of cake has not diminished since last year. You still take cake eating very seriously. In fact, you take all eating very seriously. I love how much you love to eat.

You really understood presents this year, and in true two year old fashion, greeted every gift with a resounding, "Present! Mine!" It was fun to watch you get excited over your favorite gifts - the puzzles that Dad and I got you and the mouse puppet from Great Grandma.

Wren, you are such a delightful little girl! I still call you my baby, though it is clear to everyone else that you are growing so much each day. The photos below really capture the magic that is you at this age. You have stolen Pink Kitty from Ellie and sleep with it every night. You are an absolute bookworm and love to be read to. But you also like to slip away to your room throughout the day to read stacks of books by yourself. You are the girliest of my girls - insisting on fancy skirts and dresses and "helping" me with my make-up. You still give the sweetest hugs and kisses in the world, you can draw circles and you have amazing balance on our indoor swing. You also love band-aids and nail polish and watching Curious George. You remind me a bit of that adorable monkey, with all of your chattering and antics. Your singing voice is about the cutest thing in the world - second only to your amazing dance moves. Seriously girl, you really cut a rug.

I love how you can sign "I love you," but still struggle to show me two fingers when I ask how old you are. At least you've stopped introducing yourself as Ellie and telling everyone you're three - that was really confusing for people.

I'm so glad that you have taken a liking to the animal figurines in the bowl. Dad was accusing me of collecting them for myself (which is only halfway true). I had hopes they'd become the classic toys of your childhood.

This view from behind epitomizes your toddlerhood to me. This is how I always find you: sitting cross-legged, working intently on a project. I love your passion and your humor. I love your gaped-tooth smile and the single freckle on your forehead. I love the sweet way you hold my hand and the total adorable-ness that is you in your winter hat.

You are magic, Wren-dear, and I hope you always know that. Love, Mom.

Ellie turns 4

Well, Eleanor, you did it! You turned four years old. We had such a fun time on your birthday I just thought I'd jot down a few details so we can remember them together in years to come. Look at that birthday cake! Your dad always claims cake making duty and this year we had conflicting visions about the cowgirl cake. I wanted a cheerful looking corral scene and he preferred the drama of a hopeless quagmire. We compromised and it was delicious of course.

You are soooo into cowboy things right now. Toy Story is your favorite movie and you love to wear your jeans, "cowgirl" shirt and boots every chance you get. So this theme seemed perfect for a fourth birthday party.

You had friends from church and school, plus two of your favorite babysitters (Caitlin and Lara) in attendance. We all munched on chips and salsa, fruit and pigs in a blanket.

Jessie was easily the favorite gift you received - thanks Marshall family! As I write this, two months after the fact, she continues to be your preferred companion everywhere you go. You also loved the piggy bank we gave you, the real cowgirl hat, and the stuffed horse you received. You insist on wearing the horseshoe necklace Lara gifted you every day - we've finally convinced you not to sleep with it at night. And while the gifts were very exciting, I think the highlight of everyone's party experience was that crazy pinata.

The thing seriously would not break! Even after every kid had a chance at it. We gave you and Ella (your friend with most damaging swing) two chances at it - barely a dent. Finally, the hook just came out of the ceiling and the pinata fell intact to the floor. You gave it a couple good whacks, but your heart wasn't in it. I mean, who wants to beat a dead horse? So Dad and I pulled it apart in a tug of war and all the kids collected the prizes. 

I always want to remember the way you rushed in - so excited for candy. Immediately you grabbed a pink bouncy ball and took a sizable and disappointing bite out of it. I was laughing so hard! Everyone left with stickers, tattoos, candy and erasers.

It was a very fun party for a fun-loving girl. I'm so glad we could celebrate this day together.

I love you so much, little darlin'.

Fashion Friday - 2012 retrospective

Ellie says, in 2012, matching outfits were in.

According to Wren, bows were out.

For Christmas, I wanted to get a couple nice portraits of the girls. You know, something they could look back on in 30 years and cherish. I was really aiming for a classic one of the sisters together. And since I'm a photographer I thought, "No problem. I'll shoot these myself and it will be great. Who needs JC Penny or other lame photo services? Not me. I'll get loads of pictures like these":

But when it came to the photo of the two of them together, they were...less than cooperative. 10 minutes into it and I would have paid big bucks for a cheesy background and a stuffed animal above the tripod to get those girls to look in the same direction. Joe was the stylist/wrangler for this shoot and he gave the girls a good talking to about our expectations for their modeling.

I don't think they took him very seriously.

So instead of a single photo of the two of them looking at the camera and smiling,

what I got was a whole lot of outtakes.

Those girls. They have more spunk than they know what to do with.

And we love them for it.

OK, sometimes in spite of it.

Sending Thumb Love

I don't know if we'll ever send Christmas cards again. With the births of two girls and one member of the Godhead to commemorate, December is too crazy for me to think about sending cards to loved ones. Valentine's Day, though - I could really go for some crafting to break of the monotony of February. So this year I made some cards (with the help of Ellie's thumb) for some family members.

Pretty great, right? Seriously, I don't think I accomplished a single thing of real value in the month of January, so this kind of concerted effort has got me feeling mighty impressed with myself. I just love the idea of handcrafting a special note to the people who mean the most to me - sending a little love through the mail. I like this idea so much, I just might solidify it as Hardie Family Tradition.

Originally the idea was to make a little portrait of our family on the front of each card, but sometimes Ellie went rogue with her thumb printing responsibilities and I was left to improvise. Poor Wren always got the short end of the stick with this arrangement.

Here she is as a buck-toothed toddler boy.

And here she is again - our little slug baby.

Funny renditions of Wren aside, though, the real beauty of Valentine's Cards are witty puns.

True genius struck me after 8pm when I found a rubber stamp of a maple leaf in my craft drawer. That's right, I can't leaf without you. Ba-haha! Surely there's an arborist society somewhere that will hire me to make Valentines fundraising cards.

Get crafting, friends - nothing brings out the Valentine's spirit like glue sticks and paper doilies.

Christmas Magic

In case you were wondering, February first is a perfectly appropriate day write about Christmas memories.

This Christmas was very low key for our family. Low pressure - just what we needed. It was quiet and simple, but still filled with the right kind of magic. There are a few scattered memories I want to preserve about our Christmas in 2012.

Thinking back on December, it was so great to have Joe home from school and to have days and days on end to spend as a family. That was easily the best part of this holiday - having so much unstructured time to be together.

Our big adventure this year was an outing to the Dicken's Festival in Skaneateles, NY. It was freezing that day! Snow was blowing across the fields and covering the roads. We almost got stuck in a drift on our way out to this tiny town on one of the finger lakes. But we made it, and we were not disappointed. (Well, I was a little disappointed but I tend to have suuuuper high expectations) The Cratchit family was there, as well as Father Christmas, and a large band of cheerful carolers. We froze our butts off, but it was still charming and fun.

Although Ellie was not wearing her snow gear, she insisted on playing in the giant drifts on the sidewalk before we got in the car. Against my better judgement, I caved and let her go for it.

It was all fun and games until somebody realized how freezing it was. Then we had to listen to her complaints for a good while on the way home.

I treasure the nights we spent cuddled up, watching Christmas movies and sipping hot chocolate. One night we went driving to see Christmas lights - and I fell in love with the candles in the window and wreaths on the door. Holiday decor up here is fairly understated - but so very classic. Ellie's voice was drifting from the back seat as she showed us how well she's learned to sing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. At first I was disappointed that I hadn't prepared cocoa to pass around, that I hadn't made this adventure as picture perfect as I had wanted it to be. But then I realized that perfect is not what we need. Good enough is what we need. Time together. Simple traditions that don't photograph well or make great blog posts. Things we do just to have fun and smile together. That was the lesson I took away from this Christmas: to just be. And to let that be enough.

Joe hosted a party for making gingerbread houses.

Many nights we cut snowflakes together, and Ellie proudly hung them all over the tree.

We finally had the most awesome gift at a white elephant party.

Christmas Eve was spent with some new friends in our ward, and the children's excitement was contagious to every parent there.

Ellie told everyone that Santa was going to bring her a pink kitty and a pink leash.

And on our trip down to NYC we got to see the big man in the flesh. Macy's Santa Land was better than we had expected, and so were our girls' reactions to that jolly old elf.

Ellie and Santa - best friends forever. Such a big difference from last year's reaction.

I love how Eleanor is looking up to the heavens in this photo. At some point during December, she started praying to Santa. We tried to correct her, but it can be pretty confusing. Two loving, all knowing mystical men who give you things you ask for. How do you tell them apart? So we just let it slide for a bit and she seemed to forget about Santa-God once the holiday hype was over.

I for one, will not forget the simple joys of this year's holiday. We had the love of our small family and the company of friends old and new. It was a perfectly imperfect, quiet, magical Christmas.