A "Quick" Family Photo

Brian asked if we could take a "quick" family picture that he could send to an old friend. So he set up a tripod (3 chairs stacked up:), and we gathered. It took 3 sessesions, over a period of 2 1/2 hours, and we had well over 50 attempts with the self-timer. Not even one of them turned out normal!! But they are funny...

This is one of the last photos. Lizzy thoroughly informed us that she no longer wanted her photograph taken. The bribery candy was still working a little bit for Faye & Daisy:).

Matching Girls

Faye loves to pick out clothes for her sisters, as well as herself. She will often times ask me if they can "be matchies." It is fun having girls to dress up & do their hair (most of the time:). Brian & I will joke that I do their hair more than I do my own hair.

What's even better than getting my girls dolled up, is that they will actually pose for the camera once they reach a certain age. Lizzie is not that certain age, yet.

Faye & Daisy were more than willing to cooperate.

"Miss Independant," as nicknamed by Great Grandma Payne, would not cooperate. She even pulled one of her little buns out, and was happy about it, too. She's still cute with half wild hair.

Water Babies

Galveston gives us many opportunites to get wet (good & bad:). I pulled out the froggy pool 2 days ago, and it has already provided my girls hours of fun. They just love being wet!

At one point, Daisy was just sitting there in Lizzie's floatie. I didn't know a child could hold still so long without being asleep.

Lizzie is terrified of floaties, or any swimming toy that we own (that's why she doesn't mind Daisy borrowing her float-ring:). Faye, being the loving older sister, wanted Lizzie to have water, so she filled up this pitcher with her frog-water & gave it to Lizzie to play in.

Lizzie making funny faces at me through the glass door.:) Notice the nice, clean, streak-free glass?

Lizzy's First Pillow-Fight

Lizzy had so much fun hitting Daddy with the pillow. She got so excited, she couldn't even stay on her feet, and Brian ended up havening to hold her up so she could hit him. After building her skills on Daddy, Liz decided to go for the camera...

An Historic Day!!

Yesturday, Daisy got a rubber chicken, or "wubba woosta"!! It was a very important day for her (and especially for me:), for she is no longer considered a "little girl." She is now a "big girl," who goes poo-poos in the potty. Yes, Daisy went poo-poos in the potty and stayed dry all day! When the Payne clan was here for Spring Break, Uncle Joseph bought himself a rubber chicken. Daisy really, really wanted one. So we bought one and told her she could have it when she went poo-poos in the toilet.

Potty training Daisy is not something I really stressed over, but I can say "It's about time!!" About a year ago, she was almost completely potty-trained. She perfected the art over the summer, but then an event occured (aka Hurricane Ike), and she no longer would use the potty. Throughout the months, we've encouraged her (with only a couple of threats:), we bought her a Thomas the Train toilet seat, and I even went back to cloth diapers, but she takes her own sweet time with everything, not excluding potty-training. About a week ago, a friend gave me some thick panties, and I called them "training panties." Daisy mistakingly thought I said "train" panties, and has tried very hard not to get her "trains" wet. I can only wonder if the "train" panties would have worked earlier...

Easter Morning

On Easter morning, I watched the sunrise for a few minutes before beginning the mad rush to get ready for church at 9:00. My sweet girls all joined me and we enjoyed the beauty of our own Easter morning. It set a very peaceful & appropriate mood for the special day. I am so grateful for my Savior & for his strict obedience to our Father in Heaven to be able to Atone for my sins. Elder Holland's talk was so powerful during General Conference--I love how he is able to describe & express the life of our Savior and how important & central the Atonement is for each and every one of us. He shared a very powerful testimony of our Savior. I love having the privilage to learn from inspired leaders, and I love the Gospel in my life!

Easter

On Saturday, we had a ward Easter breakfast & egg hunt. Brian was on-call this weekend (he even missed church:(, so he wasn't able to go, but us girls sure had fun with our friends from church. I was just planning on having the ward party do the egg hunt for me this year, but the girls didn't get very many eggs, so I broke down & boiled eggs & we colored them on Saturday after the ward activity. Then Sunday morning the Easter bunny came to hide our eggs for us...

Lizzy got her first egg & broke it open (it was plastic:). To her delight, out spilled a bunch of jelly beans. She was a very focused hunter, when it came to hunting jelly beans. I'm not sure she even went for a second egg.

Daisy sure had fun finding those eggs. Unfortunately, our "yard" was a tad too small for the Easter bunny to hide all our eggs on it, so he also used our living room to hide eggs.

Faye, showing off the end result of her egg hunt. She was sure excited about the whole thing. It was fun to watch her excitement & curiousity of the Easter egg hunt.

Happy girls with lots of sugary loot!

Bug Bites

After bath-time, we do scripture power. As I went to get the scriptures and finished cleaning up, Brian wanted to help me out by getting the girls' pajamas on. Daisy escaped when she was half dressed, and Brian just began dressing the next girl. A few seconds later we both paused from our tasks to observe that Daisy had learned a tip from Baloo, the bear...

Rainy Day

It took Lizzy a little while to overcome being camera-shy, but she does perform--just be patient. She probably "talked to the rain" for about 15 minutes (and it took me about that long to think to get the camera out). It sure can rain in Galveston.

It's a Circle, Mommy!!

Faye was the first to give me a birthday present--a circle!! Yes, Faye had an accident during the night, or morning-I am unsure. When I took the blankets off, Faye and Daisy both exclaimed, "Look, It's a Circle, Mommy!!" Daisy was so excited she was jumping & shouting "A Circle, a Circle!!" After the excitement had settled and Faye had a few seconds to ponder, she curiously asked me, "How does it do that and make a circle, Mommy?" What do you say to that? I then explained that when you dump water into one spot, it evenly spreads out, bigger & bigger the more water you have. She seemed satisfied, but you never know what's going on "inside" her head:).