My Girls

That's still fun to say..."my girls".  It seemed like it took forever to get both of my beautiful girls in my arms but now I can't imagine life without both of them.  We fit together beautifully!  Things are definitely not perfect and they won't be.  But I love watching the girls adapt and become better and better friends everyday.  And I love thinking back on the events and conversations at the end of each day and just reveling in our progress as a family.   

Ava and Ella are enjoying spending time together the last couple of days and are playing together more.  Ella desperately wants to be like her big sister and copies pretty much every thing she does.  Most of the time this goes over well with Ava.  Ava is enjoying teaching her little sister the rules of the house; I'm enjoying having some help with this as well.  My Ava is a rule follower.  So far my feeling is that Ella is more of a rule breaker ;)  Ava is working with Ella to teach her how to pick up and put her toys back where they belong.  Ella likes to follow her sister but also likes to see how far she push things to get a laugh out of us.  

Ella is having far less issues with hitting and scratching.  She is maybe scratching once a day, but even that seems like a high estimate.  Ella is definitely a quick learner and even though she likes to push the rules she knows what most of the rules are.  Ella is feeling more and more comfortable everyday with us as well as her surroundings.  She is comfortable to walk around the house and play independently. But also comes to find one of us if she wants company.  She's getting much better about going to different parts of the house; although getting her outside can still require some tears on her part but even that is reducing.  Today was the first time that there were no tears when we put her in her car seat.  In fact there were smiles and giggles!!  That's huge progress!   Another huge bit of progress is that Ella is feeling comfortable going to both Matt and I.  Before this week she would typically decide which parent she wanted for the day first thing in the morning and it was typically dependent on which parent told her "no" first.  Then she would attach to the other parent for the day all while giving the "no" parent dirty looks :)  So the fact that she is learning to hear "no" and still go to both parents throughout the day is big!!  And in the grand scheme of time, did not take that long.

Ava swings back and forth between loving being a big sister and not having any patience for it.  Ava is still having tears on a daily basis due to lots of different situations but all in all it just boils down to the fact that she is dealing with a lot of changes.  She will even tell us that being a big sister is hard.  Yes it is my sweetheart, especially when you are thrown into being the big sister of a 2 year old!!  Matt and I are working hard to give Ava her own big girl space.  Today we worked on rearranging her room so that we could have room to set up her new train set in her room and have room for her new barbies on her shelves.  This will allow Ava to shut her door and have some alone time when she needs it.   Ava also started daycare today.  She only went for a few hours to ease into it again.  She didn't want to go at first but was all smiles and stories when we picked her up.  I think the routine and having her own thing will help to normalize everything going on.   Ava is having a blast teaching Ella things though.  I hear her tell Ella often, do this or that and then they laugh.  Joy!!  I love hearing them laugh together!!

We are so blessed already by the 2 most beautiful, sweet, joyful, spirited girls.  I cannot wait to see where the future takes us...I just hope that it doesn't take us too fast!  We want to enjoy these moments.