A Week of My Daughters

Lately, Ruthie has been asking for a turn in "hair shoppe", as we call the time when I do all the girls' hair in the morning. She patiently waits her turn (usually she is patient; on mornings she is not, she screams about it and whaps her sisters on the head with a hairbrush), then crawls on to my lap, and sits nicely while I brush her hair (really, just smooth out her baby-fine wispy hair with a brush).  She also loves to brush other peoples' hair, but the kids have learned to run when they see Ruthie coming at them with a hairbrush in hand.  Gentle she is not, and it's not so much brushing as it is hitting. 

Anyway, last week for church, after I "brushed" her hair, I decided to slip on a cute, matching barrette into her hair.  We've (her sisters and I) have tried to put barrettes or clips in her hair before but she always takes them right out.  This time, I was able to distract her with a jack-in-the-box toy so that she quickly forgot about the barrette.  In fact, she kept it in all the way to church and halfway through the service.  Progress! (and I think the longest any one of my girls that age has kept in a hair accessory).

She isn't as unhappy as she looks.  She was annoyed with me that I was taking her picture instead of putting Jack back into his box for her (which I did immediately after I took this picture). 

Mari has this pair of pants that she really likes but are slightly too big in the waist and they have no functional belt loops.  So she tried Sophia's rainbow suspenders.  Do you think this would be a good outfit to wear to her cousin Nate's basketball game next week? (Nate plays for Denver University).

Can you guess what the girls are stopping to smell?

The Valentine's Day roses from their Daddy to them, of course!  I tried to get a nice picture of them with their flowers, like I try to every year (Eric has bought his little girls Valentine flowers every year since Mari can remember).  I didn't get the nice one I was going for, so I'm posting all the outtakes instead.  I think they are pretty cute anyway, especially the progression of Lydia's expressions.

Ruthie has become a lot more animated in these past two weeks.  Her language is exploding and she is doing things like imitating Daddy's actions during verse time, saying "I do!" and raising her hand along with the other kids when I ask something like "Who wants raisins in their oatmeal?", and joining us during our group dance parties.  It is so adorable to see her try to dance and sing with us.  I know a video would be best, but for now, this is a photo I took of her swaying and singing her own little song.

 

She seems to love best when we belt out "Ruthie Joy to the World".

The older two girls love to pick out clothes for the younger two girls.  I was really impressed when the they chose this outfit for Lydia (none of these clothes came together as an outfit).  It was doubly fun for Lydi who claims orange as her favorite color.

She even kept her pigtails in almost the whole day.  Isn't she sweet?  Surely this darling little girl would never dream of doing something like, oh, I don't know...coloring all over herself with markers in the short time it takes her mother to switch a load of laundry, right? 

Right.

"But, Mama, I wanted to be orange!"  And apparently yellow and purple. 

All four of my girls are so different, yet have so much in common.  Thank You, Jesus, for each one of them!