Being thankful for the little moments...

I love being a Mom! There are, of course, moments I do not enjoy (such as when Karlie doesn't stop asking the same question for the 100th time or when Abbi wakes me up at night over and over again or when Karis insists on driving her sister crazy with her singing), but I accept those moments as part of my job and usually can manage to laugh at them later. Most days, I also have moments of bliss (I call them Mommy moments) when I manage to step back out of the craziness and my heart swells with joy and thankfulness. I decided that I really wanted to remember those precious moments so beginning with the new year, I started writing down my favorite memory of the day right before bed each night. It is usually not anything spectacular... just something simple that made me smile. I thought I would share a few of my favorite moments from the first week of the year with some pictures we took the same week:

1. Watching Karis help Abbi walk -- Karis loves to hold Abbi's hands and help her walk. She isn't very good at it and often pulls her down, but she is so sweet in her excitement about Abbi walking and Abbi just loves the attention and usually just laughs hysterically when they fall down together.
2. Karlie getting excited about feeding Abbi -- I usually just put all of Abbi's food on her tray and let her feed herself, but Karlie seems to get the biggest kick out of helping Abbi. I cannot tell you how excited she gets when I let her give Abbi food and it is so cute!

3. Karis holding her pencil correctly -- We haven't done a lot of handwriting in our homeschool yet because Karis was stubbornly uninterested. She loved dot-to-dots and mazes, but the minute I tried to teach her how to write letters and help her fix her fingers for handwriting, she would get irritated. I decided to wait until she was more interested and we tried again after Christmas. She is now very proud of herself and allowing me to help her hold her pencil correctly!

4. Doing "alphabet movement" with my girls whenever the weather isn't fit for outside time -- I printed out the fun cards and my girls have to choose the next one in alphabetical order. They think the exercises are hilarious and we laugh the entire time. So much fun!

5. In basketball class on Saturday, I suddenly realized that Karis had her arm around Karlie while they waited in line for their turn to pass the ball to the rhino. It was ever so sweet and also a bit funny to watch them try to move up in line together. I love seeing them be affectionate with each other :)

6. Smores in the backyard with my Mark and my girls. The girls LOVE it when we build a fire and were just ever so excited and happy.

7. Listening to Karis and Karlie make up songs about Mary and baby Jesus in the backseat of the van.