New Years Big Girls

Look at this guy! First time in the grocery cart (because his sister wasn't with us hogging the seat, leaving him to ride in the ergo)...

And his latest fascination... eating cups (yes, they are bpa free!)... and Cheerios...

Abby & Ford's cousins, Gab and Liv, came for a visit and we all enjoyed ourselves so much. Have you ever seen cuter twins in all of your life? And Faith! The sweetest dog to ever steal Red's stuffed toy. We love her for it.

Usually when we have company and Abby heads off to swing, I've got one eye on them at all times. Gab and Liv are so responsible, so communicative, so helpful... I sent them off to the swingset together with hardly a second thought. I honestly could've gone and taken a bath. Or flown to Hawaii. And they would've been fine. Every few minutes, we'd glance outside, seeing that they were fine and go right back to gabbing away about something very important (like what we were going to fix for dinner, which is about all I can talk about from 3pm on...).
They had lunch in the top part of the swing set :

Wore themselves out finger painting...

And we even saw some floats up close for the Rose Bowl Parade. This was taken at around 8:30 pm...after a full day with the big girls. Abby was beat.

And this is perhaps one of my new favorite pictures. Abby with her cousins. She's becoming quite the big girl.

551. Abby being old enough to play with the big girls

552. knowing how to pray

553. cry-free nap time

554. the hope of a future out of town trip