A post so full of sweetness your teeth will ache afterwards

Today will be photo overload. Proceed with caution. Or not.

My amazing friend Lindy sent home some dresses for our girls. Big deal, huh? Welllllll, they aren't just any dresses! They are dresses made from KIKOIS! And, let me tell you. Have mercy at the cuteness you are about to witness. It's almost more than I can handle.

The good news is that Lindy also sent back a TRUNKLOAD of stuff (along with lots and lots of kikois) all hand made in Kenya. I'm helping with a big fundraiser in early October and once that's over I'll open the Kenyan goodies up to you, here on my blog. I'm telling you, this stuff is AWESOME. Save up your dollars now ladies. Save 'em up.

And yes, I KNOW I'm going to overuse CAPS and italics in this post. But seriously. If you think the caps are loud and the italics are over the top YOU SHOULD BE INSIDE MY HEAD.

On with the photos. I'm posting so many because I promised Lindy good pictures of the girls in their dresses and do you know how stinkin' hard it is to get a good photo of a 6 year old, a 4 year old, a 2 year old and 4 month old?

Impossible, I think.

Here's the best only one I got of all 4 of them where someone didn't have their eyes closed and Ella wasn't trying to eat her dress or Elizabeth's. And this one is good. Even though Ella is clearly more enamored with her oldest brother than me by this point.

Oh my word at the sweetness. I seriously wanna just squeeze them all until they scream. But then I'd regret it because can I just tell you how dramatic a certain 2 of my girls are. Especially those two on the left.

Their wails can make my ears bleed.

Of course, Ashlee is a baby hog, so the first chance she got to sit up by Ella and "read" to her, she did. I love how it looks like Ella is reading along with her.


But that baby hogging and sweetness was short lived because approximately 37 seconds after that photos was taken, I snapped this one.


That girl LOVES her bike. Which is hysterical because this time last year she would only walk beside it and push it. Except she thought she was riding it because when I would ask her, "Ashlee, don't you want to ride?" She'd exclaim, "I am!"

Riiiight. Except you're not.

Elizabeth is OBSESSED with our neighbor's cats. We've told her she can only pet them when our neighbors are outside and, clearly, her ear is finely tuned to the sound of our neighbor's door opening. When they are not outside, she stands just inside our yard and stares at them, like this.

Well, not exactly like that because, you know, she's looking at me in that one. But you get the idea.

And this little girl. Well, I just wanna scoop her up and eat her. I mean, when she's not busy being dramatic which is apparently her new hobby. Ashlee has officially been dethroned as Drama Queen. Queen Olivia has recrowned Ashlee but a mere princess of all things drama. I think explosive drama must come in small packages, don't you?

Good thing she's cute.

And this girl, well, I'm still adjusting to the fact that she SIX. And while I'm adjusting to her new age, she's already begun telling me stories about "Back when I was 5 years old." Yeah. That was just 2 days ago. Slow down, missy.

In this next series of photos I'd like for you to take special notice of each of the big girls' agendas. I told them to "model." Apparently, modeling to Ashlee means work.it.girl. While modeling to Elizabeth means make-sure-Olivia-is-in-the-photo-nomatter-how-many-times-your-Mom-says-to-put-her-down.

Seriously, scroll down and watch them independently. Wow. Just...wow.








Clearly my off handed instruction of "put your hand on your hip or something" was taken seriously by Ashlee. Work it sassy. Work.it.

The next one is great of the older two and I thought Olivia would be a modeling whiz too except that she decided at the last second to bend over behind her sister which makes it look like Elizabeth has the lowest kneecap known to man.

Then I started losing them so naturally we had to do a shot of "Crazy face!"

I don't know what Ashlee is raising her hand for in this photo. Maybe she thought I said "Who wants more drama?" when I clearly said, "Who can look at Momma?"

Oh well. At least I finally got Olivia in there with the older two. Even though she decided it was time for a serenade. Did I mention she sings a lot? And by a lot I mean anytime she's awake.

This is Ashlee, mid camera click leaning forward to ask, "Can I see that one? I wanna see it!"

And, showing Elizabeth some birthday love.

Clearly, never a dull moment around here. Which is fine with me, because I love it that way.

Now, who wants to buy a kikoi and make their little girl a dress just like these? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?