Around the House

January was quiet around here.  We didn't do anything exciting.  The first part of the month was spent recovering from our trip to Florida, and being sick.  I did spend my gift cards, though, which actually is exciting.  For me.

You see, I asked for Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards for Christmas, because I've been coveting my friend's Shark steam mop ever since she got it last year, and I always have a ton of 20%-off-any-item BB&B coupons.  Not only did I get enough in gift cards to get myself a mop, but I had enough to get the handheld steamer too!  And, bonus, my mop is green.  I love, love, love my steam mop!!  The hand held one is a little unwieldy, so it isn't quite as awesome as I'd hoped, but the mop is amazing.  Do you see how clean my floors are? Who thought I'd ever get so excited over a mop?  Thank you to my benefactors!

I've also been working more on getting things put together for the girls' birthdays.  The decorations from Elora's first birthday weren't where I thought they'd be, so I had to go exploring in my spare room closet to track them down.  I did eventually find them, but before I did, I found these:

They were in a box full of childhood keepsakes.  I'm pretty sure they're hand made, but since my mom doesn't even remember where they came from, I couldn't begin to tell you.  I do know that they hung in my room for as far back as I can remember, when I was a little girl.  They're a bit faded now, and the big purple one has a tear at the top of one wing, but still pretty. 

 Now they hang in my daughters' room.  When Elora saw them all up on the wall, her face lit up and she gasped and covered her mouth and said, "Butterflies!  Oh, mama, they're so pretty!"  (Just so you can really hear it in your head, you should know that she shrieked a bit on the "pretty" part.)  I love that my girls can enjoy things from my childhood, like the butterflies and the poster that Sara and I colored in high school, and the table that my grandfather made (all of which can be seen in the above photo).  It makes my heart happy.

The girls have spent a lot of time on Skype recently, mostly with their Gigi.  They sing songs and tell stories and talk about all sorts of crazy things.  Elora loves it!  And of course Kaylie wants to be in the middle of whatever her sister is doing, though I had to stop putting her in the chair like that once she figured out that she could crawl onto my desk.

Kaylie is getting close to walking independently.

What is the fascination with toilet paper?

I have no idea how she got into that box with out flipping it, but she's done it more than once.  They certainly do keep me on my toes.  And once Kaylie gets to walking??  Yikes!!