Self-Haircut

It's what the mother of every little girl fears will happen one day... daughter is using scissors properly; Mom leaves her alone for a few minutes; daughter decides to see what else the scissors will cut; Mom returns finding globs of hair on the floor and an entirely new hairdo on daughter.

Amazingly, this is exactly how Laine cut her hair - no improvements by me. It's actually somewhat even and not too terrible looking. Granted, it's the "bowl" cut I never intended to give her, but it could be a lot worse! Anyway, I took her the next day to the haircutter to get it cleaned up a little, but it pretty much looks like she cut it.

Here's a recent picture of her before the haircut, just so you can see how different she looks. Her new cut affected both the appearance of her hair and her age. She looks a lot younger now than she did. Oh well, I guess it'll be short and cool for the summer.

Handwriting

Laine has begun writing her name! It is so amazing to see her work on writing each letter. It might be hard to read, but they are all there. There's even an extra little "n" under the big N for good measure. Watching Laine learning to write is such an amazing process!

Birthday cake

My birthday was this week, and Penny bought me flowers and made a delicious cake for me. It was a fudge-peanut butter layer cake with a thick ganache icing. Yum!

The recipe is from our good friend Barbara, and she was actually in town on my birthday to enjoy the cake with us. What a treat!

Thanks, Penny, for helping make my birthday special. I love you!

Yard work

It has been beautiful outside lately: sunny, 50 degree weather. It makes it hard to stay inside.

Laine's new hobby has been digging in the dirt near our garden boxes and then sweeping up the mess off the bricks. She calls it "planting." Today she took to work in her favorite clothes: ruffly socks, "glass slippers," and all.

Expressions

Mead has recently gotten a lot more expressive. I think she is showing off her two new teeth up top. Her face speaks paragraphs to us.

And she has been giving a big "Hi," whenever she hears someone coming into the room, waving her hands and smiling. You're so cute, Mead!

Dress-up clothes

Between halloween costumes, birthday party favors, and hand-me-downs, we now have an excellent supply of dress-up clothes. Laine loves to dress up, especially when her friends come over.

Check out this amazing outfit she put together when her good friend stopped by this morning! What a beauty!!

Attachment

Laine and Mead have fallen in love with Kelly. Laine has been crazy about Kelly since she moved in. Who wouldn't love having an extra "playmate" around all the time?

But Mead has slowly grown into her fondness for Kelly. Last weekend Kelly went out of town, and when she got back Mead welcomed her with surprising affection and excitement. She continually has been crawling up to Kelly for her to pick her up and spend time with her. How cute!