**giveaway still open in post below!!**

 

she slays me. always has. 

with her big heart, big words,big personality,big brown eyes.

she pays so much attention to how others are feeling, and this makes me so happy.

four year olds are, by definition, pretty egocentric. but she is actually very in tune with the way people around her are feeling.

she slays me with the things she says.

right now she calls  bikinis “zucchinis”. and says “nusually” instead of usually. and headbands “husbands”.

but everything else she pretty much says the right way. when did that happen?

she is tenacious.stubborn. long-winded,spazzy. she sings constantly, talks incessantly.

she is doing really well in school, reading, writing…and we found out this week that she got into a school for kindergarten that we REALLY wanted her to attend.we’ve been praying and praying that we’d make the best choice for her…and the lottery was already drawn a month ago and we weren’t picked. got a call friday that we were chosen off the wait list…we are so excited for her.

she is playing around with the idea of not listening to us, and making sassy faces. but she regrets it the instant she does it and apologizes immediately.

ahem* sounds like her mama. speaking before she thinks and all that.

 

she slays me. always has.

with her wild hair, wild eyes, wild sound effects, wild heart.

she thinks she’s all tough but the moment she gets scared, or hurt, or feels bad, her bottom lip wobbles

just like it has since she was a newborn

and then her face does the full-fledged crumble and she wants me to hold her.

she slays me with the things she does.

like the time jimmy told her to whisper something in my ear and she misunderstood and walked up to me and slapped me right across the face.

she felt SO bad. and jimmy couldn’t stop laughing.

he said i had the same look on my face that i did when she was a baby and slapped me across the face with the bacon packet in the grocery store.

she slays me with the things she says.

she calls the babies “shes”.

as in “i put a binkies in she’s mouth”.

she is quick tempered, athletic, loud, rough,smart. maybe too smart for her own good. she’s a comedian.

she’s such a nurturer. always wanting to hold or feed a baby. having to be reminded that even though she loves the babies, she has to be GENTLE with them!

she is independent, tall, taciturn.

 

reading this, i have to say i’m loving watching my girls grow into such individuals. it’s the coolest thing to observe their similarities+differences.

i so look forward to learning things like this about the littles.

right now they slay me with their big crazy eyes and fat rolls. but i can’t wait to see their little personalities emerge.

 

love my girls.

happy wednesday, y’all!

xo

s

 

i thought i’d talk a little bit about life with cate+lucy.

cate left, lucy right

the twin life if you will.

we are having so much fun. i knew it would be fun. i knew it would be nuts. i knew i would be tired.

but i didn’t know how AMAZING it would be.

lucy left, cate right

i also didn’t know how many people stop and comment or point as they encounter us.

i LOVE that part. i’m a total people person and i love when people ask questions about my girls or want to say hi.

it’s funny b/c i know so many people who have twins, but it’s still definitely something that people find really miraculous and crazy when they meet you.

it makes me laugh to listen when we walk by groups of people. oh look! TWINS! or, are there TWO? look there are TWO!!!

hahahaha. it makes me giggle.

we still get plenty of odd comments, but i’ve found the perfect answer.

to the guy that told me he’d “kill himself” if he was me, a big old smile and “why???” totally did the trick. i’ve never seen someone hem and haw so much.

the “why smile” also works for “oh poor you”, etc. it’s genius i tell you.

they are looking SO much more alike as the days pass.

especially since lucy has started losing her hair and cate has gained more fuzz.

lucy left, cate right

they both eat really well, smile lots, are very active,

and sleep through the night.

they both stretch the same way, sneeze at the same time, need to be burped around the same time, laugh the same, etc.

but they are VERY different in some ways.

cate is tenderhearted and a bit of a crybaby. she cries at the drop of a hat about the silliest things.

lucy left,cate right

the funniest part is, she often gets lucy going too. lalalalala, lucy will be just fine and then BOOM cate starts crying,

so lucy gets the “sad face crumble” too and starts bawling.

cate is not much for snuggling, and lucy is a snugglebug.

lucy sleeps longer and harder than cate.

cate’s the squawker, and lucy is more chill.

and clearly??

lucy is the one with the more chub.

cate left, lucy right

hahahahahahah! she’s got thighs for days. and looks like a sumo baby in this picture.

i love fat babies. they=happy babies.

i’m doing great.

having the babies on the exact same schedule really works.

i’ve come to realize that though i feel like i’ve got it all covered, lots of little things get forgotten.

luckily, they are things that aren’t crucial or important.

i laughed yesterday b/c i realized that all my words with friends games had expired. i also realized that i had to water the bouganvillea STAT. texts rarely get returned, and FB messages never ever get returned.

somethings got to go and those are the things that go. i figure if i keep forgetting about them, they can’t be super important.

HA!

so if you are waiting on a FB message return from me, maybe email me. i can’t forget about things if they are sitting right there in my inbox. heehheheh!!

so, simply put,

life is good. and FUN. i’m learning so much about having two babies. it’s such a special blessing!

i hope your monday is beautiful.

xoxo

s

all products- jenni bowlin studio

font: fling

supplies: pinking shears, fiskars microtip scissors

 

look at those doll babies. sigh. can someone please tell me why i don’t do more c+l pages. anyone? i think i’m just overwhelmed and tend to scrap older photos first. BUT I LOVE THIS. i love them. this is truly one of my favorite pages i’ve made in a long time.

nothing fancy, simple. just the way i like it.

i know i have mentioned this before, but i love working with jenni’s products. i do. it has never ever seemed like work or something i “have to do”.

everytime i make a page using jbs goodies, it  comes together so very quickly and looks so very me. this, to me=perfect.

it’s a joy to “work” for her.

hope you have a beautiful, happy sunday!

xxo

s

after being away for a week, j did a water jump into the ocean at tybee island.

at first i was a TAD stressed. can we discuss the amount of planning, list making, and packing that it takes to get four little chickies to the beach (to stay for four hours) all by YOURSELF?

luckily, i’m a master list maker and i only forgot underwear for the girls to wear under their sundresses on the way home.

oh well, it was just us howells in the van anyway. HA!

we got to tybee around 8:30 am to see this:

a beautiful day at the beach indeed. in fact, almost perfect. warm but not hot, breezy but not windy, no sand gnats.

after patting myself on the back for about five seconds (i did after all get a cooler, towels, toys,sunblock, two baby carriers and two bigs down to the beach all by myself!) we headed down to the water and looked up to see this:

does anyone see the helicopter up there?

and guess who the first one out was?

that’s right!

(he’s all the way to the right here).

 

i have to be honest that watching this i felt two things.

a. nervous, b/c that’s how i am, my stomach gets in knots whenever i watch him do things like this.

b. JEALOUS. all i could think was how much i wish i could have been drifting down towards the ocean, with no one saying MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY look at me! with no one needing to be held or fixed…just the sky and the water and calm.

b/c back down on earth? life was anything but calm for me.

harper was FREAKING OUT. over what you might ask? why over these:

she pointed and SCREAMED

OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! THOSE BIRDS ARE GOING TO PECK MY HEAD TO A NUB!!!!!!!

really harper? REALLY???

and sadie kept yelling “IT’S TOO DIWTY (dirty) OUT HERE!!! TOO MUCH DIWT ON MY TOES!!!”. and i kept trying to tell her that it was sand but she wasn’t listening.

and both harper and sadie kept coming to me and telling me they had sand in their bajunejunes (i’ll let you guess what this is code for) and i kept telling them

IT’S PART OF LIFE IF YOU GO TO THE BEACH AND ARE A GIRL. YOU GET A SANDY BAJUNEJUNE.

but no one was listening to me. no one.

I NEEDED A PARACHUTE, dang it!

 

but it was awesome. this is h and her sweet friend b watching their daddies come back down to earth.

 

harper posing (as always, even when she doesn’t know she is being photographed)

she kept calling it “the sea”. as in “oh, i didn’t know the SEA was this wonderful!!!” ahahha

and a pic of sadie doing i don’t know what. strutting maybe???

but this picture makes me laugh so hard. HAHAH.

 

the babies napped, i think they loved hearing the REAL ocean, as that is what they hear on their white noise machine every night.

and daddy was back, and all was right in the girls worlds. and sadie was pretty pumped that daddy wore her elmo sunglasses for a bit with nary a hint of embarrassment.

best daddy ever, i tell you.

i am DAILY so proud of j and what he does. but some days? it’s just extra cool. and hot. i won’t lie.

there’s something about seeing your man jump out of a helicopter that is kinda hot.

and that is one of the MANY reasons i love what he does.

 

happy saturday, sweet friends!

xoxo

s

 

 

pretty pretty please don’t you ever ever feel

like you’re less than

less than perfect

pretty pretty please if you ever ever feel

like you’re nothing

you are perfect to me.

 

i was listening to this song on the way home from harper’s school this morning and it made me think.

about how sometimes i feel overwhelmed with the ENORMITY of raising four little women.

blessed and burdened all at once.

scared, hopeful, like i’m feeling my way down a path in the dark. and the path is HUGE and surrounded by complicated, twisted terrain.

and there are lots and lots of offshoots on this path. many branches. and i want so badly to get to the right place.

but i have NO idea where i’m going, and my flashlight is only casting a TINY beam into the pitch-darkness.

that’s how i feel some days.

i have so much i want to teach them.

raising women is scary. as is raising men. whole other set of responsibilites there. but i have no knowledge in that area, what i worry about is raising strong, confident, virtuous women.

i know they are only four,three, and four months old.

i know this.

but how do i NOT think about the days to come? i must. i must start praying,learning, and preparing now.

much like major howell is already worried about the dating days. even though i say it’s the BOYS that should be worried *wink*.

much like he fears those days, i think about the days ahead. the complicated days where everyone is NOT nice. where everyone is NOT kind. where others use words like weapons, thoughtlessly, not realizing the power words have.

**because even though sticks+stones can break our bones, we know that words can CRUSH sometimes**

the days where they might feel tempted to place their worth on what boys think of them, what others think of them…

the days where a single nasty remark from someone they thought was their friend might break their heart and send them home dejected and weary.

the days they feel they have to BE a certain girl, DO certain things to fit in…

oh yes i think about those days. when i’m smelling cate and lucy’s baby smell, or holding sadie’s hand, or watching harper learn to read, i think.

my goal is to be a safe place for them.

j and i talk about this all.the.time.

we want to teach them to be confident, graceful, kind…to realize their worth and that they are WORTH more than some boy.worth more than the perception of others.

to trust in the Lord with all of their hearts and lean not on their own understanding.

i could go on and on. and i can’t believe some days i’ve been given this enormous gift. this enormous responsibility.

so i keep walking, feeling my way, praying.

confident i will get there, even though some days i make many wrong turns, some days i slip-up.

but my goal remains the same…to love them, protect them, teach them, catch them when they fall.

we’ll get there.

xo

s