Summer is here!!

The dog days of summer have finally arrived and the weather is great. HOT but great and as much as I hate working in the heat, it's a welcome change to the long, long winter I had at home. Things are wonderful and this is my 4th weekend off work now, so I am enjoying work even better now that I have time with the girls and Ryan on the weekend.
Mckenna is growing quickly and after seeing a picture of her from last year at this time, I can't believe how much she has changed. Her baby face is gone, and she is turning into such a beautiful little girl. Her conversations with us are continuous and we have to laugh all the time at all the adult things she says without even realizing it. She sings song after song and carries a tune very well. Music is her passion, just like her mama's and she adores her sister Caili and told me the other day that they are best friends. It melted my heart, even as I looked out of the corner of my eye to see her whip a toy out of Caili's hands and try to thwack her in the head with her blanket. Let the sibling rivalry begin. Ryan and I keep telling Mckenna to watch out because Caili is going to be bigger than her and will eventually get back at her.
There are those moments in life that nothing else seems to matter and you wish you could freeze time, and the other night, as I lay down with Mckenna before bed, I had one. I was tickling her back and she was singing softly to me "Hush little baby" and I was almost asleep. I could feel Mckenna watching me and all of a sudden she just wrapped her arms around me, snuggled in as tight as she could and said "I love you too mama" and patted my hair. Those are the moments that I hold onto and try to remember in the midst of one of her meltdowns. Those are the moments a mother remembers for life and brings tears to her eyes whenever she recalls them.

Caili or Caili the Explorer as we all refer to her as, is just hillarious and frustrating all at the same time. She wants to be so independant like her sister, but is just too tiny to do most of it. She already climbs the stairs, walks all over the house as long as she has something to hold her up, wants to feed herself everything and trys to imitate anything and everything Mckenna does. Even helping me to put the dishes away when Mckenna does. She is very determined and gets frusterated when she can't do what she wants. She is so dang smart, almost too smart for her own good and gets bored very easily when she figures something out. She blows me out of the water as to how much further advanced she is than Mckenna was at her age. She understands so much that I say to her or ask her to do and knows when I say no, I mean no. Her smile is as contagious as the flu and her dimples are something else. Her and Mckenna tend to get silly together at the dinner table, and all Ryan and I can do is try to keep a straight face. They have a bond that I guess only sisters know of and I love watching them both learn from one another.
Caili still only has her two bottom teeth, though her hair is growing in quite blonde and curly when its humid or damp. She has to be close to 20lbs and loves food, (as long as she is feeding
herself) I can't believe she will be a year old in a few weeks.
I think back a year ago and remember just moving into our new house, trying to get everything ready for her arrival and being so tired, I never thought I would get through the pregnancy. Here I am one year later, already back working, settled into the house and raising two beautiful girls. Things have changed quite a bit in my life. I found myself putting so much pressure on my self to be what I thought a mother should do all the time, that the guilt of not being able to do it all was wearing me down. I decided that keeping up on the kids journal, and tracking every moment of their life on paper, isn't what makes me a good mother. It's being able to let things go, to play with my kids, to be there for them, to listen to them, to reason with them and to just be comfortable in the role as parent. Not to worry about what everybody else thinks, and just realizing that making memories is what makes a good childhood. I would rather tell the kids about stories of them growing up, than having them read them all in a book.
Time to 'me' is limited and I have started getting up at 4:30am to go jogging or to work out before I go to work. Some people think I'm crazy, but I'm more crazy when I don't make time to myself, so I've made it a priority to take care of me. It has made me much more happy and a much better mother because of it.
I will add photo's next time, as my mom hasn't loaded her camera photos on yet, and my camera is not here at the moment.
Enjoy the summer, sit back and let the laundry pile up. There is always tomorrow (or the next day too!)