Here are a few pictures I took of Halle before Mrs. Keri picked her up for their dinner date at the Melting Pot Saturday night.

Sweet Halle has been thinking of Elena a lot lately and its so cute I wanted to write down some things as I remember them.

Every time Dora comes on the TV Halle runs over to Elena and says, “ELENA! Doo Doo Dora is on!  Your FAVORITE!”  She honestly takes pleasure in the fact that Dora is going to make Elena happy.

Halle asked for spin brush toothbrushes since Jason and I have been using SonicCare spinbrushes and Annabelle has a spin brush at her house.  I surprised Halle yesterday with a combo pack that had a Pooh toothbrush and a Tigger toothbrush.  Both girls love Tigger and Pooh but favor Pooh, so I expected Halle to pick Pooh and Elena to be fine with Tigger.  Halle immediately said, “Pooh is Elena’s favorite so she should have that one.  I’ll take the Tigger toothbrush.”  My heart grew a little, I’m not going to lie.

Yesterday when Elena was napping, I said, “Guess what time is it, Halle?  Time to bathe Baby Sonja!”  (The girls seriously get excited about this every time).  Halle immediately said, “Mommy, we should wait until Elena wakes up.  She likes to watch Baby Sonja get a bath too.”

*Note:  There are also plenty of times when the story sounds more like “MOM! Elena KEEPS messing up my stuff!”  Or, “Can you put Elena in her room?  I don’t want her here.”  Or, “Elena needs to go in time out!  She’s pulling my hair again!”  But I still think, so far, they’re leaning towards sisters who are friends and not sisters who fight constantly.  My fingers are crossed!

Last night when I was straightening my hair, Halle asked me to straighten hers too.  Always have to take pics when I straighten her hair cuz she looks so different.  And I like seeing how long her hair really is!  :)

Of course, I can also see how dead the ends are.  There may be a haircut in the near future.

For Valentines this year, I was planning on having Halle and I make these tissue paper bears for each of her classmates, but it turned out that was way too much work.  And Halle wasn’t really into it.  She lost interest way too quickly.  So we gave her teacher the one we made together, and I bought some foam hearts for Halle to use to decorate lollipops for her classmates instead.  Halle LOVED this simple project and did a beautiful job decorating the lollipops.  :)

Here are some closeups of her work.

I didn’t take a picture, but I also made my famous spinach artichoke dip for the teachers, with the crumb topping in the shape of a heart.  Wish I had left some here for me.  That sounds so good right now.

I wanted Halle to take a couple pictures in her new Cars hat today, so I could use them for her birthday party.  She said that was okay as long as she could take some pictures with her new umbrella first.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Apparently the school pictures are in.  I’ll have to go in tomorrow to check them out.  Jason brought home these little stickers today though… pretty cute!

I just love taking pictures in my backyard.  So easy.  So simple.  So pretty.  Especially right as the sun starts to set.

This is the result of our trip to IKEA last weekend, and I couldn’t be any happier with it!

I’ve been wanting to put this kind of book shelf in Halle’s room for some time, and IKEA had the perfect shelves for it.  I love that this is something she won’t outgrow too, because you can easily put letters up there to spell her name or some fun message or put picture frames or anything else that’s she into when she’s older.  I love when a project comes out exactly how you imagined it!

These shelves are above her bed, just high enough that she can reach the bottom shelf when she’s standing on the bed, but she can’t accidentally bump into it at night or anything (and too high for Elena to get into it).  I love it!

Halle’s been saying so many grown up phrases lately. Like when I straightened her hair and she sadly said, “I don’t know what to say.” And just now, when she saw the straight-hair picture, she said, “I don’t look so good like that.” She also says things like, “I’m not sure I’m happy right now.” And, after watching a “My Friend Rabbit” kid cartoon movie, I asked her if the cartoon was good and she said, “I don’t think you would like it. Only I like it.”

My favorite thing she says, and she says it a lot, is, “You make me so happy.” Or, “Daddy makes me so happy.” Or, “My sister makes me so happy.” She also likes to tell us in length all the things she’s going to teach Elena when she gets bigger. “When Elena gets bigger, I’m going to show her how to walk, just like me!” “When Elena gets bigger, I will show her how to put the movies in the DVD player carefully so they don’t break.” “When Elena gets bigger, I will show her how to be patient while the computer games are loading.” She’s so grown up already!

Halle’s second dance class was a surprising success considering she woke up at 4:30 am this morning for the day, would not take a nap, fell asleep as soon as we pulled into the parking spot at the studio, was literally holding her eyelids open with her fingers at the start of the class, and fell back to sleep within 5 minutes of returning to the car. During class though, she was her usual happy self and did everything that was asked of her. When class was over she said, “Dance class makes me happy. That was so much fun.” Hooray!