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Mal wearing momma’s shades:

Mal’s first double braid. Done by Dad, no less!

The artist…

Sisters.

Sharing.

Working out.

First s’more.

Big girl washing up.

As you may or may not know, Mal is day potty-trained, but still wears a diaper at night. She’s running about 50/50 on waking up dry, so I imagine we’ll soon be going to normal undies for sleeping (and she will get her much asked-for red guitar as a reward!).

This morning Hannah was up first, so I took her down to the kitchen to help me make cinnamon raisin rolls. Fifteen minutes later, Mal gets herself up and comes down to the kitchen. I say to the girls, “when we finish with the rolls, we’re going to go up and change Hannah’s diaper. And Mal, we should get undies on.”

Mal smiles and says, “I don’t need to.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I already changed!”

I look, and sure enough Mal doesn’t look to have a bulky diaper under her pajama shorts. Mal got out of bed, went to the back room, took off her shorts and dry diaper (not pull-ups, mind you, but a bulky, velcroed cloth diaper), put the diaper on the stool, picked out undies, put them on and then her shorts. All without saying a thing, asking any help or anything.

Didn’t want to jinx it…

It’s been about a week now that Hannah is all of a sudden sleeping in. Previously her wake-up times were anywhere from 5:30am to 6:45am, averaging about 6:15am or so. Mallory will always sleep in until at least 7. But then, suddenly Hannah sleeps until 7:15 or so. Very nice – to either sleep in as well, or be able to get up at a respectable time and get some things done before the girls are up.

Here’s a photo from one of those early get-ups. Hannah says, “read a book…”

The girls are finishing lunch. Mal is being her typical older-sister and helping/directing Hannah in eating lunch. Mal turns to Hannah and says, “I love you, Hannah.” Our hearts melt a little bit. Mal continues, “I love the toy store.”

As you might know, Mallory and Hannah’s room is on the third floor while our bedroom is on the second floor. Also Mal sleeps in a tall adult (non-toddler) bed.

This morning Hannah starting making noise. As I was walking towards the stairs to get her, I hear the door to the stair creak open. It’s Mallory, at the foot of the stairs. She says to me, “Hannah is crying, please go get her.” That’s the first time she’s gotten out of bed herself AND come down the stairs. So much for having the girls isolated upstairs (and us isolated downstairs!).

Also, a little later this morning: Hannah is in the office playing while Mal and I are in our bedroom. Mal lets a big fart rip. I say, “Mal, what do you say?” (with the correct response being, “pardon me.”). Mal says, “it was Hannah!”

In a house with our demographics, this was inevitable.

At the playground tonight: “Hold my purse…”

Me: Mallory, what do you want for dinner?
Mallory (already sitting at table): I want tomato soup please!
Me: Ok, but it’s going to take a few minutes to warm it up.
Mallory: I want ice cream while I wait!

Yesterday we took a short trip to a county “see the big trucks” event. The weather was chilly but nice.

The hit of the event for Mal was the fire truck.

She went inside twice (once front, once back).

They guy up in the tree truck was taking pictures, so we thought we’d go all meta.

Playing with connectors.

What does this silver guy do?

Mallory got her hair cut for the first time today. As you can see, she was a bit non-plussed about the matter. Adrienne tells me I wouldn’t be able to tell it got cut. I asked her why it was cut.

On the bright side (ha!), a second pair of sunglasses were obtained so we could have one in the car at (hopefully) all times.