Here's a little October for ya'...

There's nothing like sitting in a window sill on a crisp Autumn day...

Elly actually tries to escape out this window.

Cousin time

usually ends up with us dirty...

making strange faces...

and being awesome.

Mommy caught Elly and I spying on the neighborhood through our window.

I watched my Grandpa Strain fly in this cool airplane.

I went to a really cool zoo of sorts that had animals so close I could touch them.

And they could also touch us.

I won this staring contest.

This is Elly's favorite past time.

We spent the morning in a garden with my Great Grandma.

I danced.

Leaped.

Tried to get as close as I could to things without making them fly away.

Relaxed.

Relaxed more.

And more.

Explored.

And conquered.

A Few Things From Mom:

The girls are cute, spunky, and VERY full of energetic life right now!

They are both growing up and doing and saying new things left and right and I am barely keeping up.  Here are a few things that I can remember from recent days:

While on a long distance phone call with a friend (who is having TWINS!!!! Just a side note... but I am so out of control excited about this!) I had to yank a broken piece of a glass bottle out of Elly's mouth, ask Lucy to take a stick out of her ear, and clean up the pieces of a flower pot after Lucy yanked out the flower for Elly to then dump the remaining dirt on her from head to toe and then throw down the pot and move on to the next mischievous act.

I recently made a dress for Lucy and a necklace for myself and when I showed the finished pieces to Lucy she (both times!) put her hands on her cheeks and said,

"Oh Mommy, that is boootiful!"

While watching cartoons together snuggled up in my bed, Lucy gets as close as she can to me, wraps her arms around me and says,

"Mommy, you my best friend."

And then I bawled my eyes out.

Elly loves to just do her own thing, including walking off down the sidewalk checking back every so often to see if anyone is watching her.  When she sees someone coming after her, her tiny little legs take off as quickly as they can possibly go, and she laughs and laughs and laughs.

She is seriously SO ORNERY.

And I love it.

Lucy walked out onto the porch and held the door for Elly and I while exclaiming,

"Oh wow, this a great day..."

As we were sitting on the couch, Lucy quite randomly looked over at me and said,

"I not want to be a boy." I responded saying that was good because she is a girl; she then raises her arms in the air and yells,

"I a girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

Usually the girls play pretty well together, but every so often Elly will wait for just the perfect moment to slowly make her way over to Lucy and then snatch ferociously whatever Lucy doesn't want her to have.  And again she runs as quickly as her little legs will take her and laughs hysterically the entire time.

Lucy tries the "trade" gimmick... "Here Elly, you play with this", hands her a different toy and then takes the toy that Elly still really wants, but Lucy just can't live without in that moment.  Or sometimes she just walks up to Elly and takes whatever she wants.  This usually ends with Elly screaming, Lucy deciding it wasn't worth it, handing it back to Elly and hugging her saying,

"I sorry Elly, peas give me."

Which means 'I'm sorry Elly, please forgive me.'

Seriously, the best days of my life so far...