It’s a good thing three-year-olds are funny. It helps balance the careless breaking, tantrums, sassy pants, etc. There are certainly some fun sides to three, and at our house they involve Hannah’s love to talk and her love of clothes.
I let her dress herself pretty much every day except Sunday. I try to only step in when there is a weather or modesty-related issue. Like “It’s 40 degrees, you can’t wear shorts outside.” or “Tights are different from pants, you can’t wear them by themselves.” But I don’t think it’s a big deal what matches or doesn’t, or restrict rainboot wearing to actual rainy days (that would be almost never here).
Her wardrobe options are fairly easy to put together, so usually it’s not necessarily noticeable that she picked out her own clothes. But sometimes it’s clearly Hannah style.
Here are a couple memorable outfits:

Do I feel a little twinge when the little girl in the cart next to us at the grocery store has cute shoes, coordinated jeans, shirt and cardigan with a matching headband? Yep. But my kid is clean and creative, and today that’s good enough for me.

A few random updates:
– Violet measured at 15.5 lbs and 24.5 inches at her 4m appointment. She’s been having a little diaper trouble, so….
– I’m off dairy. Cow milk protein sensitivity is not uncommon in babies, so this isn’t anything concerning or necessarily permanent. I’m thankful I have a large recipe repertoire, so eliminating cheesy dishes won’t be too stressful from a cooking perspective. I’m really going to miss cheese and ice cream, but a healthy baby is worth it! But, wow, there is dairy hidden in a lot of products, so I will be doing a lot of label-reading for a while.
– We’ve had a string of breakages. The rice cooker, mixer, printer and garage door have all busted in the last two weeks. We are currently down to one car because my van is trapped in the garage. Hopefully, a guy can come fix it tomorrow.
– Funny Hannah moments:
*Today at Whole Foods she told me, “That guy has decorated arms!” Tattoos.
*We were talking about places we’d like to visit and mentioned the Grand Canyon. We told Hannah it was very far away. “Why?” Because God put it there. “Then he should move it closer.” We told her to take that up with the Big Guy during bedtime prayers. Faith like a mustard seed can move canyons?
– At the moment, we’re settling down for the Downton Abbey season finale. We’ve got tea, English muffins and red wine. Bring it on!

Another blogger I follow has started doing “snapshot” posts – just a photo of daily life with a sentence or two. She has a baby the same age as Violet (plus ten more kids), so I understand the desire to post but the limited time to put something together. So I figured I might do a few snapshot posts myself.
To start:

We got our CSA box today, and Hannah was very proud that she carried it in from the car and put everything away all by herself.

This is very belated, but I wanted to share some pics from a super-cute birthday party we went to in November. It was a robot theme, and my friend Casey had so many awesome things I didn’t even get pictures of, but I’ll share my favorites. The party was at a fun place with many activities and even live music for the kids. A few highlights:

There was a rolly ladybug like our rolly bee. We decided to put Violet on it (4 wks old at the time). Not a fan.

Adorable girly robot costume!

Robot snacks could not be more cute. Totally under-appreciated by Hannah, of course, she just wanted to eat it.

This one needs a caption contest, ready GO!

Last week, we were bundled up.

This week, we got to hike on the greenbelt.

Also, I’ve been doing more posts via the iPad WordPress app. This is very convenient, but I’ve noticed the trade-off is photo appearance. So I’ll keep experimenting, but if you’ve noticed things looking a little different, that’s why.
And apparently the email subscriber notifications have not been sent lately, so if you’re reading this – yay! You might just check the site directly for new posts.
Happy January!

We definitely don’t expect any white Christmases in Texas, but we have already had some chilly weather this winter. It got down to the 30s which is pretty cold for us (no snarky comments from the Kansas fam, please, I know…). The last week has been rainy every day, but we got a two-day break before more is on its way according to the weather map. So we made the most of it by hitting the Zilker Park train.

We got there a little early and ate a picnic lunch while sitting on the train. It’s a little tricky to do group shots when it’s just me and the girls, but we tried.

Then, all aboard, we were off! I think this is seriously the best $5 of entertainment in Austin. A 25 minute ride with lots to look at and a tunnel. And Keep Austin Weird – I was one of three mommas nursing on the train, and there was a high count of guys with tattoos holding pink sippy cups. There is a fun playground right next to the train with a lot to do, including a fire truck.

I’m not looking forward to the rain coming back tomorrow, but of course we need it. For now, I’m enjoying this gorgeous day with my gorgeous girls.