The Mission: Sit Next to Your Sister & Smile

Several times a year we get matching pajamas or outfits for the clothes, sit or stand them next to each other, and ask them to calmly face & smile at the camera.  This, at times, seems like Mission Impossible.

Catherine appears uninterested in her sister's affection:

 A tackle is about to occur:

 There is a fine line between a sisterly kiss and a sisterly choke:

 Hold still while I kiss you!

Christmas Eve = New Pajamas!

Every year for Christmas we give the girls new, matching pajamas on Christmas Eve.  Catherine has caught on and asked me what color the pajamas would be when I gave her the present.  Sabrina is still clueless and asked me if she could pick out which gift she can open from under the tree.

This year Disney released the original Cinderella movie from "the vault," so we got them Cinderella nightgowns.  They are glittery and look like ball gowns:

 I found some cute matching slippers to go with them:

The kids loved the slippers.  However, I forgot the part of the Cinderella story where she loses one of her slippers.  Both girls continuously yell "It's midnight!," drop one slipper on the floor, and run off.

 Therefore, we find these slippers all over the house.

I could have saved some money and just bought one pair of slippers for the girls to share and only give each girl one slipper.

Christmas 2012

Just a few times a year we dress the girls up in matching outfits and take "formal" pictures.  Yesterday we did this for our Christmas cards, and these are the results:

We are so lucky to live in Georgia, where the weather can be so warm that it is fine to wear sleeveless dresses in December!

These silly pictures show the girls' personalities: Sabrina is the cut-up and Catherine laughs at her, which only eggs Sabrina on.

 Catherine's flirtatious side:

 I love Catherine's gentle smile:

 Sabrina being flirtatious:

 I love this pose, although it was hard to get them to both look at the camera:

 I love the bare trees ... it is winter!

 Crossing a bridge ...

 I had to warn them a dozen times to be careful not to tear the tulle in their dresses!

 This is one of my favorites:

 Sabrina being silly again:

 We told Sabrina to try to be serious for a few minutes:

 The kissing pictures are sometimes the most natural ones:

Me and the Girls

On one of our first biking outings, Robby took some pictures of the girls sitting in my lap.  I cannot imagine a world without digital photography, because the majority of the pictures are not very good: one or both of us look "odd."  But Robby did get two good shots:

 Love Sabrina's huge smile!  Catherine, however, was tired after biking:

Bikes!

I guess I can be categorized as a "cautious mom."  My plan was to consider getting Catherine and Sabrina bicycles next summer, when they were almost 8 and almost 6.  They seemed perfectly happy with their tricycles and I was afraid that bikes would be a huge degree of difficulty for them. But, Catherine's new physical therapist (well, she has worked with us for a few months) told me that both Catherine and Sabrina were ready now for bikes and that there was no reason to wait.  Catherine does not do well in heat, so we decided that we would get more outdoor use of the bikes in the fall and the Atlanta winter then in the summer. 

So, I went to Target and ended up with two 16 inch bicycles: one Cinderella themed and one princess themed.  They love them and figured out how to ride them in less than five minutes.  We have an area in our neighborhood with a cul de sac which is flat.  The girls can ride around that circle forever!

We can't take the training wheels off for at least a year; the physical therapist has advised us that they have to put the balls of both feet on the ground while sitting on the seat before we can safely remove the training wheels.  That will be a big leap forward when we remove those!

Neverending Giggles

Today we went to the Atlanta History Center on a field trip.  As we were leaving, we passed a cannon which is apparently "good for climbing."  It was the end of the day and the girls' hair and clothes were completely messy.  But, I took some pictures of them anyway. 

I actually love this series of pictures because you can see how happy they are and how well they get along.  They feed off each other, giggling non-stop. 

 At first they actually tried to smile for the camera, without laughing.  But that didn't last long:

 Sabrina can be so silly:

 The urge to poke your sister is hard to resist:

Sabrina just cracks Catherine up:

Such sweetness!

Father's Day Pictures

For Father's Day, I took some pictures of the girls without Robby's help.  I am not very good with the camera and so some of the shadows are harsh, so this is the best I could do.  Plus, my kids are so young that we only have a few minutes before the kids totally lose interest.  Still, I like some of the images.