Sisters

I love the idea of my girls being best buds. I know they will have a roller coaster of feelings towards each other over the years, but I hope that they will end up close in the end.

I was a little worried about how Ellie would react to Aria's addition to our family. I thought for sure she would be jealous or start acting out and throwing tantrums. In the weeks leading up to Aria's birth, I started to mourn the inevitable loss of my sweet, compliant little girl.

Much to my delight, however, Ellie LOVES Aria. She wants to hold her and kiss her all the time. She loves to talk to Aria and coo at her and pet her head. She hasn't shown any jealousy, she hasn't had an increase in tantrum throwing or other negative moods. Aria loves to watch Ellie and has even smiled at her a few times already.



Needless to say, I'm relieved to still have my sweet little Ellie and I adore the budding relationship between my two girls.



That's not to say that Ellie has not been living up to her two-year-old status. She is a complete tornado if left to her own devices. She's getting good at sneaking away and making messes when I'm teaching homeschool or nursing the baby.

(Don't let this angelic face fool you!)
 

For a while, her favorite spot to play was the bathroom. Hair bows, combs, toothbrushes, water.... so many fun things in there!







We've recently added one of those toddler door handle things to the bathroom door though, so Ellie's new favorite pastime is to get into the fridge. For a while, she would sneak healthy things like grapes and blueberries. Then, I started finding things like this:

Whipped cream and lime juice? Okaaaayyy...


Chocolate chips


Teeth marks in the butter (gross!)


One day, I found her hiding from me and cradling and egg. When I exclaimed, "What are you doing?!?!" She told me she was keeping the egg safe. When I went to put it away, the entire egg carton was missing and I soon found it in the entryway, along with broken eggs. I guess that's why she felt the need to keep the last egg safe!



The bad part is that I didn't know how many eggs were left in the carton, so I wasn't sure if I got them all. I ended up finding two more eggs in Asher's bed (unbroken, thank goodness!) and havent found any more (or smelled any strange smells) since.

Ellie will make good use of any marker she happens to find.



She also enjoys sneaking apples off the counter and nibbling on them.



This is what my house looks like most days. I feel like it will never be clean again!



I've been working really hard at not getting too frustrated and just letting everything roll off my back. In the grand scheme of things, none of these messes really matter and I will look back and miss these days, right?

It's a good thing my girls are so cute and sweet.... it totally cancels out all the other hard stuff. :)