Busy Girls!

Life with two girls becomes busy quickly. In this picture, Canaan is busy watching for the "plane show"--every plane with a smoke trail she sees shooting across the sky happens to also be a plane show, like the one we saw months and months ago. So living within 20 miles of Dobbins airport keeps her busy.

Shiloh, at two months in this picture, is busy looking at Canaan. And because Canaan is constantly busy, just watching her busy-ness will wear you out.

Thus the reason for sleeping much of the day. It could also be that the rate of hair-growth wears a sister out. Look at that chicken fuzz hair!

So what does a parent of two children do to expend energy? Harness your two year old to a bungee cord, dangling her over a trampoline. Solving two issues: 1.) She can jump her little heart out and have expended enough energy to be ready to walk and enjoy the rest of the fair without us having to give chase through crowds of thousands saying, "STOP! Stop running right now! Come back!!! No more rides for you, young lady, if you don't get BACK HERE!!!" 2.) Daddy, Shiloh, and I can go get a funnel cake or a cup of coffee or something and relax for about 20 minutes since she can't really go anywhere.

A two year old can also get the busy-ness out by playing with other two year olds! Here, Canaan is enjoying Mountain Day at Berry College with old neighbor, Caroline Swafford.

Here, Shiloh is enjoying floor-time with her friend Isabella Lyle, three weeks older. The energy of a two year old and the energy of a two month old varies in intensity--these girls are extremely busy at bone-growth, working on double chins, keeping the bow positioned properly, etc.

And for a lot of busy-ness, we go to the girls' favorite friend's, the Clark's!! Andre, busy looking for pirates in his toilet-paper-tube-binoculars, Selah busy eating a condiment of some sort, Shiloh busy eating her hand, Canaan busy thinking about jumping up and "freaking out" after the picture is taken. Which she has told me while jumping frantically on the bed, "Mom, I'm freaking out!!!" I'd freak out too if I had that much energy coursing through my veins.

Another plane show--and a freak-out session by little sister. For all Shiloh's laid-backness, when she does get agitated and starts screaming, it's so intense it makes me think every time, "It must be her appendix that's ruptured. Surely a poopy diaper isn't this bad."

And another picture with the girls! We're always busy trying to capture sweet memories--like Canaan and Shiloh trying to make the same squinty-eyed, awkward-smiley face.

Amidst the busyness of our lives, Tim and I do still have date nights and conversations that don't consist of singing "To-MORROW, to-MORROW, I LOVE YA, to-MORROW". While they're fewer than the days Before Kids, we appreciate them even more. Just like we appreciated all the wine we drunk after visiting this vineyard.

With Halloween comes the annual Picking-Of-The-Pumpkin. Here, Canaan is "holding" Shiloh while Shiloh is desperately trying not to slip into the scratchy hay underneath.

Afterwards, we get busy carving those pumpkins. And not your typical smiley-face pumpkin, but a really unique one, which Tim is ever so excited about "carving what into that little pumpkin?"

Shiloh is excited about her first pumpkin-carving experience. She's busy holding the tiny pumpkin for us while we get to the other ones.

Canaan is busy scooping out the "pun-kin guts", having to resort to scooping-blind since the pumpkin guts have sealed her eyes shut, her hair to her forehead, and her shirt orange-stained forever.

Shiloh is much cleaner and much more efficient. The only casualty here was a stray seed.

Alas, the pumpkin of Halloween 2010 is finished. Shiloh is mesmerized, Canaan is ready to spring back into action as soon as the picture is finished, and the Pumpkin Guy is posed to welcome the three trick-or-treaters we get since we're miles away from the entrance to our neighborhood and technically in "The Bridgemill Ghetto."

In preparation for Halloween, Canaan's cousin Courtney teaches her a classic Halloween dance: Thriller.

For Halloween, Canaan and Shiloh matched (of course) and were monogrammed (in case someone forgot their names). They were "Pink and Green Tinkerbell."

After much deliberation, we chose Tinkerbell since tu-tus are really cute, who doesn't love to wear wings, fairies make for darling pictures, I already bought the stuff by the time Canaan changed her mind and wanted to be Tiger Lilly instead, and ultimately, I'm the boss around here.

Shiloh, an extremely happy and content baby,

was okay with being green Tinkerbell. Really, she's okay with anything right now. Actually, she's not okay with Canaan trying to "nurse" her or with Canaan trying to get her Uncle Michael to "nurse" her. Other than that, she's okay with everything else.

Not being as busy as her sister, Shiloh sleeps through most of Halloween, content to let her good friend, Selah the Elephant fill her in on the action she missed while sleeping in Dad's arms.

Some of that action included a sword fight between Captain Feathersword and Red Power Ranger. Canaan was busy simply eating all her Halloween candy, knowing it'd be a full year before she ate a Butterfinger again.

After trick-or-treating with Andre and Friends on Saturday, we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood on Sunday. In this video, Canaan is busy trying to tell us what is special about this day while thinking, "How fast can I run from one house to the next while still keeping my hair in this cute bun?" Shiloh is busy thinking, "I love my mom. I love food. I love clean diapers. I love my mom. I love sleep. I love my mom."

And since Halloween was a month ago, I've included this clip of Canaan's most recent two-year-old busy-ness. Her doll, Annie, got the brunt of that busy-ness when Canaan found a ball point pen.

And because God knows how much busy-ness a parent can handle, He gave Shiloh to us: sweet, happy, chilled-out Shiloh. Here she is at three and a half months old!

Life is certainly busy with little ones, but we keep reminding ourselves, they're only this little for a short time and enjoy those little blessings while we have them!!