August 30

Aside from the fact that Eli was completely ridiculous about sleeping last night, today was a good day. We went to church, and Lily insisted on wearing her sparkly black leotard with the sheer skirt, and her red Converse. Then she let me put pigtails in her hair, and she was the cutest thing ever. She told me she was excited to go to her classroom, which I thought was really funny.

After church we made a Costco run, and when we got home Chris had just enough time to eat lunch and put on a suit before driving an hour and a half to go to an old friend's wedding. We had hoped that I would be able to join him, but we knew that putting the kids in the car during naptime and near bedtime was a bad idea, and our go-to babysitter (hi, Mom!) was out of town, so I took one for the team and stayed home.

I put Eli down for his nap, fed the kids lunch, and put Lily down for her nap. Then the big kids and I started a painting project. Or, I started a painting project and got out some paints for them, too, so they'd leave me alone. Same thing, right?  Right when I was in the thick of it, Eli woke up, but I managed to finish.

Daisy was excited to roll around on the bed with her baby brother.

See? That's her excited face.

You can't even tell that before church this morning, I braided her hair into two sweet little French braids. She looked adorable, but she must have taken them out sometime after lunch.

Also, you can see my project in the background. Do you see it?

We moved into our house three and a half years ago, but our bedroom walls remain bare. I finally decided to do something about that, so I had a canvas printed with a stunning image from our anniversary photo shoot last year. To go with it, today I made the canvas that says "I choo choo choose you."

15 years ago, Chris and I had been dating for just over a month when I got this Valentine's Day card in the mail a few days before the actual holiday:

The best part was that when I opened it, I saw that Chris had scrawled Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 on the inside. You know, the one that goes, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

That was all it took; I knew then that I would marry him. It didn't hurt that on Valentine's Day itself, he also had a dozen roses delivered to my dorm room. (We were freshmen in college. Such babies! But when you know, you know.) Chris chose to write "I choo choo choose you" because he was an avid Simpsons fan, and there is an episode in which Lisa Simpson gives Ralph Wiggum a similar valentine. Since then, "I choo choo choose you" has always been a loving joke for us. Perfect for our bedroom wall!

At dinner tonight, Eli tried avocado.

He liked it!

However, the slippery slices proved pretty elusive for him. Still, he kept trying. Way to go, Eli!