Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Today I spent some rare midday time alone with Amelia and Eve while Jamica was getting Lasik.  Amelia is 4 and Eve is 2.  Admittedly they have their moments where I wonder if they are the spawn of the evil one and not me, but today was not one of those moments.  It is fun that our last 2 children are toe head little girls that love dollhouse and dresses and making each other laugh.

Eve is at the stage where she is developing a sense of humor, not only in words but in facial expressions.  Amelia is at a stage where she knows a lot of words and phrases, but just little enough about them to mess them up in adorable ways.  Here are two very endearing examples.

We have a friend in our ward named Maria Montafur who is a native of Guatemala.  Maria is 4 foot nothing and "speaks Spanish with a California accent" as she says - most of the time we are lucky to understand 50% of what she says.  She is the salt of the earth.  She cleans our home on Thursdays, but has been gone for about a month visiting Guatemala.  We thought she would be back today, but she didn't come.  When I got home from work I said to Jamica, "didn't Maria come today?"  Amelia heard me and said, "no, she's still in Guacamole."

Then later in the day we dropped Jamica off at the doctor's office and I took the girls to get lunch.  We pulled into a Burger King but it had no playground, so they begged for a restaurant with a playground.  So I looked for a McDonald's with a play place on my GPS and drove to it.  As we approached Amelia saw the McDonalds and could see the play place.  She was so excited.  She yelled out, "Daddy, Daddy, there's a playground!  There's a playground at Old McDonald has a Farm!  Can we go there??"

Cute girl.  Both of them, but especially Amelia today.  Times like these are what parenting is all about.