Hearts

These beautiful girls quite literally steal my heart.

• Xiana is devouring books.  
• She loves the first grade
• She recently told me, with her dramatic flair, "I can't wear sunglasses because my eyelashes are too long!"
• She does cartwheels and handstands all day long. Brian told her he'd give her $20 if she could go 24 hours without a cartwheel... she lasted approximately one minute.
• This has been an adjustment having her in school all day.... some weeks I feel like I hardly see her... and I miss her!
• I'm trying to be gentler with my children.  It seems the very behaviors I detest in them come from me.  Xiana can be emotional which absolutely makes my blood boil.  Lately, I've tried to be more compassionate and help her talk through her emotions rather than freaking out.  I'm not always successful, but I'm trying.  I hope that at the very least, my children always know I love them.

• This little miss is hitting milestone after milestone (though she didn't love her first bumb/tray experience
• She rolled over at exactly three months
• She continues to sleep through the night... in her own room.. in her own crib
• There is something so very magical about the knowledge that she's my last... it makes me breathe her in in a way I never have before.  I love her so much.  I cherish her pink little fist gripping my arm as she nurses, her fingers gently stroking my cheeks while she talks and cuddles, her giggle, her smile, her everything.  Sometimes when I see her  I feel my heart skip a beat.  
• She loves to be upside down and regularly throws her head back in order to do so.... silly little baby.

• Kolton was less than enthusiastic about getting pictures taken this particular day.... but I must not leave him out of my heart equation... like is sisters, he has a grip on my heart unparalleled. He's such a defiant little stinker which makes me want to simultaneously strangle him, and wrap him in my arms for what he calls "strong hugs." He has so much personality this fierce boy of mine.
• While swing at the park, he yelled out at the top of his lungs "I'm so high! I can see Jesus from here!"
• His rendition of "what Does the Fox Say?" is priceless... and hysterical!
• He is fiercely defensive of Argenta and so far does not pick on her at all.  She doesn't love tummy time, so when we put her on her tummy and she cries, he screams at us, "pick her up!! She doesn't like to be on the ground!" And another time,  Brian was teasing her saying, "that's it, I'm giving you a spanking."  Kolton freaked, "you don't spank my sister!!!!"
• He's so social... he knows the names of most of our 36 young men in the ward, and every one of them know him.... they carry him, talk to him, give him five, have him help them change the garbage, and make him feel so special. They are all his best friends... of course none so much as his first ever best friend who is actually his age! 
• He's had a recent preoccupation with death regularly explaining that we are all going to die some day.  The other day he told me he wasn't going to die until he was "really really old, like 12!"
• His favorite past time is building guns.  When my Uncle Wes was here, he asked Kolton if he was going to be a soldier or a hunter when he grew up.  He emphatically replied, "I'm gonna be a missionary when I grow up!"
• I love these crazy kids.  What would I do without them?