Oh my goodness! At what age does a child stop getting cuter? If I thought my girls were adorable last month, I need to start coming up with new words to describe them. I didn't know my heart could get any fuller of their love and beauty, inside and out. Sure, they have their moments of wanting-to-throw-something frustration, but really, those are so infrequent compared to the bounty of heartwarming moments that just make you want to sigh. I can only give examples, and send all of you an invitation to experience them for yourselves.

I think the best moment is coming home, even if I've just been out on a little errand, and getting huge hugs accompanied by a big "Momma!" from Milla. Milla will go on to talk about how I'm home and how she missed me while Lil will find her way into my other arm and give me an equally big hug and huge smile.

Another great moment is watching the girls play with each other. They have their own little language and they will talk back and forth, which usually escalates into dueling screams. Usually this is accompanied by running around the house in some format, be it crawling, walking, walking/falling. Lil has actually started running in the last couple of days - and she just turned 1 on March 6th! She is even more fearless than Milla, climbing onto arms of chairs to reach all kinds of off-limit things.

Lili also has developed an incredible vocabulary. I haven't tried to count the number of words, but she'll repeat just about anything, and volunteers words I had no idea she knew, including many two-syllable words. She is learning very fast, in large part to Milla, who has a very sweet voice and isn't afraid to use it. She is having a little trouble with pronouns, using my instead of I, as in "My did it! My did it!" or "My big girl." I always correct her, even though I find it really cute. And she is turning into quite the big girl. Potty training is going very well.

Milla does a couple of interesting social things. People now always ask her her name. She knows full well what it is, but what does she say in response? Princess! This has become a game now and whenever we ask her ourselves she responds "Princess" with a mischievous smile. She'll go on to say how I'm the Queen and Daddy is King. I really didn't think we imparted the princess mentality into her, but apparently we did. Another thing she does is she'll go up and boldly say hi to people, but I've learned it's really just a ploy. She typically only says hi to kids whose toys she wants to play with. At least she always asks!

As I mentioned on their webpage, we went to Hawaii for a week over Lil's birthday, and spent a lot of time in the pool and on the beach. We came home to start swim classes, then ran off to Palm Desert for a couple of days and more warm pool time. They are getting quite comfortable in the water. Milla is convinced she wants to surf from watching "Surf's Up". I bought her a boogie board in Hawaii which she calls her surfboard.

Once again, I'm up late and should wrap this up. Those vacation photos will be up next month; I'm behind and only had time to post Feb's pictures!

:) Alysa