A public apology

This blog has gotten me into trouble.
Technology, and my failure to use it, has backfired.
This year, the girls received on two separate occasions from two very important people some absolutely gorgeous, thoughtful, hand-made gifts. I was so touched and moved by the gifts that I took photos, printed, and saved the prints to mail with special cards instead of sharing them on the blog. I felt blogging about them before a much-deserved traditional thank you was too public and impersonal for such gifts. Of course, after over four years of blogging, it's quite understandable in retrospect that the lack of blog acknowledgement seemed telling (in a bad way). The wait for the traditional thank you was too long (due to normal mailing delays and my own inexcusable ones), and it seemed the gifts were not appreciated at all when in fact the exact opposite was true. Oh dear. I apologize! My recent disenchantment with the blog makes me forget how important it can be.

For Christmas, Grandmary sent the girls beautiful Southern-style smocked dresses. Ellie's is the requisite pink and Stephanie's is the perfect-for-her blue. Ellie has worn hers to school and Stephanie has worn hers on a few of the days when she has been willing to be clothed. The dresses are gorgeous and have been the source of much appreciation and praise!



Just look at those blue eyes, will ya?

For Valentine's Day, Mimi made lovely flower hairclips for the girls and myself. We all wore them that day and on other days since. I have had trouble getting the girls to pose in them. Hair accessories never last long before hair returns to an accessory-free state, which makes snapping photos tricky, but we all enjoy these clips and have gotten soooooo many compliments on them!



Stephanie's photo is a bit blurry because I had my foot on her belly, trying to hold her an appropriate distance away from the camera. She always tries to run around me to see the image on the screen (not good when she is the object of the image). We think this photo somehow captures a version of her that reveals a lot of how she will look as she gets older. Amazing. Ellie's photo is off-center because I held the camera aside to make her laugh for a genuine smile, and well, the camera was aside. What can I do? (For the record, Ellie's shirt is an adult-sized shirt she picked at an op shop. I had planned to alter it to fit her, and she won't let me near it. It shall be worn as is.)

Thank you both for the wonderful prezzies! The girls really enjoy them, and so does anyone who gets to see them!