the girls play together so sweetly

My favorite part of today was after dinner when I joined all of the girls in Ammon’s room. As I entered, Mary and Lydia were lying on their stomachs with their chins in their hands as they watched Clarissa dance on Ammon’s bed. As I stepped in, Lydia cried, “We’re having a cutest baby competition and Clarissa’s winning!!”

I laughed so hard. She followed that up by reading me a quote from the “How to Make Your Baby Even Cuter” manual that she and Mary were writing. The first suggestion was: Make your baby cuter by looking at her. All babies get cuter when you look at them.”

I thought that was actually so spot on! It was such a delight to watch all of my girls interact so beautifully together. For the rest of the hour Mary and Lydia built towers for Clarissa to knock down, but Clarissa would either just look curiously at them or take them apart very slowly and carefully. She is the first baby I’ve had that didn’t just go for it and knock those towers down as fast as possible.

We also played a game where we all pretended to sleep, and then Clarissa would jump up and bounce up and down like Tigger. That pretty much sums up childhood in a gesture.

Here are the pictures from the rest of the day:

I took Clarissa and Ammon to the park this morning before Clarissa’s nap. We played chase, raced, and climbed all over the park structures.

Clarissa took a really short nap today. I spent her whole nap reading the Book of Mormon so I can finish before the end of the year, and so when she woke up I still had to prep dinner. I burned my hand in the oven trying to get the squash out before Clarissa could run across the room and burn herself, so I spent an hour in front of the television nursing my wound. During that time, Clarissa discovered the marshmallow bag: