Counting feminine blessings, today.
~Sweet, giggly sleepyheads ever so excited about strawberries, cream, scones and tea and a chance to watch a real live princess walk down the aisle to her prince.
~Sighing and smiling and countless requests to watch it again on Youtube.
~A full day of playing wedding, each of them taking turns being the princess bride.
~An evening spent with Mama's and Daddy's wedding album: Mommy looks like a princess, too. And see how Daddy is smiling at her? That's because they love each other.
~Her insistence that they show the album to Daddy when he gets home and that they make him sing all the songs from his wedding.
~Fifteen hand-painted notes for him, stacked on the office desk, awaiting his return.
~The way they refer to themselves as "the girlies."
~And the way the littlest one refers to the others as "my girlies."
~About a million hair bows.
~The way her hair makes tight ringlets in the rain.
~The way the others love her curls (and wish they had them, too).
~Laundry separated into lights, darks, and pinks.
~Monday ballet afternoons and the outrageous noise level of fifteen giggling, dancing girls.
~And the three little ones all want to grow up to be just like the big sister.
~All five of us knitting together--and teaching Gracie and Mel to knit, too. That way, as Gracie so aptly put it, "We'll all have something to do when we're old."
~Utter delight in the first meal of the season taken out of doors.
~Them begging to go back to the bluebells.
~Littlest one reaching over all the other pretend cupcakes so that she can have the chocolate pretend cupcake.
~An afternoon of dressing up, posing for the camera, and somehow blurring the line between props and real life, so that they are sure they just had a fancy tea party in the woods.
~The tender care they take of their rather large family of baby dolls.
~The way they don't play "House" (as I did), but they play "Babies" and the favorite game of all, "Babies and Friend Moms."
~Sweet smelling bathtimes, pink fingernails and toenails, rub-rub after the tub.
~Long, curly eyelashes on barely pink cheeks in the glow of the hall light when I kiss them goodnight one more time.
~My heart filled to the brim with my sweet girlies.
{all photos courtesy of the amazing Lori Fowlkes}