While Ryan's Away...

...we girls play. And miss him terribly. Seriously, as we're going on night four without Ryan (he comes home Friday!!) I am so glad we don't have to make him traveling a regular practice. The house just seems empty without him, especially at nights. And evenings are hard without his backup and fun play with the girls!

 But we keep busy. We're on letter R in preschool this week. I've been trying to find our rhythm in it the last few weeks, as it's more difficult with Ellie awake all morning. We include her where we can (like here, in Red light, green light!) and get used to a baby crawling over us as we read. We also take advantage of 10 minutes where she plays in the pack n play with toys so we can do a craft. But it's been fun to do R, with watching a rocket launch on Youtube and jumping like a rocket, making a racoon and drawaing a rainbow, and they both enjoyed finding many things to roll down the slide!

 Hadassah loved acting out the story of Rebekah too. Anything that lets her pour water is something she's an instant fan of. We read from the Bible, acted it out, and she immediately wanted to act it out again as she loved watering the "camels"!

 Dassah's also becoming quite interested in helping with the laundry. She very carefully hangs up all of the socks on her little tipped over chair. She'll take them all off and hang them up again just because she finds it so much fun.

Then there's today, where both Dassah and I are sick with colds. I was tired, needed to clean up lunch, but it seemed I couldn't leave the girls for a minute without them getting into each other's things. So I laid down on the floor. Motherhood. Where the "doctoring" smashes your face sometimes. ;)


 But maybe I should lay on the floor more often. Ellie was enthusiastic about cuddling and taking pictures with me!

 In fact, that on the floor angle with the flip-up selfie screen proved to be the best picture angle!

 Dassah enjoys putting things together, so arranging these foam squares into a "stage" and doing a dance show are all good ways to get energy out. Especially on cold days.

 We've tried to venture out. Yesterday was pretty nice, though not warm like I thought a high of 61*F *should* be.

 But chicken noodle soup was the comfort food we needed as I felt myself getting a sore throat. I had hopes of trying dairy and gluten free to help with Ellie's eczema, but gluten free just won't happen now. There's too much going on, and getting sick on top of it didn't help. Thankfully with 3x a day lotion, her eczema is doing better...

 And while we so so miss our Ryan coming home at the end of the day, him being gone means it's easier to take outings and stay a little later, not having to be home at a certain time to meet him and have supper made. Though I'd much prefer the latter to him being gone!

 Even in an apartment complex, my children are drawn to sticks and making their way through the bushes to play. But oh, the wind was so cold today!

And yet, these are the memories we will look back on one day. I'm glad I try to get out every day, even if sometimes we don't stay long. Thankfully today we could walk over to a friend's house when the wind got to strong. The benefit of living close is that you both have the same sickness at the same time. ;)

The week has gone better than expected. But... only 30 more hours 'til my man is HOME! And I can't wait.