The girls have become, as of late, a couple of sneaky sneaks. Ana is especially clever at being a sneaky sneak, routinely hiding from me, jumping out at me, and generally scaring me to death. I caught them hiding behind these stools before they could “surprise” me. SURPRISE!!!

I got the best surprise EVER this past week when I discovered that the girls are finally big enough for booster seats in the car. (Well, maybe that’s not the best ever, but I was still very excited to move beyond the five-point harness for the first time in four years.) Emma and I took a special trip to the store, and I let her pick out which booster seat she’d like. In the most unsurprising move of the week, she picked out the pinkest seat there. The girls love riding around like “big kids,” and I love the ease of buckling them up and the fact that we will never buy another car seat. It’s the little things that make me ecstatic.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one week, I took the girls to their first storytime at the library. I was a little concerned when I had to actually leave the building they were in once storytime began, but when I came back after the hour, they were having a blast. The librarian told me that Em and another little boy had run right into one another and that there was some crying involved, but all was well after some hugs and apologies. (Emmy kept telling me, “A boy ran into MY HEAD!” and Ana confirmed it with, “That little boy did not see where he was goin, and he knocked my sister over!” I can picture how this went down since the exact same thing happened when Ana and Emma ran headlong into one another at church a couple of weeks ago. Lots of noggin injuries amongst the Faulk girls.)

Speaking of noggin injuries, I’ve narrowly missed a few myself these past few weeks as the girls have learned how to lock the bathroom door on their own. It would be fine and dandy if they did so while INSIDE the bathroom, but they prefer to lock the door, go into the hallway, then shut the door behind them. I asked Ana to lock the BACK door one day, and she came back and proudly proclaimed, “I LOCKED THE BATHROOM DOOR!” Commence head banging on the wall, Mommy. (Which would explain the narrowly missed noggin injury. Oh, yeah. I know you were waiting to see how that all fit in.) After taking the knobs out with a screwdriver more than once, I asked Wes if we could just change the knob out with one that doesn’t lock. He was happy to do so, changing out the knob on our bedroom with the knob on the girls’ bathroom, which means that we can’t lock the door of the girls’ bathroom but we can finally lock our bedroom door. (Which is probably good for more than one reason, now that I think about it.) My apologies to the guests who will come and discover that they can’t lock the bathroom door when it’s in use, but I’m saving myself a whole world of frustration this way. And as a bonus, you just might get the experience of having Ana parade into the bathroom while you’re in there, demanding that you wash your hands after you’re done. You can hope, right?

We’ve changed up some of the scheduling for our church activities a bit, which has left me free (for the first time since seminary!) to attend one of Wes’s classes. Sure, I hear him preach three times a week (not counting the mini-sermons the girls and I get throughout the week), but I’ve not been free to sit in on an actual Bible study class. I’m so excited to get to do this! I’m hoping to get a ladies’ lunchtime study started in October, and between Wes’s class (which includes a lot of outside study), the Radical read-along, and studying material for the start of this new ladies’ group, I feel like I’m back in school. This has been a VERY good thing. I didn’t realize that I do better at staying faithful and diligent in studying if I have a very structured approach to it, but it’s been made obvious to me lately that this is the case. Once upon a time, I was great at being self-motivated, especially when it came to studying Scripture, but with all the randomness that is daily life in Preschool Land (locked bathroom doors, girls licking markers, girls jumping out of small spaces and terrifying me), I need help. Is it okay to admit that? Praise God for a new season of being able to study with other people at church and for Wes, who changed up his own Bible reading plan to start a 90 day read through the Bible plan with me. He’s a great guy, and I’m so thankful that he’s willing to lead in this way.

And before I get too serious with this post, I’m going to conclude with a picture of the sneakiest sneak of them all…

Mrs. Lisa came home from Europe a couple of weeks ago and brought Papi some of his favorite German chocolates… which the girls ate for him. (I think he managed to sneak a few away from them!) The sneakiest sneak of all, though, was Charlie, who (as you can see from this picture) kept looking for opportunities to snatch the chocolate off the table. Ana and Emma ate them too quickly for that to happen, though. (Which wasn’t too troubling to Charlie, especially since he still managed to grab half of a grilled cheese sandwich on the same day.)

This post is brought to you by the number five, as in five o’clock in the morning, the girls’ new favorite hour to get up…