Playing Musical Babysitters

I should be thankful that this is the most stressful situation in my life right now - just finding a babysitter for every day and remembering where my kids are going each day...  My regular sitter has had back problems and was out this week since she had major problems last weekend and a 10# weight limit this week.  My little porker of a baby is more like 24# or so, so that wasn't going to work.  She is scheduled to have back surgery this Thursday, so will be out for a while after that too.  Carrie has been a lifesaver by watching the kids for me often in a crunch and I have another new back-up sitter now too.  The kids went to Roxanne's Friday and got along well.  Since Leslie's back is feeling better now, they will head back there a couple of days this week before her surgery, then to Roxanne's on Friday.  Then just keep playing it a week at a time and find a place for them to go until Leslie is recovered enough to watch them again... and hope I remember to pick them up at the correct sitter each day!  Just part of having kids I guess.

Anyway, the kids had a good time at Carrie's and Roxanne's this week.  Ava came home with lots of craft projects from Carrie's and even some pictures (surprise, surprise:) ).  Just thought that I would share some of Carrie's pictures since they were pretty cute...

Now, I had tried several times to get some decent pictures of my kids together in front of the Christmas tree recently with no great luck.  All I got was Blaine crawling away or getting frustrated at Ava for holding him  too tight or Ava trying to tell Blaine what to do.  So how does Carrie happen to get several good snapshots of them looking cute together????  I know that she is obviously a much better photographer than I am, but they must just like to cooperate with someone other than Mom...  kids...

 Ava made lots of things with Carrie - ornaments, necklace, a book, some jewelry for me but really loved some of these little pom-pom critters that she made.

 Carrie and Ava also had some fun playing with Ava's hair - again, not one of my strong points.  I love to see little girls with cute French braids or curls and so on, but I can never acomplish that on my daughter (or myself or anyone else for that matter).