A picture is worth a thousand words

Last night I was the honorary babysitter for my little cousins, Payka and Steely. My cousin, Alicia, who is my first cousin, believes that we are in fact cousins. (Our mothers are sisters.) But she refuses to believe the family tree branch titles that are underneath our limbs. She insists that she is my girls' aunt and I am her girls' aunt. I have tried for years now to convince her otherwise, that they are in fact her second cousins. She agrees to pacify me shortly then calls to one of mine, "Come see your Aunt Alicia." And I would say, "That would make us sisters." And she would say, "But we are almost just like sisters."

Anyway, the oldest girls-her oldest and my oldest-remind us so much of each other. I remember times that doesn't seem that long ago when we were perched upon a 4wheeler in the same position that our girls are here. Me driving, her screaming, and us both afraid we were going to have to park it for driving it too fast in the pasture. Then eventually her telling on us because we drove faster than we should have. By the way, don't tell her I let them ride the 4wheeler. I didn't get permission before I let them.

Our youngest girls-again her youngest and my youngest-and again about the same age difference apart, are going to be the same way as their big sisters and their "aunts" as Alicia would call us. But we will be way far ahead of them because we will have had so much practice. After our own attempts and the definate future attempts of our oldest ones, they will not be able to get away with much.

This would be a great time to tell you about our mothers, Alicia's and mine, that would force us to go play outside and lock the door. It would be so cold that we would huddle by the dryer vent outside to warm our hands. But I won't tell that story because they both still deny it to this day.

But since I had the opportunity to spend alone time with them, I decided to take advantage of that time and take a couple of snapshots. And might I add that they had the time of their life with their cousin Amy, AKA: Aunt Amy)

Look how much fun this baby is having!

I love taking pictures but that doesn't make me a photographer by any means. Even so, I think these next few shots are beautiful.

She is so precious.

Can you tell she loves puppies?

And they love Steely Kate!

Laura Ingalls, is that you?