Sisters

With an arduous work travel schedule for the past few months, my weekends have been much less about relaxation and more so about trying to cram a week's worth of activity - laundry, grocery shopping, etc - into two days.  Despite the long weekend, this one has been just as busy as usual with family pictures scheduled for Sunday afternoon.  With my two sidekicks in tow, we headed out to Alexa's swim practice followed by an afternoon of errands.

I was on a quest to find a pair of jeans for Ani to wear in our family pictures.  At face value, this seems like it should be a relatively easy task, but not with this little peanut.  Ani is extremely tiny for her age, so trying to find jeans that fit proved to be an impossible task.  We tried Target, Carters, H&M and BabyGap, but even the 'Mini Skinny' jeans at BabyGap were way too big for our skinny mini.  Despite trying on a least 10 pair at BabyGap, Ani stayed in great spirits and thought it was a lot of fun to entice me to chase her in the large fitting room to try on the next pair.

Since Ani was still in a good mood, I couldn't resist the lure of a 20-percent off sale at Athleta and decided to push my luck and stop in a quick look.  Of course, I found a few things to try on but the large fitting room that would accommodate Ani's running stroller was occupied.  Alexa offered to hang out with Ani from the comfy lounge chair immediately outside my fitting room, and since they were within two feet of me, I figured it would work.  It was probably the best decision I made all day.

It was both comical and sweet to listen to the two girls as I hurriedly tried on my selections.  Alexa was a perfect doting big sister, looting the diaper bag for snacks (I think she ended up eating most of them) and speaking in silly voices to make Ani laugh.  I'm not sure everything Alexa was doing, but she had Ani giggling hysterically in her great baby laugh.  As I tried on my last hoodie, I could hear the employees commenting how wonderful it was to have that moment of levity in the day and admiring how sweet Alexa is in the big sister role.

When I made my way to the checkout, the cashier commented that the sight of my girls had made her day.  She said the love between my two girls was very obvious, and it made her want a sister (she was an only child) to have a relationship like that.  It was a very hectic day and afternoon, but a comment like that is another reminder of how lucky I am. :)

A little blurry, but my favorite image of the girls from a wedding last weekend.
There's no doubt they love each other.