Temple and Late Night

We didn't wake up until about 8:20, so that meant I got about 8 hours of sleep...nice.  :)  I showered, got ready, and then got the girls dressed.  After breakfast, the girls played while I got things ready for us to go to Atlanta.

When we got to Atlanta, we went to Burger King to get some lunch and from there we headed to the Temple to have a picnic lunch on the Temple grounds.  Yum!

After lunch, I dropped the girls off at Kids Stay 'n Play and headed back to the Temple.

I felt the Spirit so strongly at the Temple today.  I felt so close to my Heavenly Father as I served in His Holy House, and I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to come today.  I needed it.

I picked Alegria and Odette up at about 4:45.  We stopped at a gas station to fill the Jeep up with gas, for a potty break, and then it was back home!

During the first half hour of our ride home, Alegria was drawing happily and then told me that she drew a picture for me and handed it to me:

She said, "It's a picture of you and Daddy when you got married in the Temple!"  Notice the "Daddy" elephant has a bowtie on!  And the "Mommy" (me) elephant is wearing a veil!  AND the words "I heart U!"  She also drew herself in there and she and me are holding heart wands/bouquets.  Odette is also in there, the tiny, tiny elephant on the far left!  I just love Alegria's sweet spirit and her beautiful drawings!!!  :)  It warmed my heart that she would draw a recreation of our wedding day!!!  :)

Both girls took a nap in the car, and with it being so late for a nap, I knew it was going to be a late night...

I tried to get a picture of all three of us, but I'm just not as good as Cameron is with this particular tactic...I guess my arms just aren't long enough!  I could have used my little tripod, but I was too tired to go and get it...

Odette was NOT happy about taking pictures:

Odette: "I can't believe we're still doing this."

Finally a decent picture of all three of us:

The girls played with Isis while we watched some TV and I folded laundry:

Her expressions were so funny after Isis would lick her!

Isis begged for more play time...

...but Alegria decided it was more fun to help me fold laundry!  I let her start off with low-profile stuff, like washcloths...

Odette joined in on the fun:

Alegria graduated to socks:

And although she thought she was ready for shirts, I'm not quite so sure...can you tell which one she folded?  ;)

I'm very happy that the girls found joy in helping me fold laundry and even though my OCD self is tempted to re-fold everything they folded, the mother in me is stronger and will leave it as is so that the next time I open the washcloth drawer or their clothes drawer and see the items folded as such, I'll remember the sweet girls that helped a tired mom and the fun times we had doing it.  :)

By the time we finished folding laundry, it was 10pm...and I STILL hadn't bathed the girls, so it was off to the tub after putting all of the laundry away.

The girls were finally in bed by about 10:30 (it would have been later if I'd let them do our countdown, but I was starting to get tired)!  

I finally got to work out. 

Now I've got to go prepare my lesson for church tomorrow and finally to bed.

Good night everyone, and sweet dreams!