Happy 14 months Preslee and Mason

is it really already march 30th? are preslee and mason really already 14 months old? it seems like yesterday that we had all of our friends and family over to celebrate their one year birthday. that was only 60 days ago and in that time, our little girls have changed so much.

preslee is walking now, no more crawling for her. she's toddling all over the place. she has learned to "score" all by herself when she plays basketball. her pop-pop and daddy are so proud of that! i have been writing down all the words that she says and realized that there are 15 of them! she can say ball (she says this with just the right southern twang), hi, mama,da-da, heidi, up, blue (boo), baby (beebee), eye, no, yeah, uh-oh, night-night (she says ni-ni), papaw and pop. i remember thinking in the beginning that preslee was going to be so quiet and timid. she has broken out of that shell and is saying everything.

mason has been walking for 3 1/2 months and is now just perfecting it OR she is running, yes, running! she runs and squeals while looking behind her to see if you are chasing her. she isn't quite as talkative as her sister, but she says mama, dada, heidi, ball and uh-oh. she points and grunts to everything that she wants. it is amazing to me how much they understand. yesterday, she took preslee's stinky baby and preslee started to cry. i said, "mason, please give preslee her baby back, she's so sad." well, mason walked right over, handed the baby to preslee and walked away. she understood exactly what i asked her to do. i just sat there with my mouth wide open in amazement.

they both hug and kiss all the time. drew and i and even each other. mason even makes the smacking sound when she gives you a kiss. when drew and i put them to bed, he takes one of the girls and puts her in her crib and i take the other. after reading our bedtime story, we always stand up and give each of the girls a nightime kiss before we lay them down. tonight, when we did this, they both kept leaning out for just one more kiss and then one more and then one more and then, you get the picture. before we knew it , they had given each of us and each other about 10 kisses. drew and i just looked at each other and laughed. it was the sweetest thing that i had ever seen. i know everyone thinks this about their baby, but they really are the sweetest little girls.

i think what gets me the most is that they now know who mama and dada are. they point to a picture of me and say mama and drew and say dada. it melts my heart when i watch them waiting at the front door for drew to come home from work and say dada when they see him pull up.

i remember in college having a conversation with a friend about why she called her mom by her first name and didn't call her mom. she said that she figured that her mom had been a mom for all these years and now she probably wanted her name back. so, she called her by her first name. i LOVE that preslee and mason call me mama. what an honor to be their mama. i never want there to be a day where they don't call me that. i have not lost myself, i have only gained more knowledge, wisdom and strength. if anything i am more me than i ever have been before. being a mom has made me deeply honest about how i feel about everything. i don't have time to pretend to be something i'm not, or to pretend to like something i don't, or pretend to want to do something i really don't want to do. and the things i miss doing from time to time, are just that - things. things that can wait and will always be there for when i am ready to enjoy them again. in the meantime, i have a million new things to discover everyday with my baby girls.

happy 14 months preslee and mason, you have made them the happiest 14 months in our whole lives!