Emmanuel

Last year, it was that time again for the annual Christmas ballet, Emmanuel.  It's put on by the dance company Katherine currently attends, so she now knows some of the girls performing in it and is looking forward to performing on this exact stage in May.

These two cutie-patooties have made this trek since they were 2 and 3 years old.  It is so incredibly awesome to me that something as simple as a free ballet offered here in town has become a tradition that our girl can look forward to.

Miss E is one of Katherine's teachers.

 

And J thought it would be cool to get a thumbs up in the picture.  Shades of teenage years to come, I'm sure.  It's so cute, because the girls look a tad bit stiffer just because an older boy is in the picture.  Love it!

The next set of Emmanuel pictures will hopefully have Katherine in them, in costume. :)

Thank goodness for friends who tolerate the kitchen

It's no secret: I'm not a cook.
Nor a baker.
Nor, do I really enjoy doing anything inside the kitchen beside cleaning it up or reorganizing it.
So, when family or friends offer to do things with our children that involve making kitchen activities fun, I'm all over it. Because frankly, that's why God made all types, right? I find it a blessing and privilege to depend on other's strengths to teach my children stuff I could care less about, and hopefully they'll look to me for the same.
So don't waste your time wondering what my response was when Bamah called one day and said, "Papa found this adorable Gingerbread house and thought the grandkids would like putting it together and decorating it. Would you mind if they came over for the day to do that and make some Christmas cookies?"
Or even, when my good friend 'A' said she wanted to have Katherine over to make/bake/decorate some sugar cookies with her daughter, AC.
We all know the answer to those two requests.
Just thinking about the patience I would need to muster up to do something like these two activities makes me want to go chill out and watch some HGTV.

Thankfully, our children not only have their father to encourage healthy kitchen habits, but also loving friends and family to do the same.
Even our neighbors make a point to include our little ones in baking.
Make sure you keep me in mind when your child needs tutoring in math or your closet needs a good cleaning.

Monday stuff

Katherine's best bud, AC, came over yesterday and Miss Shear Genius did her hair. I had no idea she had so many pink bows.
This is what I woke up to yesterday. And no, he's not in the crib that long for him to attempt a clothing-optional mutiny. He just gets impatient or finds a string on his shirt that he doesn't like.

Girl's Night Out

"These economic times" have really opened up a new and exciting time of getting creative when it comes to finding fun and inexpensive things to do, and this just happens to be a perfect time of the year to take advantage of many of them. Our latest outing was special in so many ways...

We went to a free ballet here in town. It was put on by a local Christian ballet school that's been around for over 25 years. Katherine was excited about wearing her new super-twirl dress and seeing big girls in "beau-tee-ful" dresses, dancing. She was also very excited that Mer and Bamah came along. And the icing on the cake was our best buddies Miss A and AC coming along also.

Are these two cute or what?

What made this trip so extra special (for me at least) was knowing that our little girl has both of her grandmothers living close that can do special things like this. Not many little girls can say that. It was a girl's night out and with her being a card-carrying, registered-and-paid-the-fees girly-girl, it was very exciting for her. What more could a girl want? Twirl dress, mommy, both grandmas, best buddy, dinner at her favorite restaurant and refined, up-scale entertainment.

Little Miss Shy decided to poke her head out of the shell a little bit that night also. After the show was over, she thought it would be the perfect time for her to perform. Up on the stage, she practiced twirling and jumping all with hands in the air.I enjoy having a girl so much. My girly-girl side was put on the back burner, if not lost for a loooonnnng time, so painting fingernails, getting dressed up and talking about girl-stuff is so much more special now, because she's the one that brought it back.

Pumpkin Patch

We took a trip to our local Pumpkin Patch today and got some good pictures.The story behind today was that I had to start first thing this morning convincing Little Miss Wardrobe Princess that because we were going to be taking pictures, I wanted to pick out her outfit. I made very clear that it would not twirl, BUT, if she wanted she could pick out something else for us to take with us for her to put on right after pictures were over. She was all over that and ended up packing a dress, with shoes, and her princess suitcase full of who-knows-what in addition to her baby's diaper bag. She really must not have liked the outfit I picked out.

Weeks worth of updates

I've been jotting down "events" that have happened in our household over the past 2 weeks. Here's the run-down...

The GREAT news: Nathan has started letting me hold him to sleep. It's not something I do every night, but sometimes I just need the cuddling. Also new, he was fussy in the middle of the night last week and did the unthinkable. When I brought him into our bed to calm him down, which usually doesn't work, he fell right asleep. He usually thinks it's time to play, bonk Daddy's head while he's sleeping, do the back-arch-baby-roll out of my grip, and I end up putting him back in his bed to let him cry it out. Rocking him in the chair and sometimes even walking around with him wouldn't do it. But that night, dare I say it for fear of jinxing any chance it might happen again, he cuddled. And I ate up every second of it. He nestled right in between my arm and side and fell asleep with no resistance. It has been the only time in his life he's ever slept in our bed, and I loved cuddling with my baby.

The NOT-SO-GREAT news: Nathan has found one of my weaknesses and last week decided to take full advantage of the situation. My weakness: paying attention to our children when people first come into our house. I feel it is my duty as the hostess to at least open the door, say hi with a smile (which means no raising my voice at children), have a small conversation with them when they come inside (and I mean small, "Hey, come on in. Have a seat. You find it okay? Want a drink?, etc.), get them situated (seated or at least comfortable) and then go back to paying attention to children. This is usually a 5-minute process. Not long, by any means, but the little stinker found it out and exploited the situation. The first incident happened when I was letting the babysitter in the door. She had been here before, but only once, and I was trying to show her the food set out for the kiddos' lunches, etc.

Mistake #1: I left the door open to the animal's food. ('Animals' being the dog & cat, not my children). Not one minute into my hostessing duties, I run back to the room and notice my son hunched over the dog food and water bowl. He was holding a couple pieces in his hand and making a yucky-fied face while sticking out his tongue. The front of his shirt was covered in water, along with the floor underneath him, because he had been violently splashing the water in the bowl. So, within a minute he did all this. I should have locked him up then.

Mistake #2: I left the door open to the bathroom. After cleaning his hands from the dog food incident, I mistakenly put him down and assumed the worst had passed. Oh no, dude made a bee-line straight for the bathroom, when he saw me opening the door to let in Aunt N and J. My time, again, was occupied with something other than watching children. Within minutes, the house was eerily quiet, so I went looking for the little monster. This time he was playing in the toilet. Thankfully (I say sarcastically), his sister forgot to flush. Without going into details, I know Nathan prefers solids that float and disintegrating toilet paper is fascinating when he tries to pick it up and it falls apart in his fingers.

Sigh!

On to Katherine: Jim was talking to her one day about how beautiful he thought she and myself were. He asked, "Do you think your mommy is beautiful?" (Does he not understand the significance of 'loaded questions'?)
Her response, "No, I'm the most beautiful."
I guess that's what happens when you hear over and over again how beautiful you are.

She's wearing a hat with a gator on it and Daddy's hat says, "Life's Too Short to be Dancing With Ugly Women."

My beautiful little lady showed her 'rougher' side the other day. Us 3 were outside picking up magnolia seed pods for brother's birthday party. She was sitting right next to me, chatting away like usual, then next thing I know it's quiet. I looked to my right and about 15 feet away, IN THE FRONT YARD, she had hiked up her skirt, pulled down her panties and was peeing in the grass! Uh, okay. It's not like she's ever seen one of us peeing in the yard.

There must be something about being able to pee right there, without having to bother yourself with going inside. I have a nephew that helped himself right outside of his school, in front of a mess-load of people. Half of them didn't even notice but the few that did thought it was cute and totally understood.

I actually got a picture of them playing in their tent this time. And they played together so nicely for about 15 minutes.
Katherine and her best bud, AC, watching Tinkerbell. This was Nathan's actual birthday. We 3 made cupcakes and decorated them together.
Some quality outside-time with Daddy. I'm so glad his schooling is over.
Some of the "finer" moments for Mommy and Daddy...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Childhood memories

Periodically I have flashbacks of my childhood. I remember one time in particular something didn't go my way. I think I was around 6-9, can't quite remember. It was me, mom and Mark at home and whatever it was that didn't sit well with me, was NOT in my plan (however minor it might have been). So, the only solution to my unhappiness was to pull out the drama and kick it up a notch or two, compared to my normal drama.

I proceeded to wail the best fake cry I could muster, trying desperately to produce a tear or two, dragging it out even after something had distracted me for a second. I would quickly re-compose myself and remembered the goal of proving that this not-my-way stuff is for the birds and everybody else would just be better off if I got my way. I think my mom was busy with something else, like being a mom, and she wasn't there to shush me up so I continued. Wailing, fake-crying, falling to the ground, minor foot-stomping etc.

Since I was getting no attention, I threw myself on the bed, face down and proceeded to wail even louder. (If it weren't for my paralyzing fear of the stage, I'm sure I could have been a GREAT actress.) My arm was folded up underneath my face and I remember concentrating on making the crying sound genuine and heartbreaking so I could force misery upon my perpetrator. Hours went by, well, it felt like hours. Minutes went by while I perfected the best crying scene I could generate and

WHAM!

Out of the blue, a hand smacked my rear-end, I was so proudly sticking up in the air (part of the staging I was working on). And quickly the proclamation followed: "There. That'll give you something to cry about."

Oh my heavens! The wailing continued, but this time with more gusto and heart to back it up; because of pain. My mother, who no-doubtedly had heard enough of my practicing-for-Broadway antics, gave me a real reason to cry. But this time it didn't last as long for fear of receiving another reason to cry.

I learned a big lesson that day: When pulling out all the acting stops, don't leave your rear-end exposed.

Enter: Katherine not wanting to take a nap. Need I say more? She didn't get her way today while I was feeding Nathan his bottle and she decided to pull out all the stops. There was no Wham-ing. Just calmly reading some books as a distraction, but I got so tickled remembering my childhood. Speaking of childhood memories, the story about the movie Annie and singing the song "Tomorrow" is at the bottom.

* * * * *

Today, Katherine's bestest bud AC came over to play for a little bit. I thought it would be a great opportunity to bake some cookies I've had sitting in the box on the counter for about a month. The cutie-patooties put on their aprons and stood on chairs next to the counter.
They combined the pre-measured ingredients, mixed it up and placed dollops of dough on the cookie sheet. We talked about what a recipe is, how the cookies change when they're baking and had a taste test after they cooled.
Conclusion: Even boxed cookies don't like me. I'm convinced the culinary Gods are upset with me and have placed a 'hit' on me.

Thanks to some wise intervention and experience-talk from AC's mom, it maybe had something to do with the cooking stone, humidity, the fact that they came in a box and just plain wrong cooking times on the instructions. I'm going with that because I'm sure it had nothing to do with me and my abilities.

* * * * *

Annie (Soundtrack)

Another treasured memory of mine was when the movie Annie came out. My favorite part of the movie: when Annie sang, "Tomorrow."

So, I'm in our back yard, where we had 5 acres separating us from neighbors, at 7 years old singing "Tomorrow" at the top of my lungs, trying very hard to hit each note on pitch and remember the words. I sang it all the time and there was probably some dancing/choreography included.

What my parents heard was a non-stop bad version of the soundtrack to Annie stuck on one song. What they saw was a little girl dancing around, oblivious to the rest of the world, singing her heart out.

What my parents didn't know was that I was convinced that if I sang good enough and loud enough our neighbors, who were 5 acres away, just might have a talent scout at their house. And that talent scout would hear the melodic voice of the next Annie-on-Broadway-replacement singing her heart out and he would ask that little girl and her parents if she would be interested in, gasp even better, being in the movies!

Don't laugh, it is soooo do-able in a 7-year-old's mind and that's exactly what I thought. I eventually got tired of singing the song over and over again and moved on to wanting to be a gold-medal gymnast like Mary Lu Retton.