A golden royal celebration

Once Upon a Time, Miss A sent out a royal decree that all the knights and ladies of the kingdom should come to help her celebrate her GOLDEN birthday. Like always, the "princess helper" (a.k.a mommy) used a little magic created by her favorite scribe and artisan-- the fabulous Loralee Lewis-- to transform the royal garden into a party suitable for her highness. 

 

Princess A dressed in her newly made golden gown and matching crown and anxiously awaited the arrival of her guests.

 

The first carriage to arrive belonged to none other then Miss A's soon to be best friend Belle. 

 

It wasn't long before the rest of the guests enter through the castle gates where makeovers awaited them.  Our young knaves were adorned in shining armor and knighted by our king and then sent to the jousting fields where they bravely battled for their lady's honor.

 

The princesses wore their finest gowns, and with Belle's help, they readied themselves for the festivities with a tiara, sparkly nails, jewels, purse, wand, and a coat of lip gloss.  

 

Even the tiniest princess was ready for the ball. 

 

While the boys continued to battle, the little princesses worked on crafting fine golden bracelets.  

Her royal highness's first request was that the celebration begins with some dancing, and so dance they did.  

It's hard not to work up an appetite with all the dancing and so it was finally time to feast. 

 

The knights sat down at their round table 

 

and the ladies sat down for "tea".   

They daintily nibbled on tiara cookies, Tiana's chocolate frogs, Snow White's apples and dip, Aurora's spinning wheels, Rapunzel's twisted and tangled pretzels, treats from under the sea, Jasmin's pita chips, and bibbidi bobbidi berries.

 While they dinned, the beautiful Belle sang a couple tunes and told of her adventures with the Beast. 

 

While waiting for dessert, the knights added their crests to shields and the princesses made crowns for the day they would become queens.

 

Every one finished glittering and engraving just in time for cake.

 

 

  Who knows what the little princess wished for since she was already living a dream.  

 

Before the guests departed, we saved the kingdom by slaying the golden dragon and were rewarded with treasure that fell from his belly.

 And although this little tale had to come to an end, every one returned to their castles and manors to continue their adventure in their own little way.  And we all know little Miss Princess A is living happily ever after.

I can't believe I forgot about this one

My actual favorite conversation was one night when we were sitting out in a park with my sister.  She was making little flower rings and necklaces for Miss A and my niece.  She uncrossed her legs revealing a long crease on her leg from being crossed.  E came up and was very concerned about her "ouchie". She assured him it was just an indentation. 
E- "Indentation, what's an indentation?"
Jess tried to explain what an indentation was when he excitedly exclaimed, "Ohhhh.  You mean like when my underwear is too tight?"

Lyrics to songs sung around here:
"I stopped the sheriff but mmmm the deputy mmmm uh-huh"
"Old McDonald had a farm, Eli Eli Ho"
From Grim Grinning Ghosts (the song played in the Haunted Mansion) "... they begin to tear your eyes. Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize" (really "they begin to terrorize").
From Splash Mountain "Slippery Do Da, Slippery Nay"
"It's a small world, after all, it's a life it's a gift it's a life is a gift, it's a small world after all."
"yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me, da da da da da da da da me hardies yo ho, da da da da da me hardies yo ho"
"Rumor has it ???????"

The coming and goings of June

The beginning of June was busy with plans for Miss A's birthday. Auntie Beth arrived to stay with us for a while. Our mornings were filled with a couple swimming lesson classes I volunteered to teach. In our afternoons we found some sort of adventure to keep us busy.  We went to the drive-in, children's museum, science museum, zoo, had some play dates, went swimming,  won tickets at Chuck-E-Cheese, celebrated daddy's birthday, dug for crystals at the salt plains, and then headed out on a road trip to remember. (I misplaced my camera for most of our adventures so this is all I have to show for it)

Here are my favorite conversations from the month:

At the zoo eating an Icee E said-"My head is so cold it's on fire"

We were walking up to our car in the parking lot of the Dr's office and I was standing a little closer to the car next to ours as I fumbled for my keys.  Miss A looked at the car and said: "Is this our car?" I said, "You know it's not" and she said, "Yes because this car is clean and our car is dirty."

At swimming lessons, E said, "Mommy you teach good swimming lessons. I wish I was a big daddy so that I can teach swimming lessons like you"

Aunt Elizabeth asked E about something my dad gave him: "Did your grandfather get that for you?"

E responded-"He's not my grandfather. He's Pappy.  He's not an old man!"

When anticipating his doctor's appointment to get his staph infection checked out E said "Mommy feel my heart.  It's beating really fast.  I think it's a little bit scared to go to the doctor but the rest of my body isn't scared but my heart is nervous."

E explained to a friend of mine where you get chicken. "It comes from horses. You shoot the horse. You pull off the skin and squeeze the blood out.  Then you take the bones out and cook it." 

The friend asked, "So chicken comes from horses".  

E-"Yes, and sometimes chicken comes from turkeys" 

Friend-" Does chicken ever come from chickens?" 

E-"No! that would be disgusting!"

When I asked him about it he said "sometimes chicken comes from horses, and sometimes from cows, and sometimes from turkeys, and sometimes from pigs, and sometimes from sheeps (pronounced "sheep" "es"). 

When we are getting ready to swim Miss A askes "Where is my baby soup?"(bathing suit) and "Where are my gobbles?"(goggles)

E-"My daddy's got skills!!!"

Miss A has turned into a little ferret.  If something is missing guarantee she's found it and stashed it away somewhere.  The other day I was looking for my goggles and fins to go to my boot camp and they weren't in my bag.  I was frantically looking for them and asked her if she knew where they were. She said, "hmm, I can't know?" After a while, she went outside and came back in so proud of herself for finding my fins.  Apparently "I" left then wedged between the abandoned dog house and the fence.  Silly me, how could I forget that is where I keep them?

Hi Ya

 If you've met E you know he has a lot of energy.  We've tried multiple sports as a positive outlet for his energy but none of them have really clicked for him. The one thing he has stuck with is his gymnastic class. (maybe someday I'll actually dig up the cute pics from last year when he and Miss A both participated).  After we took a break last summer, E started back up in a karate gymnastics combination class.  At the end of May, he showed us his moves during the M&M Olympics.  

Kansas City

Since I'm currently in the middle of another road trip I should probably hurry and get some posts up about our past few road adventures. Way way back (in April) we joined up with a handful of other families and headed to MO to go to the open house for the new Kansas City temple.

 Click here for more information on LDS temples. 

 

Since the kids aren't old enough to attend the temple with us once it's been dedicated we thought we'd take the opportunity for them to be able to see what one looks like on the inside.  It was wonderful to share the experience with them (even if Miss A managed to make a little scene by knocking a panel off the wall-- so much for the "don't touch anything" rule) 

 

 

as well as the 6 other families (14 adults, 26 kids)

 

While we were in the area we headed over to Liberty to check out some church historical sites.  It was crazy to think of the men, including the prophet Joseph Smith being unjustly imprisoned in the tiny jail during the cold of winter.

We also spent a little time seeing the sites in the city--visiting the crown center, eating BBQ, driving around lots of pretty neighborhoods (code for getting lost A LOT) and swimming. The most memorable part of our adventures around the city (aside from the sodeepi we won't talk about during the aforementioned getting lost in the neighborhoods) was probably eating at Fritz's where your waiter is a little electric train. 

Even with all it's ups and downs, I'm glad we went on our little adventure.

The comings and goings of May

So it's probably pretty obvious that I'm a little behind on my posting.  May kept us busy with end of the school year stuff, teacher gifts, and prep for Miss A's 3rd birthday (to come as soon as I get some pictures). We had some adventures like finding handfuls of Miss A's hair in her closet which lead to me wanting to rearrange her room, leading to finally painting the walls, followed closely with the opportunity to clean dark teal paint out of the light cream carpet.  I've spent the first 10 days of June catching up on everything I ignored trying to prep for Miss A's party. So in short, here is the long-awaited and really poorly recorded comings and goings of May.

While watching a commercial E announced--"I hate car insurance.  They just take all your money!" Amen to that little dude!

After his hair cut E commented, "My hair looks like daddy's except that he has more black and gray." 

E's Sunday School teacher was telling the story about how Christ called to his disciples and they immediately dropped their nets and followed him.  She tried to liken it to them by saying, "If you are doing something and your mommy asks you to do something else, what should you do?" Of course, most kids said, "Stop what you are doing and do what she is asking". E's response was "Yeah but my mom is so annoying.  She's always telling me to stop playing Legos because it's time to go to school.  She is trying to annoy me so I don't do it." 

E's teacher this year has been teaching for many many many years and has had many many students (40 of them this year alone). She usually has funny stories to tell me about his antics at school such as trying to lead her in an aerobics class at recess or randomly calling her out, saying "I'm watching you" with an appropriate gesture pointing with two fingers to his eyes than to her.  In any event, this sweet woman with A LOT of teaching experience reported to me one day that "All kids are different, but I can say that I've never taught a kid quite like E before.  Sometimes I am at home and think about him and just start laughing." Heaven help his next teacher. 

I obviously need to step up my blogging game. 

The comings and goings of April

This month's reflection is dedicated to my parents.  I have a feeling they are really going to enjoy it.

E has met the love of his life.  She is the older sister of a girl in his pre-K class.  He hopped in the car after getting a hug from her in the carpool line and she says. "I love her so much."

Me-"You don't even know her name" 

He and his teacher in unison-"But I (he) love(s) her" 

E-"I want to get her a special prize.  I want to get her a ring" 

Me-What kind of ring "A sparkly ring"

I told him that he'd have to learn her name before we could discuss buying her "special prize"

The older girl who has no name is not his only love.  One day, while we were waiting for our order at Sonic, E told me that he loved popcorn so much he was going to marry it.  Then he described the whole marriage ceremony and how he'd probably eat her after. Then he said, "This story gives me the giggles."

On another day after school, our conversation was about his order for his ice cream sundae for the class party the following day. 

Me-"what did you ask for on your ice cream?" 

E-"Just vanilla and cherries. I didn't want to get a tummy ache."

Me-" Oh so you wanted to make sure you had fun and didn't get sick."

E-"yeah and my friends who are getting candy and stuff are going to throw up and that's going to be sad."

Indeed it would be sad

Then one day after school I was helping him build a little Lego car.

E--"I love you so much. You're the best mommy ever because you are the best builder in the whole world."

Me-"Would you still love me if I couldn't build Legos."

E- "mmmm probably not"

I guess getting degrees in engineering has helped me in the mothering department.

Out of the blue-

E--"Daddy loves me too much.  He takes up all of my heart. But I want a little bit of my hearts for my friends."

Randomly-

E--"Mommy, how did you get best friends?"

Me-"I guess I just make friends with people"

E-"Oh, I just make up friends."

I'm not sure exactly what I did to deserve this but Miss A came into the living room nearly crying and said-"Mommy you took my special heart and you broke it." 

Yesterday I turned the TV to Babe--one of my favorite movies.  Miss A sat and watched it for a second and said. "Hey.  This not make sense. Ducks don't talk.  They say 'quack quack'".  Then a few minutes later when the sheep was talking. "Hey. He's supposed to say "Maaaaaa".  Apparently, she doesn't appreciate the timeless story of a selfless and nonjudgmental talking pig. 

Then at church, I took her to the bathroom right before her class.  She headed into a stall then demanded I go into one as well and "go potty". As I was washing my hand I heard a little Miss A voice singing "I did it, uhuh, I did it, Oh yeah!!!"

I think my parents have gotten what I can imagine they always wished for me. When I was a kid I always thought I was smarter than my parents because I felt like my justification when disagreeing with them was always very rational. I didn't get why they didn't get it.  Well, I finally get it. I have a daughter who must ALWAYS be right and comes up with a very valid reason why she is right.  I think she thinks I'm an idiot.  Cases in point.

• Miss A came out with thick fleece footie pjs when it was getting a little warm and I told her that she should change since those jammies were probably going to be too hot.  Her response "I'll just unzip it a little"
• We got out of the car on a crisp morning and she wasn't wearing a jacket. "Oh I'm not cold" " I love being warm"
• We were at Braums eating ice cream and she insisted on shaking salt into her ice cream.  After putting quite a bit I took it from her and told her that was enough. She took a big bite with a smile on her face and said: "Mmmm I love it".  On an unrelated note, she didn't eat anymore. 
• When I was changing for my aquatic bootcamp Miss A came in and pleaded to go with me (like usual). When I told her it was swimming for exercise not for playing she said. "It's okay.  I swim fast".
• We've been changing Miss A's room from a baby room into a princess room.  Immediately after I showed her the new vanity she said, "Okay now we paint my room".  I told her we couldn't because we didn't have paint. "Let's go buy paint". I told her we had to get E from school first. "Then let's go get E". I told her school wasn't over yet. So she yelled at me for the 20 minutes we had left before carpool time about how we needed to go get E so we could go buy paint so we could paint her room.  On the way home, she fell asleep.  The second she woke up she came out and said, "we need to go buy paint now so we can paint my room".  Unfortunately in the meantime, a storm had rolled in that was expected to have large hail.  Not wanting to risk dimpling my car I told her we couldn't go out because it was raining. "That's okay, we have jackets". When I tried to explain that the rain was more than jacket weather, she said: "Then we'll wear hats".

I can't wait til she hits the teen years. 

I find myself trying to figure out where in the world this little girly girl came from.  I know it's weird, but I sometimes think of her as Br's daughter and forget she's mine too.  But then there are days like today where I hear the door chime that tells me she's let herself out of the house again and then look out the window and see her just hanging out on the bench outside by herself and flashback to my memories as a kids escaping to the backyard hiding in the bushes, looking for bugs, imagining little adventures.  Aside from the all-pink outfit, including the skirt with "tights" (leggings) she demanded and sparkly shoes I would have never been caught dead in, it could have just as easily been me out there on the bench.  Then when she came back into the house, went to the silverware drawer, grabbed a spoon, and when I said those don't belong outside, and she assured me it was okay because "I'm not taking them all" so she could ladle water into her pretend lawnmower because "it was out of gas", I couldn't deny that she is me mine.

Somedays...

... you wake up feeling a little super.

You spend the morning being a superhero who uses his hammer to fix things. Or being a supervillain that is really sticky and goes by the name Super Yucky. 

Other days you wake up feeling royal.

So head downtown with another little princess where your carriage awaits to take you through town and you can wave and blow kisses to your adoring public.

Eggstravaganza?

Last week was filled with a playgroup party, chocolate egg topiary, Easter-themed desserts, community Easter party, 2000 eggs being collected by masses of kids in under 1 minute, and WAY too much candy.  To be honest, I really really enjoyed spending some great time with friends and family but didn't really get into it like I usually do. 

I did however really appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the sacrifice and Atonement of Jesus Christ and the blessings that come from His Gospel. I'm grateful for His plan for me that includes the fun times I get to spend with the precious gifts I call E and A. I'm so grateful for the true reasons for Easter.

The comings and the goings of Marchish

I'm going to make an attempt to capture my favorite moments into a monthly post. Don't expect them to be profound, or all that amusing.  It's just a few little things I want to remember. Here's my first attempt.

One afternoon it was a really nice day and we had nothing to do so we headed to the zoo.  After staying until closing, I turned to the kids and said, "I had a really fun time with you guys". A was a little confused at how I was able to have a good time because "Um but you didn't actually play".

E stopped to lick the fingers on his left hand while he flipped the pages of his Lego instructions with his right.  When I asked him what why he was doing that he said "cuz that what daddy does"

On two separate nights, Miss A expressed to me that she really wants to be bigger like me.  On the first night she said, "so that I can take big bites of my apple like you". On the second, "So I don't destroy the house anymore."

E got a little game in him Chick fil A meal where you are given cards with things to act out (Finally not just a book he wants to exchange for an ice cream cone).  We were eating with some friends and one by one he acting them out.  We'd almost immediately guess correctly.  EVERY time we got the same response. He would jump up with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face while throwing his arms up in the air and yell "Correct!" with the enthusiasm the SNL Target lady says "Approved!".

Last week there was a particularly gloomy day where is rained off and on.  My kids were perfect for brightening it up.  When I was coming out of Target with just E, I picked him up so he could avoid the puddles and he said, "It's raining now.  I'll be our umbrella".  I held him up high as and held his arms out as we laughed the whole way to the car. Later in the day, I was picking Miss A up from class.  When she walked outside and saw that is was raining she yanked her hand out of mine and refused to give it back.  Right before I started to reprimand her for not holding my hand in the parking lot she explained, "I'm holding my umbrella". And she was-- hold a little invisible umbrella very daintily with both hands as she sang "Chim chimney" while strolling in the rain to the car.  Totally worth getting a little wet.

Roughing it with the kids...

...at Rough Creek Lodge. After our 12th annual Fry-day Friday celebration and a quick and fun visit with family at the beginning of spring break, our next little adventure took us south into TX.  Br and I thought it was a place that we could relax a little and the kids would have a good time.  I secretly think Br only agreed to let us go because he knew they would watch and feed out kids while we were at our delicious 3-course meal (this is where I threw my diet out the window and still haven't really gotten back on track).

Upon arriving we were welcomed with a bag of goodies which included kites for the kids.  We'd barely brought the suitcases into the room when the kids were already running outside to try them out.  It was a fantastic start to our escape.  I'm not sure what I enjoyed more, Miss A's squeals or E singing "Let's go fly a kite". 

 

After running around a bit, we headed to the lake to "fish" and boat.  I say "fish" because we didn't bring extra bait on the boat so we were pretty much just casting out hooks after the first few minutes. Surprisingly we did not catch anything. 

Per A's request, we rode the pony. Despite his insistence that he didn't want to ride it, you can tell by his smile that E enjoyed it too.

 Then we just played for a little while waiting around for the hayride before dinner.   

 

 We finished the night off by making smores.  Before movies in their beds, the kids washed off the smell of hickory smoke by "swimming" in the bathtub (who said you can't go swimming when it's cold outside?).  

The next morning we had a superb breakfast.  Miss A was worrying me a little with how comfortably she was enjoying/fitting into the posh environment of the dining room where she was personally assisted in making her selections from the buffet and then carefully helped to her over-sized armchair (complete with back pillows).  We are going to have to keep an eye on that girl. 

By the time we were finished eating the blue sky had chased the gloomy clouds away and so the kids and I went out to enjoy it while daddy packed up the room.  The one thing the kids kept going back to was the teeter-totter.  At one point all rode it (talk about a leg workout).  The kids even made up a little song they would sing to the rhythm of going up and down "Teeter Totter, Teeter Totter, Lets. Have. Fun!"

 

   We may have checked out of out room, but our visit was far from over.  We went on a little hike/bike ride to a fossil hunt (Please ignore the first show of questionable parenting--- my two-year-old with a real rock hammer/mini pickaxe).

We just happened to walk past the driving range on our way back, so we stopped there and hit a few balls/played games with golf equipment/used the ball collector as a purse/collected broken tees/rode clubs like hobby horses/whatever else our little minds could come up with to keep us entertained.

We had just a few minuted to teeter totter again before our archery and tomahawk lesson. (More photographic documentation of questionable parenting.)

 

Take note of the future Katniss Everdeen (all of the attitude but without the whole being sent off to kill other kids for show stuff.)

We played around a little more before heading back to reality DFW to hang out with friends and family.

Experiencing Oklahoma

It's been a month, so I guess it's time for me to download pictures from the camera, do a little photo editing and attempt to catch up on my posting.  I guess I'll begin with our little trip north.

We've recently made an effort to take advantage of the things only Oklahoma has to offer.  Our first adventure took us to Tulsa.  We found an inexpensive yet nice hotel with a little water park, so some friends (the Stewarts) joined up while we tired our kids out, sliding, splashing, and jumping at Leapin' Louie's Lagoon.

The next morning we headed to Jenks (no need to break out the map--it's pretty much Tulsa too) to check out the aquarium. We saw lots of aquatic creatures.

Touched a few

Fed some 

And tried to avoid being feed for others. 

And of course, tried to capture the memories.

But let's be honest, when you are dealing with 5 kids under 6 the more accurate captures of memories look like these...

On a side note--Miss A was a good sport hanging with all the boys our whole trip.  Right before heading back home, she did take a moment to have a little tea party with some imaginary friends at a little bistro table outside an uber girly boutique in downtown Jenks.

Look what Miss A finally talked me in signing her up for

Look for these pictures to resurface when she's on So You Think You Can Dance Season 27.