Last week, while John and I made a trip to NJ for his work and experienced a freakin’ nor’easter, HG spent the weekend with her grandparents. They woke up on Saturday morning to SNOW! HG had a big time playing with the dusting of snow and throwing snowballs at Spiffer and Granddaddy.
“A good queen knows when she’s wrong and cleans up her messes.” (after watching Narnia)
“A unicorn uses her horn to collect donuts.”
“When I’m a mom, I’m going to let my kids do whatever that want to do.”
“We have a lot of fun at school.”
“I’m getting used to school.” When I responded by asking her what her favorite part was, she said, “I think all parts are cool.”
“It’s important to take good care of your skin.” Now, this is one of my phrases that I’m not embarrassed for her to parrot!
To me, “You always have too much excitement and too tight cuddles. Can I have a loose cuddle?”
We’ve always told her, “I love you much!” She responded the other day with, “I love you much-er!”
A list of some things she can now do all by herself:
When I was in high school, I remember a time that I was oohing and aahing over a beautiful sunset and a friend mentioned that they’d never really noticed a sunset. I am proud to say that our little girl eagerly points out anything beautiful in nature- a sunset, sunrise, pretty shadows, leaves on trees, etc.
She notices anything that you move (just like her mama).
She has quite an ear for music. She can put together a decent little ditty about whatever it is she wants to sing about at the moment. Also, she can hear the shortest bit of a song, recognize it, and tell you where it came from. To that point, she must have hear Katy Perry’s “Roar” at Haney’s party, but she heard it in the car one morning and immediately started belting it out. She’s been stuck on watching the video and singing it for days now.
She wants me to give her something to dream about each night. Unicorns, princesses, teddy bears, cupcakes, and sparkles are popular/well received suggestions.
Cupcake date (and a little love) with Lawson
Helen Grace and I were invited to attend LeBonheur’s GenerosiTEA on Saturday with four other SAA mothers and daughters. To say we were tickled pink would be an understatement.
After school on Friday, we stopped by Cotton Tails, and HG was in rare form. She was willing to try on a few outfits, mainly because she wanted to try on the 100 different colors of headbands (which are her newest obsession). She knew the perfect dress the minute she put it on, so then all that was left was the find the right headband and shoes. She picked out the sparkliest pair they had, and I chose a few more subtle ones. Wouldn’t you know that they only had her choice in her size! Well, it must have been meant to be, right? For the record, she didn’t take those shoes off for the entire rest of the weekend.
Helen Grace woke up on Saturday morning asking if she could put her dress on right then. Soon enough, we were ready for a tea party! We met up with the ladies at Woodland Hills, and the girly fun began immediately. First up, indulging in manicure, and soon thereafter- making Valentine’s Day cards for patients, decorating cookies, creating a tooth fairy pouch, painting a girly door hanger, and then making a sugar scrub. We grazed on our delicious lunch while watching a little girl fashion show. (HG had to run up front to watch this in person- she was really into it- and we then realized her friends Lilly and Ann Coleman were in it!)
We rounded out the day with a dress up group pic of the littles, although HG declined any costume, and then at the very end, she decided she wanted her hair braided. That made mama happy! Although I did notice that while it was obvious that the lady was pulling her hair tightly, she was happy to endure the ‘pain.’ Wish I could get that same reaction at home!
As we left the tea party, she remembered her school friend, Mary-Kate, was having a swim party across town at the Kroc. I explained to her that by the time we got there, the party would be essentially over. She promised she wouldn’t fuss but just HAD to get there and tell Mary-Kate happy birthday. We rushed to Midtown and walked in as they were literally leaving the party room. MK was so excited to see HG though, and HG was ecstatic to watch MK open the gift she picked out for her (a bunny that hops).
We had a great weekend getting to know and play with HG’s school friends and their mamas. Looking forward to many more girls’ dates!
We are talking a lot about what it means to be ‘humble’ lately. For example, she’ll put on a dress for casual day and ask me very dramatically, “Mama, do you think my friends will think I’m beautiful?” A little bit of this same conversation was happening with herself in the mirror.
I thanked my lucky stars that she chose the lightest nail polish color in her brand spankin’ new dress.
Last week, Helen Grace celebrated her 100th day of school- she’s 100 days smarter! The kiddos were super excited about a casual day and all kinds of fun festivities at school, and it was made even better by waking up to a dusting of snow (if you’d even call it that). An exciting day!
She had to count and bring to school 100 food items (she chose goldfish) and 100 non-food items (paper clips). {Try painstaking counting out 100 goldfish with your strong willed daughter for what felt like hours, only to later find her snacking out of the labeled bag…} I was really proud to see this on display outside of her classroom. ‘Inventive spelling’ (according to Spiffer) at its finest! So maybe she IS listening to all this phonics stuff…
Friday night, we had a fun girls’ night out at the Words’ since the daddies were working late. HG and I brought baked potatoes and corn on the cob, and Ginna and SK had the makings for Valentine’s cupcakes. The girls had fun playing dress up and pretend princesses, and Ginna and I had fun cooking up our meal and enjoying some mama time (and large glasses of wine). The girls had a ball licking the spoon and sampling the sprinkles, which HG could thank for having an extra late bedtime!
