Little Blurbs about Audrey

You have started dressing yourself of a morning. Yesterday you wore a t-shirt, cardigan, jeggings, a dress-up skirt and Hello Kitty boots to Target.  Paired with a hot pink necklace and little red purse. The cashier told you you were pretty. I think you're doing a great job tackling this task on your own. Most days you get your shirt on backwards, but I've been letting you wear it like that unless it's obvious. I don't want to squash your enthusiasm about this new independent venture! Today, inadvertently, I let you go to the gym with your favorite pink cardigan on inside out. (You won't let go of this sweater. It was part of your Easter outfit last year and you still insist on wearing it even though we can no longer button it and the sleeves are halfway up your arms.)

Last week you lined all your princess dolls up on the couch, along with a random giraffe and danced for them. You said you were dancing to "Dancing Queen" from the movie, Mamma Mia. You twirled, quite gracefully in your pink pettiskirt, tights and "dance shoes" as you call your silver ballet flats. You really like ballet class. This week you ran up to me afterwards and said, "Mommy! I had so much fun!"  I'm ecstatic that you are giddy about dance class and always want to go. Today while at Brunch, a song from Mamma Mia came on in the restaurant and when I returned from the omelet station I found you literally dancing in the aisle. You said, "Mommy, a song from Mamma Mia came on so I'm dancing!" I knew the second I heard that song at the fruit station that you'd be either singing it or dancing to it when I returned. Luckily the waitresses saw you before we caused one of them to trip and the people next to us found it amusing.

You pronounce the Sweet Pea Beauty Veggie Tales movie "Sleeping Beauty," which made for quite the confusing dialog when we were watching the Sleeping Beauty movie a few weeks ago.

You carry around these little princess books, the Learning to Read ones that I bought after getting tired of reading 30 page princess stories. They are paperback and have large print. Your favorite is a compilation of princess stories we got at a garage sale last year. Although that's only one in a stack that you have to have with you at all times. And you get so irriatated when Allie takes one, afraid she's going to "ruin" it. Tonight you read the Tangled book to me. You told me the story just like it reads, except you didn't really read the words. You kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. You are a great storyteller.

Last week at a friends birthday party they played Duck Duck Goose. This was the first time you'd ever played this game and you found it quite funny to sit in the circle and laugh as you watched other people run and chase each other. You stopped laughing though when your head was touched and the runner said, "goose!" You just sat there, not wanting to run, which was ok. They picked someone else. And you went back to observing the action.

I will say that at three years and four months are really becoming outspoken at times. We visited a friend on Saturday that you hadn't seen in months. You loved playing with Emma and when I checked on you, I could always hear you talking, telling a story. You both love to play with dolls so I'd often find you pushing them around in strollers, putting them down for naps or carrying them in a doll carrier.

You still love your fingernails and toenails painted. Today, for church your fingernails were green on one hand and pink on the other, while your toes stayed blue from the night before.

I cannot believe how fast you are growing...

Moving beyond Middle C

A gift from Grandmother. 

A new book to help move the girls' knowledge of piano beyond middle C. They are still too young to take lessons but they sit and tinker around everyday. They love it when Grandmother comes to play & sing with them. 

Sarah

Allie's new trick

My daugher has learned how to climb up on the couch by herself, at 14 months.  She thinks she's big stuff. She uses the ottoman, or a large stuffed animal, or if you're sitting there, she'll climb up you, to reach her destination. After a visit from Grandpa we had to move the little rocking chair we had by the love seat, as he taught her how to climb up on the handles and vault onto the side of the couch. 

How how does she actually get onto the couch? Take a look: 

step one

step two

 almost losing it, but holding on

almost there

repositioning

home free

hi mom!

Sarah

Purse mishap

Allie came whining into the kitchen with a purse around her leg. She kept trying to pull it up on her shoulder and got so frustrated that it was stuck. This made me laugh. So I took a picture, and then of course, helped her. 

Allie struggling with her purse. Apparently the purse wasn't her only mishap this day, check out that hair!

Sarah

Conversations with Audrey

It's bedtime and I find Audrey on her bed reading a princess book to her dolls. I climb up on the bed next to her and ask which book she's set aside for me to read. And this is what she said, "I am reading Cinderella to Pink (Sleeping Beauty) and Blue (Cinderella) and when I am finished then you can read Cupcakes." I replied, "Audrey, if I'm going to read you a book it needs to be now because I need to go spend some time with Daddy." In a defeated voice she answers, "ok mom." And I read her the Fancy Nancy Cupcakes book. Which she has memorized, like her other Learning to Read books. She could read the entire book by memory if I just got her started. After a few pages of me beginning the sentence and her ending it in which I was getting a kick out of this, because it was uncanny that she knew every single word. She says to me, "You need to read all the words on the page, because you are reading the book to me." Well... ok then.

During quiet time this week I was reading a counting Cinderella book to Audrey. She coudln't remember how to hold up the number 4 with her hands so I helped her remember. I said, "that's how old you're going to be this year. and that makes mommy kinda sad." "Why?" She said very inquisitively. "Well, because I want you to stay young and be my baby forever." And she said, "If I drink a lot of milk I will grow big and strong." yes you will, I say. And then you'll go to school and I'll be so sad because you won't be home with me anymore." She she said so sweetly, "But I'll come back Mommy. Once school is over, I'll come home." I laughed. "Yes you will and you can tell me about your day and what you learned and we can have milk and cookies!" With a huge smile she said, "Yes!"

And just today she told me that the shirt I was wearing made me look fat. Yes, she did. Where did she learn that phrase?! More on that later.  And, yes, I changed my shirt, into one that in my opinion, was even less flattering.








Sarah

Milk.

It's been a long week. A week filled with me getting up in the middle of the night to soothe my one year old for at least an hour every night. A week filled with hard workouts, intense chocolate cravings and a death in the family. A week of endless mac and cheese and Cheerios on my kitchen floor. A week that did not promise a relaxing weekend.

I go upstairs for two minutes to find a shirt for my three year old, so we could go shopping without everyone knowing she had mac and cheese (again) for lunch. When I come back downstairs Allie's hair is wet. It's milk. Audrey had taken Allie's bottle and tipped it upside down so that the milk dripped in her hair. Why?!? Then I find more drops of milk on the playroom chair, then on the dining room chair cushion and on the kitchen table and finally by the back door. Why Why Why!? When I asked she said, " I was making pancakes." Pancakes!? You were making pancakes in your sisters hair!? Ugh. This was after she colored with blue crayon on our front door, and windows. Poor Allie. Her hair smelled like soured milk and stuck together, despite my attempt to scrub out the milk out while it was still wet. Today was not the first time she got in trouble for decorating the house with her penmanship. And today was not the first day she doused her sisters hair with milk.

I was mad. She was punished. Shopping was postponed.

We finally made it out, just Audrey and me, to buy gifts for the birthday party this weekend. Allie stayed home to have her hair washed. My 3 year old in the toy aisle is sounds something like this: "Mom, can I get this one?" "No Audrey, we're not getting that one today." "But Mommy I really like this dolly." "Audrey, it's time to go." " Can we go down the Repunzel aisle again?" "Audrey, we need to get going to pick up the pizza." "Can I get this for my next birthday?" "Sure."

Really, she's not bad to shop with at all, as long as I remember that she is 3 and when I put her in a toy aisle her face lights up and mind overloads like mine when I get my Pottery Barn magazine, or worse, when I visit Gymboree.

So that was my Friday. A little shopping, an afternoon of clean-up and a lot of milk.

Easter Outfits

I love to shop. I used to love to shop for me. After kids, it became so much fun to shop for little girls that I kinda forgot to shop for me. The added bonus is that most everything fits them, no trying on necessary. Just shop and buy. No terrifying fitting rooms or numerous trips back out onto the floor to try and find the right size or a style that covers your flabby areas. (yes, plural)

 Shopping for my children is so much easier, so much more relaxing and have I mentioned the  accessories? Cute frilly dresses, tutus, bracelets, tights, shoes and headbands that all coordinate. Oh I forgot about purses and dolls that match! My husband is amazed that an Easter outfit isn't just a dress. He is one of three boys. He has no idea.

Allie's dress, minus the Crocs. 

Audrey's outfit that matches Allie's, except for the shoes. I love Audrey's sandals this year. 

Sarah

If you've seen the movie and you have a preschooler...

Audrey loves the movie, Toy Story 3. That was the first movie she saw in the theater, and now we own it.  She's been acting out scenes lately. I promise she has limited TV time, but her brain is like a sponge!

A few weeks ago I woke up to Audrey yelling, in her best interpretation of the mom in Toy Story, "Annnndyyyyyyyy!" There she was in the hallway with two small tied up garbage bags (of rotten diapers) pretending they were the two garbage bags of toys Andy keeps or throws away in the movie. His mother yells, as she trips on them.

Yesterday she asked me to reenact a scene from Toy Story 3. "Do you want to be Andy's mom, Mom? Please please please please please?" 

(ugh) How could I say no? I got to be the daycare worker who accepts the box of toy donations from Andy's mom. Audrey was the mom. And then we switched and acted it out four or five more times, until Audrey ran out of things to say.

Later,  that creative little imagination got her in trouble. 

With a black dry erase pen Audrey wrote (like the mom in Toy Story 3) with permanent ink on our white microfiber couches and again (before we caught her) on her little pink canvas box she keeps her toys in on her bed. It took us 20 minutes, in the middle of making supper to clean the couch and ottoman. I finally realized what she was doing (at least with the box on her bed). She kept saying something about sending her toys to "Sunnyside". She was trying to label the box, just like the mom in the movie did to the box of toys that Andy donates to the daycare.

Sarah