Thumbs up for the new year!

I don't know about you all, but we're excited to say good riddance goodbye to 2011. Here's to a wonderful 2012!

Happy New Year!!!

Do you see what I see?

Last week was Grace's preschool Christmas program. It was her first ever Christmas program so it was kind of a big deal. Some family came from out of town, I dug out the camcorder, and we spent too much money on a dress she would wear one time. So okay. It really was a big deal.

It sounded like it was a really adorable little show. I can't be too sure though, because most of what I saw looked something like this:

Bigstock

Drat the luck on that one. Oh, and to the guy in front of me who was leaning forward as far as he could while holding his camera in the air - thanks buddy. There is a lady in the 10 items or less line with a cart full of groceries and a bag full of coupons just waiting for you to get stuck behind her. When all you have is a box of ice cream.

Bringing the camcorder was a huge waste because of the sheer amount of heads in the way. Apparently preschool Christmas programs are a big fat deal to everyone else on the planet too. And I guess the time I spent digging around for an old Hi8 tape wasn't so silly after all. But the fact that we still use Hi8 tapes? Yeah, that may be a little silly. Oh well, at least we got to see the side of her face a few times. I was able to convince her to sing one of the songs for us later though, and I even got a video. With my fancy shmancy digital camera, yes sir.

Safety first....?

Me: Grace, why are you putting Giraffe in your microwave?

Grace: That's because I need to keep him safe.

She asked for a hamster the other day. I'm thinking that isn't such a good idea....

Ballet dreamin'

There is a little girl in our house who desperately wants to be a ballerina. She watches Angelina Ballerina and tries to mimic every move she makes. Sometimes when she watches Angelina dance, she gets this dreamy, far away look in her eyes and says, "I wish I could be a ballerina...."

There is nothing cooler than Angelina right now. Not even Dora, although she does think it's pretty awesome to boss me around in Spanish. We have differing opinions on this issue. But that could be its own post, so back to ballet.

Ballet is the first thing Grace has ever truly had her heart set on, so we enrolled her in a class that starts in March. She's thrilled. THRILLED. She already has the tutu she wants picked out and keeps talking about how she gets to have a real teacher and everything. It may be a long few months for the poor kid.

She has a few little play tutus but you never know what she's going to decide to dance in for one of her impromptu recitals. Anything can be a tutu in Grace's world. On this day it was an Easter dress and matching hat that someone gave her a few weeks ago.

Please excuse the big ugly box that I was too lazy to get rid of. Let the show begin!

It's good to smile at the audience every now and then. They like that.

Ballerinas love putting their arms up like this.

Ballet is very serious business.

Our dog just doesn't appreciate the art of ballet. Uncultured fool.

But the show must go on! 

Cribs and toddlers and twins, oh my!

This sappy post is brought to you by Grace. It's all her fault. So blame her.

Now that we've got that straightened out, here goes. Last week Hubby and I finally decided to fork over the cash for a twin bed for Grace. She's a little over four now, and the toddler bed just really needed to go. So we went out to buy her a new one and she. was. thrilled. She scurried from bed to bed, professing her undying love for each one. The more excited this child gets, the louder she gets, and the squeakier her speech becomes. She becomes a tiny bouncing blur of loud. We don't pretend like we don't know her even though it would probably be understandable.

Finally we settled on this one:

The nursery-like decor on the wall? Yeah, I'm a rip the band-aid off slow kind of girl. 

This is where it becomes Grace's fault. I was doing just fine with her being in a "real" regular type bed, which is awesome for me because I'm overly sentimental. I was proud of myself because I really am rather pathetic. But then on the third night of her having it, I was stupid and asked her a question when I tucked her in.

"Grace, how about you just stay little forever. Okay?" 

This wasn't supposed to be a serious question. I was being silly. And I was expecting for her to agree to this. She has no grasp of not being a child forever, right? She doesn't really get that she won't always be three feet tall...right?

Wrong. Instead she got very serious and said, "no...I just gotta grow up."

Why does she have to be so literal? Why does she have to be so realistic? Why does she have to understand things so well? It was the way she said it that got to me. It was spoken very kindly and almost apologetic, like she was trying to let me down easy. Of course I know she's going to grow up, but does she have to?

Then Insanely Overly Sentimental Krisi came out to play. That chick ticks me off. I started thinking about the other places Grace has slept and how big she's gotten. Once you start reminiscing it's hard to stop. Or maybe that's just me. 

Her first bed was a bassinet. 

Don't let her fool you. She hated this thing.

She could not stand to sleep on her back so the bassinet was only used for about a week. She woke up like every ninety seconds and it was pure torture for all of us. The only way she liked to sleep was in her swing, and it didn't even matter if she was actually swinging or not. The girl just did not like to lay flat. The bassinet was a gift, so we felt bad that it hardly got used. But that guilt subsided when we started to feel human again. As human as parents of a newborn can feel, anyway. As soon as we let her sleep in it she slept like a rock.  

God bless Graco.

Her nights were spent in the swing until she was nearly five months old. One day she just up and decided that sleeping on her back was pretty cool. But before she would sleep in her giant expensive play gym  crib, she would only lay in it to look up at her mobile. Otherwise, she wanted nothing to do with it. 

"These people actually thought I would sleep in this thing. Ha."

When she reached toddlerhood she got a toddler bed, and neither she or I took that very well. But Hubby wasn't at all phased by the fact that the last remaining piece of her babyhood kicked the bucket when he took her crib down. No, he was just all whatever about it. But he's a man and men are strange. 

Grace didn't mourn the loss of her crib for too long.

And now in its spot sits the biggest twin bed ever. Seriously, the thing is a beast. This is the last bed we will ever buy her. If she ever wants a different one she can just buy it herself because good gosh. Regular beds are stupid expensive. 

Get comfortable kid. You're stuck with this one.

She's got the fever

The KU basketball fever, that is. One night last week Grace declared that she's going to be a Jayhawk basketball player when she grows up. With that announcement, she rushed off to her room and came out looking like this:

I may have been a little proud.

What, you didn't know gliders double as basketball hoops?

Here's Hubby as KU's newest recruit. Shame on him for forgetting to suit up. He passes the ball to Grace and....

Alley-oop! The crowd goes wild!  

Surprises

I am no photographer, but I am a photo junkie. When there's something I think I might want to remember I'll snap a picture of it. Digital cameras are wonderful inventions, especially for us crazy sentimental types who don't want to forget anything. What were things like back when you had to buy film and only had a very limited number of shots to take? I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure people cried a lot more in those days.

Sometimes I find things around the house Grace has done that I can't help but smile at. Silly little things that only a small child would do, and things that I don't want to forget. They're only tiny pieces of her childhood, but I want to hold on to them anyway. So I take pictures. It's fun to look back on the some of the things her young imagination led her to do. I suppose I am a bit of a memory hoarder. Oh well.

Sometimes these little surprises make me proud.

But usually they just make me laugh.

Elmo got hungry.

Off to find Giraffe a neck brace.

Barbie Boot Camp

"I haven't seen my shoes in months, have you?"

Baby taking a bath with her bath toys.

No, the girl isn't obsessed with clothes at all.

Sometimes I'm not very happy about the things I find.

But at least I don't find things like this anymore:

Trust me, I have come across much worse things than what was in these last two pictures. But in those cases I was too busy with my tears and [insert your pick of cleaning supply] to take pictures.  

And of course, sometimes Grace is actually part of the surprise. 

Hope you come across something unexpected that makes you smile today! 

Death of the LeapPad

Last Thursday morning I experienced what was quite possibly the worst thing I've had to deal with thus far in my parenting adventure. The heartache of my child. It was horrible. Horrible.

So as I've written before, Grace has a LeapPad that she absolutely loves. The only thing she's ever loved more than it is her old friend Giraffe whom she was given minutes after her birth.

Believe it or not, this is when he looked good.

Anyway, Thursday morning at 7 a.m. Grace came running into our room in hysterics saying that her LeapPad wouldn't work. I was barely awake and didn't think anything about it until she handed it to me and to my horror, I saw that the screen was broken. Very broken.

I pulled her onto the bed and Hubby and I gave her the bad news. We tried to be gentle about it as we explained that it was broken forever, and that she couldn't play with it anymore. Then we watched as she felt grief for the first time. Her face scrunched up and the tears started to flow. She sobbed and sobbed and insisted that no, it wasn't broken. Straight up denial. So then I was sobbing and sobbing. I was so sad for her.

Through my tears I pressed on, explaining that I was so sorry but the screen was broken and so it couldn't work anymore. She finally understood and got even sadder. I didn't take a picture at the time (of course) but this is kind of what she looked like:

Only worse.

She was bawling saying things like, "but I want to feed my dog!" and "I can't watch my singing video anymore??" And then she said the worst thing she has ever said. She looked me right in the eyes, still sobbing, and asked, "Are you going to throw it in the trash???"

Oh God help me. What was I supposed to say to that?

So then I became an even bigger blubbering mess. I am convinced that there is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain. This is just about a toy, I know. But she's only four and at this stage in her life a busted favorite toy is a huge deal. If I was this sad for her over a broken toy, what am I going to do when she walks through the door with a broken heart?

Suddenly she stopped crying and looked at me with deep concern. She said, "don't cry Mommy, it's okay Mommy! Some music will make you feel better!" Then she rushed out of the room and came back with her little toy computer you can play music with and proceeded to give me a little concert.

What a great kid.

Later that day I went out and bought her a new one. Seriously, how could I not? If it would've been any other toy we either wouldn't have replaced it or she would've had to wait a while. But she loves this thing so much and her little heart was completely devastated. You should've seen the way her face lit up when I gave her the new one. She was a happy girl. She looked more like this (my own kid this time):

And this is what I like to see.

Back to craft night...

Here is the yarn Christmas tree I made at last night's craft night. It was fun and easy to make and it actually turned out pretty good too. I still think I should keep away from paint for a while though. One step at a time, folks!

One of my craft night friends was making owl stones last night. They were so cute that I had to have one for myself, so she made one for me. I'm over the moon for this little guy and have named him Oliver. This is surely the cutest thing you've seen all day, so you're welcome. 

Hope you're having a great weekend! 

Clumsy and crafting

I'm excited for tonight. Not only because it's Friday but because I'm getting together with some friends for a craft night. This is something I never thought I'd want to do because, you see, I am a total klutz with crafts. I never know what I'm doing. Put a paint brush in my hand and watch me squirm. I was always the kid in school who spilled glue, used too much paint, cut the wrong things, and just generally screwed up every art project we ever did. You could always tell which project on the wall was mine. It was the sticky, gloppy, crooked mess in the middle of the pretty, properly done ones. Maybe some of that clumsiness has worn off since elementary school, but that's a pretty big maybe. It was really bad!

Tonight will actually be our second craft night. My friends know I'm not crafty and asked me to join them anyway. Makes a girl feel pretty good! I chose to start off with the most simple thing I could find. All I had to do was put strips of masking tape on a jar, paint it with shoe polish and cover it with Mod Podge. I figured even I couldn't screw that up. I had to buy some Fast Orange to get the shoe polish out of my fingers, but other than that I did okay. I'm too lazy to take a picture of mine, but if you're interested in what I'm talking about, it's right here on The Craft Floozy.

Tonight I'm trying something a little harder - a yarn Christmas tree I found on Pretty Ditty.

First grade Krisi, back off.

I'll post a picture of my tree tomorrow. It may turn out to be an ugly tangled mass of yarn and "berries" but we'll see. Luckily I have friends who won't laugh at me if it does. At least not out loud. ;)

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore....oh wait.

Happy (late) Halloween! Grace had her whole heart and soul set on dressing up as Dor-uh-fee (Dorothy) again this year, so that was that. I guess the girl just knows what she likes!

I looked back on last year's Halloween pictures and can't believe how much she's grown since then. She says she's going to be Dor-uh-fee when she grows up, so this little blue gingham dress won't be going to Goodwill anytime soon. I have a sneaking suspicion I may need to hang on to it for next year! 

Grace as Dorothy, 2011

Grace as Dorothy, 2010

Trick or treating in 2011. Lucky girl got some cotton candy!

Dorothy and Toto are serious trick or treaters. (2010)

Just one of those weeks

This...

was NOT a good week. I'm surprised I didn't lose my mind. Really. Okay, nothing super tragic happened so forgive me for being dramatic. But that's what's gonna happen here. It was just one of those weeks where crappy things, however insignificant they may have been, kept happening. And that's never any fun, right?   

Okay, so on Monday when I picked Grace up from preschool the teacher told me they'd had a lot of problems with her. This is the third time this has happened and it's gettin' old y'all. It was fire safety day so the kids got to see a real fire truck and learn about fire safety from a real firefighter. I had coached Grace on being extra good for this for THREE DAYS. But all my coaching didn't amount to a hill of beans because she was straight up rude to the firefighter who came to talk to them. Mama was not pleased.

Motherhood has been really hard lately. Grace always had her moments, but for the most part she was pretty easy to deal with. When she turned four it was like a butthead switch was turned on. She's still a great kid but the excessive whining, fits, and attitude make me want to trip face first into a bucket of Valium. (Yes I just said that, and it felt great.) When she's good, she's amazing. She's sweet. She's funny. She's cuddly. And she makes a mean plastic chocolate cake. This is what keeps her off of Craigslist. 

This is where she plots against me.

So then it was Wednesday morning and Rabid Grace was still hanging around. By this point I was totally drained and couldn't get her to preschool fast enough. I was exhausted. About fifteen minutes before I needed to leave to pick her up I got the bright idea to lay down for a few minutes. Well that was dumb because I fell asleep and was forty minutes late picking her up. FORTY MINUTES. I felt like such an idiot and was totally mortified. Oh, and I got charged thirty bucks for it too. I was so embarrassed that I was upset for the rest of the day. So Wednesday the 26th, you suck too. 

By Thursday, Sweet Grace had made her return and it looked like I was finally going to have a good, uneventful day. But then I backed the car into a curb and scraped a ton of paint off the bumper. I was really ticked at myself but thankfully Hubby wasn't at all. I swear, a meteor could crash through the roof and he would just say "Oh well, it probably needed replaced anyway." He is the most mellow, down to earth person I've ever met. Which is lucky for me, because the bumper looks horrible now.  

Then [insert scream] Grace came down with the flu. Perfect. Just perfect. Why had so many things about this week been so crappy? I haven't even mentioned the countless little things that went wrong. I was not in a good place. 

But then that night I opened the Notes app on my phone and found this: 

And then my bad week didn't matter anymore.

Grace has left the building

Today I didn't have a little girl named Grace. Today her name was Meg. She wore a purple tutu and carried a "basket". Meg is a character in a video on her LeapFrog LeapPad and today she wanted to be JUST like her. She didn't even want to be called Grace. Oh no, today she insisted on being called Meg.

Look a little familiar? This is Meg.

She decided I should be a LeapFrog character too. I was Izzy. Or as she says, "Ivvy".

Yep, that's about right.

Her daddy was included on the fun too, and so today he was known as Og. He's hoping she'll forget his new nickname by tomorrow.

This is Og. Poor Dustin!

Then and now...

Nap time then:

Tuck baby in, kiss baby, watch baby close eyes, leave the room, come back four hours later.

Nap time now:

God help me, I've angered it!

The Short One had another birthday

A couple of weeks ago that tiny, terrifying baby we brought home turned four. I tried to prepare myself for this birthday but it was no use. When they turn one, they're still babies. Just bigger ones. When they turn two, they still have a lot of baby like qualities to them. When they turn three, hey, they're still a toddler! And that's something. But four? You can't get around the reality that they're not babies at age four.

Happy Birthday Sweet Grace!

Make a wish!

A musical ballerina jewelry box. Love at first sight.

"Prince, will you dance with me?"