Everything Soup

A few evenings ago, Grace decided to make what she called Everything Soup. She wanted to put everyyything she could find into her "soup", so the name was meant to be quite literal. I wasn't too keen on that idea, but I did agree to let her use things that were either almost gone or that I just don't care about. Like the coriander that came with my spice rack that I've never used. What's that stuff even for? (I am no whiz in the kitchen, obviously.) 

It was to be the most fabulous, most spectacular soup ever. It was to be fit for kings and was going to be truly amazing. 

So how exactly does one make this most fabulous, most spectacular, most perfect soup ever? Lucky for you I'm not stingy with family recipes. So here, let me tell you....

You start out by pouring a little water into a small pot.

Sprinkle a bunch of coriander into the water.

Then add some Goldfish!!!

Next, add some frozen corn.

Now, dump some ice in the soup. This is gonna be awesome!

Hmmm...it needs some salt and pepper!

Now for the uncooked rainbow rotini!! 

Stir well. It will taste like crap if you don't.

All done!!! Now pour the soup into a big bowl.

Now make your daddy try it. He'll love it!!
(Of course he only pretended to try it. And I hid behind the camera.)

Mmm....so good! (Bless his heart.)

She said it smelled good so she wanted to try some too!

It's best to cook in pajamas that haven't fit in a year. And a superhero cape. In case you didn't know that.

She decided to make herself a little bowl. And I decided not to panic when she chose this method of doing so.

Needs stirred one more time!

Did I really let her try that stuff for the purpose of my own entertainment? You bet I did!

She tried it, spit it out, and said "I do NOT like that! I don't EVER want to eat that AGAIN!!" Poor kid. But she was only upset for a minute. Then she said it needed some canola oil. And I said it was time for bed. 

Goodbye YouTube

Grace loves to play with my phone. If you're one of the zillions of people out there who have both phones and small children, I'm sure you can relate. I don't know anything about Android phones, but I do know that on an iPhone, the YouTube icon is kinda scary when you've got a little kid.

Now, Grace isn't normally left alone with my phone, but sometimes the little sneak makes off with it while I'm cooking, still asleep in the morning, whatever. I'm not perfect. It happens. I'm sure you've been there. The only thing that really worries me about her being unsupervised with my phone is YouTube. She loves it. A small child cruising YouTube on her own? Horrifying, I know. Who knows what she may run into on there??? 

Until today I didn't know you could block it. I thought it was impossible. I found out how on a stroke of pure genius total dumb luck and thought I'd share it. I've talked to other people who didn't know about this either and have had the same concerns, so I'm guessing there are others out there like us.

Before, I looked (several times) in the settings and totally failed to look in the right place. Since YouTube is one of the built-in apps that can't be deleted, that wasn't an option. But I like using it sometimes so I didn't want to do that anyway. So then I tried hiding it in a folder on the verrrrry last page, and she still found it. I didn't know what else to do but try extra hard to keep an eye on my phone. But like I said, she's sneaky. And I'm the human kind of mother. 

So for anyone else who hasn't been able to figure this out, here's how to do it. First, open up your Settings, then go to General. Then scroll down to Restrictions and tap on it. 

That will lead you to this page. Tap on Enable Restrictions. 

Then you'll be told to set a passcode. 

Then, slide the YouTube switch to off, and that's it! No more having to worry about little eyes seeing things they shouldn't! Well, on YouTube anyway. But that's something, right? Now it's completely invisible and can't be used anymore unless you enter in the passcode. (To enable it again, just follow the same steps and then flip the switch over to on.) OH YEAH!!!! While I was at it, I went ahead and turned off Deleting Apps too. That kid has deleted a lot of apps by tapping on the pretty wiggling x. 

YouTube can still be used with Safari, but she's four. She doesn't know how to use a browser. I'll worry about that when she can spell more than five words. I'm glad I figured this out, but dude. There's going to be one ticked off little girl in this house when she discovers that her beloved YouTube icon is nowhere to be found. Oh well. A little peace of mind will be worth it. 

Friend on the floor

This is Audrey. She was Grace's best preschool friend who recently moved to Japan. And for one day, she lived on our bathroom floor.

Despite what her shirt says, Audrey isn't much of a talker.

You may find it strange that we allowed an imaginary person to lay around our bathroom all day. You may even say we were crazy for carefully sidestepping around a laid out pair of clothes to avoid messing them up. But as many know, parenthood can make you do some pretty weird stuff.

You also need to understand something about Audrey. Grace ADORED her. They were such good little friends. Grace talked about her all the time, but I only ever actually saw them together before school started. This is how it went most every morning before preschool:

Audrey: Hi Grace!! Do you like my new shoes??? They have Hello Kitty on them!
Grace: Yeah!! And do you like my shirt???? It's got sparkles on it!"
Audrey: Yeah it's pretty!!

Then they'd giggle about whatever else little girls giggle about until it was time to go into their classroom. I always pictured them going shopping together when they were in high school and comparing clothes just like they did back in preschool. But then Audrey moved to Japan so I'm pretty sure that dream is dead.

After Audrey's last day at school, it took Grace a week or so to fully realize that she wasn't coming back. And then there were a lot of questions about Japan, and a lot of "I miss my friend Audrey" comments. And then one day Audrey was lying in the middle of the bathroom floor.

This is the part where you see why Dustin and I took great care to not crumple up an outfit worn by an invisible child. When Grace showed it to me, I gave her props for her good imagination and then told her we needed to pick up the clothes and put them away. But then her eyes got all big and sad, and she begged and pleaded with me to not move her friend Audrey. Ever. Because she missed her and didn't want her to go. She begged until she almost cried.

So now seriously, who would pick up the clothes after that? Only someone who hates kittens and feeling joy, that's who. We figured that this was just her way of dealing with the loss of her friend and to just let it run its course, so the clothes stayed put. She never talked to Floor Audrey or anything. She just wanted her around. For the rest of the day, we made sure to step around the little outfit very carefully, so as not to mess it up. Because Grace the Perfectionist would notice if it moved even a little.

Let me tell you something. Brushing your teeth is no easy feat when you have to stand like a figure skater to reach the sink.

"Maybe if I can stretch just a little more, I can reach the toothpaste without breaking my face."

Sometime in the middle of the night, someone went into the bathroom half awake and messed Audrey up. In the morning no one knew who was to blame, but Grace wasn't real happy about it. She hobbled into our room with her hair sticking straight out, looked at us like we were scum and said, "Who messed up my friend Audrey?!?!...It's okay. I'll fix her."

But then she never did, and that was the end of Floor Audrey until a few days ago when she made another appearance.

This time, Grace only made half of her body before moving on to other things. I'll take this as progress.

Barbie beauty shop

Okay, show of hands that I can't actually see: Who loves Pinterest? I'm guessing that anyone who reads this either does, or knows someone who does. We can all relate to the Pinteritis Bug somehow. Yes, I just made up a medical condition for Pinterest addicts. And it's awesome.

Anyway. So lately, several tutorials for how to detangle doll hair have popped up on Pinterest. Grace has some dolls with some grosstastic (okay, so that one isn't as good) hair. It sounded like something fun for us to do together, so I picked a tutorial and we opened our own little beauty shop. Rapunzel, Ariel, and Sleeping Beauty had the worst hair so they were our first customers. 

Yeah. We've got guts.

And combs of steel.

Their hair was seriously horrible. How did it get so bad? You'd think they'd been tortured by that deranged kid from Toy Story. This seems to be a universal thing with doll hair. And what do they give your kid to take care of it? Those stupid tiny combs that don't do anything but make the hair worse than it already was. They also tick kids off to the point of spitting fireballs across the room because they won't comb all the way through. Or maybe that's just my kid. Someone needs to find these people and throw these worthless things at them. It will be a public combing. 

I would link to the blog where the tutorial came from but I wasn't satisfied with the results, so mum's the word. I don't want to give someone's tutorial the thumbs down and then say whose it was, you know? 

The Blog That Shall Not Be Named called for baby oil and baby shampoo, in that order. Grace and I ended up adding conditioner at the end because of leftover tangles. Speaking of tangles, ohhhh the horror. You were supposed to comb out the tangles after applying the baby oil. This helped a lot but was still such a pain and took forEVER. Rapunzel (for obvious reasons) was the worst. 

Rapunzel's pretty tiara had to be removed for this. She had it coming.

I'm not sure why, but the baby oil didn't work for us like it did for the other person. After the dolls were all washed and detangled, their hair was really super greasy. It was slick and oily and smelled like an infant so it wasn't caused by the conditioner. So Grace and I started over. I think she was happy our first attempt was a bust. She's a doll hair cleanin' fool. 

A clever friend of mine suggested using Dawn to zap the greasiness out of their hair. So we lathered them up with a generous amount and let it sit for a few minutes. Ariel got some Dawn in her eyes during the process, but I don't think she minded. 

Then after a good rinsing, it was back to the baby shampoo and that's it. (The conditioner wasn't needed again.) We rinsed out the shampoo, combed their hair again, let dry, and voila! They look much happier now, don't you think?

Now let's see how long this lasts. 

If you're looking for something fun to do with your kid and have dolls with Richard Simmons hair, I'd definitely recommend this. Grace had a blast and really got into it. Next up is Belle. Girlfriend needs a serious makeover. 

If anyone on the planet ever cares, I think this would've worked fine had we ignored the baby oil step:

• Baby shampoo, let sit for 5-10 minutes
• Comb hair from ends to scalp
• Rinse 
• Conditioner 
• Rinse again
• Comb again

Easy peasy. Except for those nasty tangles. Those'll getcha. 

This was Easter

On Easter morning we woke Grace up extra early so she could find her basket before going to church. I took a few pictures of her with it but, like her mama, she looks drugged when someone wakes her up, and like she's never been within four feet of a hairbrush. So instead I'll just post a picture of the basket. I know she wouldn't care at this point in her life, but I just can't do that to the poor kid. I'd like to think that she'll thank me for this someday. Please nobody spoil that fantasy for me.

After church we headed to see family for the day and wouldn't you know it? The Easter Bunny left a basket for Grace there too, as well as ones for her cousins. 

Bubbles!

There was an egg hunt too, of course, but those pictures turned out even worse than Grace's zombie ones, so I'm not posting them. Just picture tiny people running around looking for plastic eggs while the grownups watch and smile and say oh look how cute. There. Easter egg hunt. 

After a while, it was time to play in the dirt (well yeah) so the dress had to go. I wasn't too worried about it, but Grace would've lost her ever loving mind if her dress got dirty, so it was mainly out of concern for my own sanity.

Later, Grandpa decided to blow some bubbles for Grace to catch. And now she will beg him to do this every single time she seems him. 

Oh and there was lots of running with cousin Brian too. They chased each other all over the yard and laughed. 

And then she crashed. 

Yeah, I'd have to say it was a pretty good day. 

Rock Chalkin' On

I'm not gonna lie. When KU lost the championship last night, our house wasn't a very cheery place. Even though it wasn't a huge shock, we were still hoping for another Mario's Miracle kind of thing. No such luck, but that's okay. We're so proud of our team, and we're so proud to be Jayhawk fans! Can't wait until next season! Rock Chalk!!!

Tutu trouble

Yesterday, Grace's big day finally came - her first ever day of ballet. I had been excited about sending her in a sweet little pink tutu, but not as excited as she was about wearing one. But then last week a letter came saying that the kids can't wear skirts to class because it restricts their movement or something. So no skirt = no tutu. Seems silly to me, but alright.

Can you wear a leotard without a tutu? I have no idea because I know nothing about these things. I decided to just send her in leggings and a matching tee and explained to her that skirts weren't allowed. She handled the news rather well. Her head didn't even spin in circles or anything.

Here's a (horrible) picture of what she looked like on her very first day of ballet. She looks like she could be anywhere. Bah. Oh well. She was still super excited and that's what really matters.

But then then right after I snapped the picture I looked up the stairs and saw a swarm of tiny little tutus. What's up with that? Do tutus not count as skirts???

"You actually listened to the letter? Oh how funny."

There was only one other little girl who was wearing regular clothes. How awkward. And of course Grace had some things to say about all this. How even more awkward.

"Uh-oh, she's wearing a skirt!!! We're not supposed to wear skirts!!" and "How come they can wear ballerina costumes??" Things like that. She took it well, but was confused. Poor kid. And poor me too, because loud little voices echo in stairwells.

It wasn't really a huge deal, just embarrassing. It doesn't take much for me to feel out of place. She seemed a little disappointed that she wasn't wearing her ballet gear like them, but still had a great time and didn't want to leave. Next week she's wearing her tutu and leotard for sure. See ya, leggings!

But you know, I don't really like her First Day of Ballet Picture, so let's just pretend like this is it instead:

Also, let's pretend like she's wearing actual ballet slippers instead of pajama ones that are too small. And while we're using our imaginations, let's pretend like she's in a big ballet studio with shiny wood floors and mirrored walls.

There. Much better.

Because I just couldn't help it

Lately I've been dying for a pair of TOMS. For the past two weeks my poor husband has heard me incessantly whine talk about my terrible overwhelming need for these things. Well, yesterday I went and got my shoes so the poor guy is probably thrilled sideways.

I knew exactly which ones I wanted so I went ahead and took The Short One with me. Shoe shopping with a four year-old when you don't know exactly what you're looking for? Oh, horror of all unholy horrors, NO. That would be a good way to get back at someone who slashed your tires. It would also be a good way for a mother to lose her mind and her will to live at the same time. But I even knew the exact color I wanted, so we got in the car, got to the store, and BAM. Oh no. There they were.

Teeny tiny TOMS. What's a girl to do?

Now, I had seen kid-sized TOMS before, and I even thought they were cute. But I never thought I'd actually buy a pair. When I saw them this time, the thought of Grace and I getting matching TOMS together crossed my mind and then it was all over.

Something you must know before I go any further -- buying matching clothes with my kid was something I never wanted to do. Maybe I have a heart of stone, but that always seemed a little cheesy to me. Yet here I was, telling Grace about about how much fun it would be for us to have matching shoes. She was thrilled at the idea of having shoes just like Mommy, so we went home with two pairs of Ash colored TOMS.

Maybe being a little cheesy isn't so bad?