So Sweet!

Every morning I take Grace to school and drop her off at the front of the school. She has a little ritual she goes through as she gets out of the van. First she gives Lyla a hug and kiss, then she gives Reesi a hug and kiss, then she gives me a hug and kiss. Then when she gets out of the van she turns to me and crosses her arms like a hug sign and then blows me a kiss. She does this a couple of times before walking on into the school. One morning I looked in my rearview mirror as I was pulling away and saw her turn around one more time and do it to the van as I was pulling away. It breaks my heart for some reason. It makes me feel like I'm sending her off into a scary world all alone as she's walking into that big school by herself and she keeps blowing me kisses as if she's wishing she could stay with me. This morning I tried to take a picture of the arms crossing and the kiss blowing. I caught her by surprise though and she was frowning as she did it. I didn't tell her I was going to take a picture. I wan't to write this down and take a picture so I could remember this in the years to come. I know one day she won't want to stay with me or blow me kisses as she leaves for school. I want to make sure and remember this sweet, sweet age.

Beware! Lots of Birthday Pictures!

Saturday was Grace's 6th birthday! I can't believe she is already 6 years old. It's very strange. She has been very excited about her birthday this month. She has a calendar that she marked days off of to keep track of how many days were left before her birthday. The weekend finally came. Mimi and Papoo came on Friday morning. We took Grace a big cookie cake to school to share with her friends at lunchtime. She was so excited to see us. She had a birthday hat that Ms. Heim gave her. She wore it the whole day! Memaw (Joni's mother-in-law) brought Grace a new outfit that Friday morning before school too. She put it on right away and it fit perfectly. Here are some pictures of Grace's celebration weekend.

We had a dress-up tea party birthday party for Grace and a few little friends. I tried to make a teapot cake mayself. Here is the result...

That Friday night was the dress-up tea party. The girls had dresses, jewelry, a "dressing room", purses, hats and spray-on glitter for the dress-up part. They really liked going behind the curtain to dress-up. They liked the glitter too!

This is Grace's special teacup for the party. She got the fanciest teacup!

Here is Grace's best friend from preschool.

Here are the girls all dressed up with their dolls, ready for tea! Lyla wasn't interested in putting on a dress. She found her own dress-up clothes for the party.

The girls were pretty quiet while we were serving them tea. Joni suggested that we leave them alone and as soon as we left the room, they erupted in giggles and sillyness.

Reesi really liked being fancy!

Grace and her friends got pretty silly during the tea party. I don't think they really got the concept of being proper and dainty at a tea party. They didn't really drink the tea either.

I bought little petit fours for the "birthday cake" at the tea party. I thought they were so cute and dainty and perfect for a tea party. None of the girls liked them though! Oh well.

They got through the tea party and dress-up part of the party very quickly. So I let Grace open her presents from her friends to take up some more time. She ripped through them in about 5 minutes!

This is Grace's family party on Saturday. She's holding her present from me, Eric and Lyla. She got an American Girl doll. She has been playing with it since she got it Friday night. I was so glad she liked it. Mimi and Papoo gave her a scooter for her doll and Julie and Jason gave her a horse for her doll. Grandma, Papaw and Angela gave her a game and doggie with a carrier. She loves dogs, so that was perfect for her.

Lyla had a hard time this weekend letting Grace get all of the presents. She hasn't grasped the concept of the birthday girl getting the attention yet.

She did get a big truck for her cars as a present.

Notice Lyla is blowing out the candles with Grace. Grace didn't like that at all. We had to light the candles about 3 times so everyone had their own turn to blow them out.

Grace had a great birthday! Now when I ask her to do something or not do something her response to me is "Mom...I'm six now" as if there is no need to remind her things anymore. Such a big girl!

I wonder what will happen?

Last week Lyla decided to figure out for herself what a lightbulb felt like after being on for a while! We put the girls to bed on Thursday night and went downstairs to watch CSI. Lyla turned her lamp on to look at books in her bed, which she wasn't supposed to do. She came downstairs, very calmly, after about 20 minutes. We were in the middle of CSI so I made her wait a minute to talk to me because I was trying to hear what they were saying. Finally, she just stuck her hand in my face without saying a word. There was a big blister on the palm of her hand! She wasn't crying or anything! She said she wanted to see if the light was hot. I asked her what she figured out and she said, "it's hot". I asked her what she'll do next time and she said she won't touch it next time. We soaked it in cold water, but Bactine to take the sting away, put neosporin on it and wrapped it really good so she wouldn't move it while sleeping and make it hurt. She called it her cast. That girl always has to figure it out for herself!

The Count Down is On

Grace's birthday is next Saturday, the 24th. We are marking the days off of the calendar one by one. She keeps telling me she wishes it was tomorrow. I keep telling her that if she wants a party then she shouldn't wish that because I'm not ready to throw a party tomorrow.

At first we were going to do a "pancakes, pajamas and pedicures" party for a few of her little girl friends. I even found a foot massager thing at Goodwill for $4. We were going to give foot massages and then paint toenails. That is what the first picture is. Lyla kept trying to put her face in the water and sit in it. I have since taken it back to Goodwill. It was fun but that thing is huge and we just don't have a closet to store it in. Good thing I only spent $4 on it.

Then we decided to have a dress-up tea party instead. She's inviting 5 little friends to her tea party. I've been searching Goodwill and other places like that for dainty little teacups and teapots. I've also found a lot of hats and purses for them to use for dressing up. The pictures above are of Grace and Reesi testing out some of my finds. The girls will arrive and proceed to the dress-up area where they will pick out a dress, hat, purse, shoes and maybe a little make-up. Then they'll have a fancy tea party. I even have a friend making a tea party cake for me. She is an amazing cake baker that can create anything you can image with cake batter. She has a blog at www.icethiscakes.blogspot.com. If you live in the area you should really consider using her for your next party. She's trying to grow her business and has even been voted Best Cake Baker by the Nashville Scene. Anyway, she's going to make individual cupcakes that look like teacups for the tea party and then the big cake will look like a teapot that we will use for the family birthday party the next day. I'm having trouble finding fancy teacups that aren't too expensive and are fancy enough. I found a lot at a local antique store but they were really expensive. I'm going out again tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have some luck.

I'm sure I will have a ton of pictures after all of the partying in a couple of weeks!

Grace and Lyla in 2008

These are just some things I want to remember about Grace and Lyla from 2008.

Grace:

• Loves to be fancy
• Loves to wear dresses and skirts only
• Wants to please me at all times
• Thinks of others before herself, most of the time
• Worries about too many grown up things
• Loves her hair short
• Loves to watch Berenstain Bears, My Little Pony, Scooby Doo
• Every night at bedtime she says the same thing to me: "Sweet dreams, sweet, sweet, dreams. I don't know how much I love you because I love you so much and I love you."
• Loves to draw and color and create things
• Played soccer for the first time
• Loves kindergarten and thinks her teacher, Mrs. Heim, is the best teacher in the world
• Is very intuitive about the people around her
• She's a perfectionist
• She's friendly and watches out for the underdog in her classroom at school
• Loves to play with her stuffed animals and Littlest Pet Shop toys
  

Lyla

• Loves to run "superfast"
• Learned to ride without training wheels this year at 3 1/2 years old
• Is very coordinated and has excellent balance
• Has become very attached to me this year
• Loves all things "boy"...cars, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Lightning McQueen, pirates, racetracks, soccer, blue, etc.
• Only wants to wear jeans and tennis shoes with a t-shirt that is not pink
• I can hardly get her to wear a dress to church anymore
• Is wearing "boy" tennis shoes from Stride Rite now, at least they're not Spiderman shoes
• Has an iron will and lots of fiery spirit in her
• She's going to be our rebel for sure
• She's the reason we don't have a 3rd child (ha ha ha)
• She's super sweet
• She has beautiful blue eyes and the sweetest face ever
• Every night at bedtime she says the same thing to me...."You're my best mommy in the whole world." And then she expects me to say "And you're my best Lyla in the whole world."
• She must give a kiss and a hug when we separate at any time.
• She gives great hugs....tight around the neck and heart felt!

Notice the picture at the top represents how they are. Grace is leaning in toward the camera because I want to take her picture and she wants to please me. Lyla is rolling under the tree after being asked to sit up about 5 times and refuses to look at the camera. How can two siblings be so different? I don't know, but I do know that God blessed us with two wonderful girls and another year to spend with them.