A couple months ago, the local ballet company put on a fundraiser. The ballet students dressed as various princesses, sold tickets and rotated the mini-princesses around to different stations and activities. Here is our little princess as she enjoyed her day:
This week is my turn to teach Micah's preschool group. Here are some pictures I took of the kids while they tried their hand at chopsticks:
Yesterday, after Micah was feeling better and before Autumn started feeling sick, they played knight & princess together. They marched around the house, Micah always ahead of Autumn in order to slay the dragons.
Last night, Clint and I went on a rare date. After our movie ("The Prestige"; it was awesome!), we really felt that we needed to hurry back and let our sitter go home. So we asked our waiter to just box up our food (it hadn't come yet), and we left. When we got home, we found that the sitter was holding Micah on her lap downstairs because he'd woken up moaning. Literally one minute after this, he coughed (mixed with not feeling well & being out of it, this is always a sure sign of yucky things to come in our house), I grabbed him and bolted up the stairs to the bathroom. So he's got the flu. And that sitter was dangerously close to being covered in...well, I'll be nice and not say it.
Anyway, after the other two kids and I got home from church, we checked on the poor little guy again. And Autumn decided to make him feel better by rubbing his back:
My children, as most, ADORE candy!! So much so that when I told them they would need to eat these messy Pixie Sticks outside, they didn't even stop to put on their shoes (but they didn't complain when I tossed them their coats. It is, after all, thirty degrees outside.) Ahh, sugar!!
Autumn has rediscovered my favorite doll from childhood, Joy. Only she's adament that her name is Joya, a small but significant change which is allowing the doll a second life. And since her first life involved three different wigs, a second one is no small thing (she started out with brown ringlets, then had gray ones...kinda weird for a baby doll if you ask me, and finally ending up with this short brown cut).
The horse with the freaky-looking eyes, by the way, was a present from her older bro Micah. He's been saving up his hard-earned money and when I took him to the store yesterday, he decided to use it to buy Hot Wheels cars for himself & Jonah, and this horse for his sister. So it's a little weird-looking, but is packing a whole lotta love. And it hasn't left her side since we came home from the store. (This could have been a peace offering for dumping her on her head while "pushing her stroller" the other day. If you look at her forehead, you'll see the mark. Woops!)
So after gorging ourselves at our Thanksgiving Feast, eating birthday cake, and taking the kids to the local bowling alley, we came home so that Micah could unwrap the rest of his presents. The kid loves to "explore" things, so we're hoping these wooden tools & gadgets will satisfy his desire to build and destroy in a more productive manner. Okay, we are really hoping our investment will result in fewer clogged toilets and overflowing sinks. But I'm pretty sure we're only fooling ourselves!
So Micah wanted a repeat of last year's birthday cake...Thomas the Tank Engine. Which is nice because he kept the little train track and wind-up engine cake topper all year, so we just recycled it. I don't think he actually noticed it was the same train, even though its performance had seriously weakened over the 365 day-period since its initial debut. Woops!
He did blow out his candles with amazing speed; the cousin and brother on either side had barely pursed their lips together, trying to beat him to the punch, when the flames flickered and then were out. Nice one, Micah!!
Autumn LOVES frosting!! And I think this captures her personality fairly well. This picture was taken while the kids were all enjoying Micah's birthday cake after our Thanksgiving feast at Clint's Aunt Carol's home. Happy birthday, Micah!!
