Sugar and Spice

Having three girls means that drama abounds in our house.   

If it's not boy trauma, it's homework frustration.  Or hair or skin woes.  

Or just  plain old hormonal induced grumpiness.  

With all that, though, also comes an incredible amount of sweetness.  

I love to watch Emma wake up extra early so she can curl Ellie's hair for her on Sunday morning.  

And Cami volunteering to make dinner on a weekend night despite the fact that she's had as long of a week as I've had, is something that melts my heart every time.

And no one can bring a smile to my face like Ellie.  She is sunshine encapsulated and loves nothing more than helping people around her to be happy.

Although sometimes their "spiciness" can be a bit much at times, 

I am so grateful to be their mother, so that I can soak up every bit of the sweetness.     

******************

Getting Ready for Girls' Camp

Girls' Camp is on Tuesday and after months of stressing about the details, things are finally starting to fall into place and it actually seems like it's all going to come together just fine.    It's amazing to me how my one little contribution can take up so much time and there are so many others that have put so much more into it.  I'm grateful for all of the people over the years who have given so much to provide these fabulous opportunities for our youth.

 I can't say that I'm excited about five days of sleeping in a tent and being away from air conditioning in 90+ degree weather, but I am excited about spending time Cam, Emma, and the other young women.

 The collage  above shows the woodburning craft they will be doing at camp.  The teacher of the class needed some help to make a sample or two and Cami was happy to volunteer for the job.  It will be Emma's first year to attend camp and she is so excited that she has been packing since Thursday.  She has color coded her packing list and if her enthusiasm is any indicator it's going to be a great week!


*********************

After rereading this post, I realized that it doesn't flow very well. Sorry.  That's all my brain has right now.  :) 

Hair Styles by Heather

Somehow I never published this back in October....

One of my girls' most favorite parts about cool Aunt Heather coming to visit is her awesome hairstyling talent.   She's seriously the best tax attorney / braider you've ever met...

She even got Ellie's wispy hair into beautiful braids...

My girls have to take advantage when Heather comes to town, since I do NOT have the patience for this kind of detail...

Thanks Aunt Aitch!

Princess Invasion!

Junk food.

Singing and Dancing.

Climbing into Cami's lair.

Huffing and puffing.

A princess invasion of this kind can only mean one thing....

My baby is....

1,                                  2,

                           3,                                                     4,

FIVE!!!!!

Happy Birthday Sweet Ellie Bellie!
************************************

Three for Three...

I remember when Cami was a toddler, some older, wiser mother told me that there would come a day when Cami would cut her own hair.  That it was inevitable.  Every girl does it sometime.  It's some combination of being fascinated with scissors, playing pretend, and interest in their own appearance.   I listened intently, but naively believed that only careless mothers would ever leave children unattended around scissors. 

Haha!  It wasn't but a couple of years later when the day came that I became that careless mother.  I remember gasping horror when I found a long lock of Cami's blond hair on the floor.  I begrudgingly took her into the hair salon to get 6 or 7 inches lopped off and swore it would never happen again.

A few years later, on a hot summer day Emma's hair was making her "sweaty" and getting in her face, so she lopped it off.  Right at the scalp in the front.  There was no need to take her to the hair salon, since there was nothing left to cut.  (Sound like any famous movie scenes you've seen?)

Well, as you've probably guessed by now, we've recently completed the circle and made it 3 for 3 deal with Ellie joining in the "fun". 

And out of all three of my girls, Ellie was by far the maddest at the consequences. She cried when I even mentioned having to cut her hair to even it out. 

 And when I actually did it tonight, yikes, we saw a whole new side of Ellie.  Apparently she was quite attached to her hair....except for that one lock in the front.

And now that we've got that girly rite of passage out of the way, I guess I get to be the older, wiser mother who gets to dish out advice to everyone. 

My tidbit for the day:  All girls cut their own hair. 

**************************************************************

Girly Girl

 It doesn't seem that long ago when I first lovingly gazed upon my sweet cherubic little Cami Rose.

My first daughter.

After two years of balls and cars,  I was thrilled with the pink, ruffles, and  lace that now filled our home and couldn't wait for the day when she had enough hair for me to braid and style.

Of course it wasn't long at all before she grew out of all that cute baby pudge and developed into quite the little princess.  Frilly  dresses, crowns, and castle forts soon became the girly imprint on our home and I just marveled at the innocence and delight which hallmarked those years of her life.

Then came along the tween years with its braces, email, facebook, shopping, Young Women, diets, and staying up too late.

Certainly it's a little more expensive than those princess years, but now she loves to bake goodies, is thoughtful and sweet, is an awesome babysitter, and sets a great example for her younger siblings so we're not complaining.

Every once in a while though, I can't help but to get a little nostalgic for the "good old days" again. 

The days when she actually agreed with me just because I'm her mom.


Now look at her.

I don't know how this happened.   

My daughter is a Jacob fan.

**************************************************************

The Story of the Beans

Once upon a time there was this Mom who was at the end of her rope. Every time she tried to get her kids to help around the house, all she could hear was a chorus of, "Awww! Do we have to Mom?" quickly followed by some well-practiced avoidance maneuvers...like fast-moving fits of severe fatigue and vitally important phone calls that had to be made immediately. It was getting out of hand fast!

So thinking back to her days as a psychology major in college she devised this great "positive reinforcement" project in hopes that it would help get her kids excited to help. She and her clever husband picked a super exciting prize and a date on the calendar and promised the kids that if they filled this large jar with beans before that date that the whole family could take a day off of school and work and go to Busch Gardens one last time before the season ended.

Sounds good so far...right?

Of course it could not be as smooth as that. Within a few weeks of the commencement of their new bean economy it was discovered that the chosen date also happened to be the same date as the school Fall Festival and even more disappointing the church's annual trunk or treat activity! Think friends, costumes, food aplenty, and tons of candy and you'll see the appeal!


So now the dazzle had started to wear off a little, after all the alternative of not filling the jar wasn't too bad either. But with some last minute adrenaline pushes and motivational speeches they finally made it!

Then it was time to make good on the promise. On a beautiful autumn morning in October the family set off in the car for the two hour drive to the land of roller coasters!

Good fun was had by all, young and old!

Some new family members were added to the family!

All was well...

then the kids started hearing about all the excitement they'd missed. Even the Mom started feeling a little disappointed that she hadn't been there to defend her pie title.

Mixed feelings of disappointment and jealousy ensued when she saw that the golden pie plate has been passed to other hands...at least until next year when there will be a grand face-off. Worst of all, she didn't even get to try any of her competition's winning pie...a disappointing fate for a pie connoisseur ! :(

Then, since they'd gotten back home so late at night from their trip, the Mom's eleven mile run got pushed late into the morning, which resulted in running 8 of those miles in the wind and pouring rain. Hence the red-faced, dripping wet picture that her son was kind enough to shoot of her. Thanks Spence!



All that because of some beans.

So what's the moral of this long-winded story?

• Don't choose a prize/date where you have to take a family vote over which place they'd rather go.
  

The end.

Monsters under the bed...or not

Okay maybe the girls don't really have monsters under their bed, but what we did find was just as frightful...
Apparently one of our girls (no names mentioned) has been enjoying unauthorized little picnics in her bedroom with her friends. Yikes! I think I'll have to do under bed checks more often.

California Dreaming...

This is what it looks like outside our window today...a good old-fashioned ice/freezing rain storm.


But this is life inside our house. The girls got out the beach towels and water toys, put on their swimsuits, and "played beach".


They even took turns being the life guard to save people who were in "trouble"...you know drowning in the mess in the playroom!

Preteen Craziness!

Glen and I have always been a little behind the times as far as modern conveniences go. Over the last couple of years we've slowly made some progress in this regard, with some of the advances more welcomed than others. The arrival of a DirecTV satellite dish to our house was widely loved by all (except for me, who thinks we've all put on a few pounds since its debut).

With this new technology, our kids were introduced to previously unknown shows like Suite Life of Zach & Cody, Cory in the House, That's So Raven, Drake & Josh, .. and their favorite (and mine, I must admit)...

...Hannah Montana.

So when we heard about the new 3D Hannah Montana movie they were only showing for a couple of weekends, the girls could talk about little else...so we did what any softy parents of three girls would do...

left Spencer at a friend's house, loaded three more friends into the car (you don't want to count kids vs. seatbelts), and headed to the local theater.

Emptied our wallets and put on our super expensive 3D glasses (the only logical explanation for the $6.50 higher price per ticket!)

I guess I should've done my research better, as I'd expected the movie to be an extension of some of the cute plots and characters from the Disney show, which I must admit I enjoy watching. But after an ear-splitting hour and a half of a plotless movie that was supposed to imitate a Hannah Montana concert with hordes of screaming pre-teen girls -- my ears and mind completely numb, and I was less than impressed...and apparently so were Adam and Glen.

At least the girls had a good time.

Sugar and spice; Snails and puppy dog tails...

As the mother of 2 boys and 3 girls I've come to see first hand the gender differences that kids are born with.

When Spencer was only 6 months old he could throw a ball across the room...no problem and boy did he have a knack for making the simplest objects into weapons. He could shoot a plastic golf club across the room by pulling back on a plastic hanger and using it as a very effective bow. One time Adam came home from a friend's house telling me that he'd played with dolls while he was there...ohhh how sweet, right? Then he went on to explain that they were using them as sort of a target practice by throwing them at the wall. Okay I guess I am not as impressed, but it certainly made more sense! Of course I think my boys are also very sweet and sensitive, but it comes right down to it they love dinosaurs, cars, weapons, and all the other stereotypical boy paraphernalia.

Adam and his friend playing with dirt, rocks, and sticks

Our little girls have been as girly as our boys have been boy-y (sorry I know that's not a word)! They've all loved dolls and dress-ups and sparkly things...but out of all my girls I daresay Ellie takes the cake on girliness! Not only does she have a strong passion for her dolls, spending HOURS each day dressing and undressing them (Barbies, Polly Pockets, American Girls, Build-A-Bears...she doesn't care, she loves them all), but she even will turn her fingers into dolls when there are no real ones around (a very rare occurrence). Her pinky is the sister finger, then the brother finger, then the Mom finger, Dad finger, and her thumb is the bad guy finger...and she's consistent about which is which! She also completely refuses to eat from any dish that is not pink, calling them her "girl bowl" or "girl cup". Of course this obsession with pink also means that she considers all non-pink clothing "boy clothes". So just to ensure that no one ever question her girliness... her pink, flowery tutu rounds out just about every outfit.

Ellie and her "girl bowl"!

Being a Mom is fun!

Funny fetish of mine...

Ever since October 2000, when sweet Emma was born into our family and which meant we now had two girls, I discovered a funny fetish of mine...I love my girls to wear matching clothes. Don't ask me why, but I just feel this little surge in familial pride when we make this grand entrance somewhere with their coordinating outfits.

Surprisingly it's actually fairly difficult to find matching clothes for the three of them, since they are all in different size sections in the stores.
However this presents me with:
a) an ongoing challenge--searching for just the right outfits in just the right sizes--of course on sale for a good price too!
b) a hindrance--in the fact, that much to Cami's delight, I can't buy them all matching clothes all of the time.
c)a weakness--so that when I do find something reasonably cute in all three sizes at a bargain price, I offer little resistance.

Hence the matching Easter dresses, dolls to match with, coordinating 4th of July outfits, and identical swimsuits and skirts.

...and the latest in my ongoing quest...these adorable dresses from the OskKosh outlet store!

I love it!

Cheap Entertainment...

...and a good use for all of my unfinished projects! Cami and Emma have raided my fabric drawers (you know all of that fabric I bought to make something really fun and never quite got around to it).
So they've taken my fabric and created these elaborate toga type outfits with capes and sashes. It's fun to watch them use their creativity and try out some new fashion, but I can't help but feel a twinge of guilt looking at them all wrapped up in the fabric that was supposed to be a really cute dress or frilly curtains for their bedroom!
In the midst of their fabric fashion escapades, they discovered a much more exciting treasure...one that did not require creative wrapping. After many years hanging out of sight in the far end of my closet they found the two wedding dresses. They were in heaven as they tried on the mass of silky satin, beads, and lace (I on the other hand cried when I tried to join in on the fun and realized I couldn't zip mine up anymore) :( And just so you don't have any misconceptions about how many times I've been married...one is mine and one is my sister, Kristina's, left long ago in my closet because she didn't think her 300 sq. ft. apartment in NYC had sufficient space to store it.

Hmmmm...I wonder where Ellie gets her flair for fashion from?