Little Girl Things

 

 

You guys.  Yesterday was the most cute I have ever experienced at one time in my life.  I am talking puppies-snuggling-with-baby-bears-and-teacup-pigs cute.  Elliot, my Mom, and I went to a Mommy and Me Princess Tea at Sharehouse in Richland. It was ADORABLE!  Picture 30+ little girls aged infant to third grade all dressed up like their favorite princesses.  Now add cute little tea sets, marshmallows on a stick dipped in pink chocolate and sprinkles (kicking myself for not taking a picture of these), pink lemonade, tea cookies, arts and crafts, and games!  And if that wasn't cute enough, you should have heard the room erupt into song when "Let it Go" came on.  "Frozen" is clearly the movie of this generation!

 



Elliot decided to go as Cinderella.  And picked the headband out on her own to go with the dress.

 

And she was really into the marshmallow sticks.

 

But the real highlight, for her, was Belle and Snow White.  Elliot very sincerely believes she met THE Belle and THE Snow White yesterday.  She spotted them from across the room, told me she wanted to go see them, and when I brought her over she cautiously approached, a look of complete awe on her face.  She was quite star struck.  But as you can see in the picture, she played it pretty cool.  (Unlike the time I saw Tina Fey and just stared at her awkwardly until she noticed and then quickly left the premises...but I digress.)  Ever since she has been telling everyone she sees that she met Belle and Snow White. 

 But, the highlight for me was the girl time, during which I got to witness my daughter experience joy.  I watched her be confident and brave, boldly approaching girls she has never met and playing with them.  Somehow she has already surpassed me in this skill.  I watched her thoughtful heart reach out to a more shy girl that did not boldly approach the group (similar to how I tend to be) and invite her in to the fold.  And I watched her leadership skills develop.  Although she was the youngest one in the group, soon all the girls were following her lead and doing what she was doing, all smiles and giggles, tulle, sequins, and glitter abounding.

Arts and crafts.

Decorating cookies...

...then eating all the decorations off the cookies.

This is her looking at the picture we took of her with Belle and Snow White.  See?  Star struck.  She had to see the picture again literally 5 minutes after it was taken.

 

All the best Girls' Days include Grandma!

 

 

It was one of the best days ever. I love, love, LOVE little girl things.  And this was definitely a little girl thing.  I am forever grateful that I was given the gift of my little girl.  She is everything I ever hoped for, princess dress and girly nature notwithstanding, and I am so proud of her, every day.

Easter

In what has, apparently, become my signature move, I am going to blog about Easter...three weeks late.  But I think it still warrants a post, mostly because I took so many good pictures!

 

 

So, I know religiously-speaking, Easter is one of the big ones.  Like, possibly the biggest.  He is Risen!, after all.  And for that reason it has always been meaningful to me.  The season of Lent, associated with deprivation and sorrow, bursting forth in a glorious celebration of triumph over death.  It's powerful stuff...but not what this post is about.

 

No, I bring it up because I never really got into the secular side of Easter.  Yeah, the egg hunts were kind of fun as a child and a Easter baskets packed with tasty treats were awesome.  My family never participated in the farce of magical creatures like the "Easter Bunny." (Side bar, regarding mythical, magical creatures:  To give you an idea, my Mom told us there was no tooth fairy, but for a while had us participate in the whole production of putting our teeth under the pillow and then she would "sneak" in and leave a couple bucks, unless it slipped her mind, at which point we would present our tooth to her in the morning and have her fork over the cash on the spot.  And don't even get me started on Santa.  We were the kids other parents feared would break the news to their gullible offspring.  Don't worry, we were instructed not to, and I never did.  We simply looked at the other kids in pity when we heard their parents say something outrageous like "Santa knows if you are misbehaving!")  Anyway, the point is that Easter was never that cool or fun to me outside of church.  And I could never put together how one fit in with the other.

 

Until now.

 

I am convinced that secular Easter was created so that parents can watch their toddlers have the time of their lives.  Last Easter Elliot was 10 months old and barely walking.  We kind of forced the egg hunt on her, and she definitely did not get it, preferring to play with the grass around the eggs, rather than the eggs themselves.  This year was another story entirely.  It was like egg hunt Olympics and Elliot was going for the gold.

 

We started Easter weekend off with an egg hunt at our church on Saturday.  This was where she got her feet wet on the whole concept of egg hunting, which was good preparation for the rest of the weekend.  There was a special section roped off for babies and toddlers, and she owned it.  (Not in a bully kind of way.  After it was all said and done, meaning all the toddlers had lost interest, there were still probably 20 or so eggs left hidden spread out in plain sight in the grass.)  Once she realized they had candy inside she started getting selective.  She would only accept the ones with chocolate, so immediately after finding the egg she would open it up and say "no chocolate" and throw it back on the ground.

 

After the egg hunt at church was over she sat down with the other kids and colored a picture, like a big girl.

 

 

Later that day, we colored eggs at home.  Instead of the traditional egg dye we used Kool-Aid.  I highly recommend this.  You just take a packet of Kool-Aid and add 2/3 cup water, and voila!  Bright eggs that smell fruity rather than like vinegar.  I thought Elliot would not really get into it, doing one or two before she got bored.  Nope!  She did every single egg and was disappointed there were not more.  She was very gentle and was so proud of her.

Blowing them dry.

Proud of a job well done.

 

 

Easter morning, after a breakfast of hot cross buns, we went merrily off to church to celebrate.  Then the partying continued!  The first stop was my aunt's house with my Dad's side of the family.  There was another egg hunt, and this time Elliot knew exactly what to do. 

Showing Poppy how to hunt eggs.

Taking inventory.

Comparing notes with cousin Lorelai.

 

 

Finally, we ended the day with Easter dinner at Mom's.  And, yes, this meant yet another egg hunt.  But girlfriend was more than up for the task.

Elliot and her pretty Grandma Gail.

This face pretty much sums up her feelings on the whole event.

 



 Now every time she goes to Grandma's house she thinks there should be an egg hunt.  And I finally understand what makes it special: that it doesn't happen every day and it is something to which we look forward.  That's the common thread between the religious side and the secular side.  The Easter season is all about anticipating joy.