An Early Birthday!

Elizabeth's Birthday is on Thursday this week and wouldn't you know it Josh and I have Blue and Gold that we are in charge of on that day, so we asked Elizabeth if we could celebrate her birthday on another day. She is so sweet that she said yes and she picked today, because it was the last Saturday in the month of February! Apparently you can not celebrate your birthday on a Saturday that is NOT in your birthday month!!! I am so happy that I have a kid that will explain all of the rules of life to me with such conviction!!! So I woke up this morning and she wanted french toast for her birthday breakfast, but not just any french toast Grandma Tippetts french toast with her syrup. I dragged myself out of bed and off to the store to get some key ingredients needed for the rest of the day. Just so she could have her Grandma Tippetts french toast! After, I started on her cake. Elizabeth asked to have a barbie cake with a blue dress. I think she turned out pretty good, and she even tasted good too.

When it was time to put the candles in we were not really sure where they should go. So we stuck them out the side of the dress and just hoped that they didn't catch the doll on fire. 

After she sat in the traditional birthday chair in front of all of us to open her gifts and of course wearing her birthday crown...oh and pajamas...yes we hadn't gotten out of our pajamas yet!

For dinner Elizabeth got to pick any place that she wanted us to go out to eat. She picked China Isle, one of Josh's favorite places...He is starting to have way too much influence over this kid's eating preferences!
I just can't believe that my little girl is going to be 9 this week. She is growing up so fast and I just love the girl that she is growing into!

Hero Of The Week!

Elizabeth's class has what is called Hero of the Week, where a student is celebrated the whole week long. It starts on Friday and goes to the next Friday. You have to make a poster all about yourself. Elizabeth asked me to help her with her poster so she choose the pictures and I helped with her name. Then, and you all should be VERY proud of me, I let her write ALL the information that she wanted on her poster. Now if you know me or have ever made a poster or banner with me know that I can get a bit controlling about how the project turns out. This is why I make Josh help with the major school projects, I usually end you yelling at the poor kid in complete frustration....I never said I was perfect and the first step is recognition! So letting her write everything out took ALL of my self control, which may of slipped a few times, but she got it done and I think it turned out cute. 

Today I took the poster into the classroom with cookies, which Elizabeth told me was required and the teacher said I didn't have to but it was a smart way to get me to bring in cookies. The whole class sits in a somewhat circle and Elizabeth sits in the center. They all have to go around the circle and say something that they like about Elizabeth! I LOVED this!!! There was of course a few strange remarks that she has nice bangs, but the majority of things that they said about her was that she was kind, a good friend, thoughtful, nice, funny, creative, ALWAYS considerate of other people, and so on. Now I know that they have to say something nice, but to hear such wonderful things about my kid, just melted my heart and I really tried hard not to run over to her and hug her and cry, because she is all of those things. She has the sweetest spirit! After all  of the niceties she stood up in front of the class to tell all about her poster and about her favorite things, then the class gets to ask her any question they have about her. I loved watching my little girl stand up in front of her class with confidence! She is growing up so fast! Then she passed out her cookies that she so cleverly got me to bring and that was the start to her Hero Week. I hope that she has the best week!

Our Day of LOVE!

Valentines day was a VERY busy day for me. (let me just say next year when I get the bright idea to sign up for room mom somebody just shoot me!) The girls had their Valentine parties at school. I was in charge of Elizabeth's so I couldn't go to Abby's party, which I heard about from Abby! Before the parties I stood in line with all the men at see's candy to get my man a box of chocolates. I love the fact that Josh loves chocolate more then me...it just brings a smile to my face. After getting my Valentine a Valentine I took it over to the office to give it to him and join him at their work Valentine lunch. I also got all the workers in the office a Valentine pooping cow. The cow poops out Valentine candies. I love America that you can find during any holiday some sort of animal that poops that  holiday's candy out!!! They all loved it! Then it was off to Elizabeth's party. I had four stations. One was to make these very cute candy kabobs, that I got off of pinterest. I forgot to take pictures of the kabobs that the kids made but here is the picture that they sort of resembled...

They were very cute. I loved seeing what the kids came up with. Another station they made homemade Valentines, but the catch is they had to make them for people in the school, i.e. the lunch ladies, the janitors, the librarian, the ladies in the office, to name a few that they made them for. Then there were two stations that had minute to win it Valentine games to play. After they passed out their Valentines and decorated a heart cookie. These kids had SO much candy that they were bouncing off the walls! I was SO tired after I just wanted to go home and lay down but no that wasn't in the cards for me just yet Elizabeth had piano lessons that I had to take her to and wait for her to be done.
Side note: Yesterday Elizabeth was telling me that she couldn't wait to be a grown up. I told her to be happy with being a kid because she doesn't really have any responsibilities right now. She looks at me and says, "Adults don't have any responsibilities!" I say, "Um...Yes they do." She comes back with, "You don't...what do you do!" WOW......you have to love kids they just put you in your place, which is somewhere at the end of the line!
Josh made the executive decision for us all to go out to dinner! I love this man!!! As we were driving around trying to decide where to eat somehow the girls won out and we ended up at Chuck-E-Cheese!!! I know of all places but the girls had fun playing on all the games and that is what is really important I guess.

Little Girl Book Club Second Go Around!

Tonight we had our second little girl book club meeting. This time it was at our house. The book was Anne of Green Gables. I have been dragging my feet on getting this done. We finished the book a while ago and I just didn't know what to do. Amy set the bar a little too high with her WONDERFUL first meeting, so naturally I felt I had to do something other then just have the girls come over to talk about the book. (Have I thanked you for that yet Amy?)  I have also been VERY tired and VERY busy, and not to mention a little crabby these last few weeks and have more things on my plate to come in this month, (I am really starting to dislike the month of February!) that I figured lets just get this out of the way before I cancel the whole idea of little girl book club....I know terrible mother, but I did warn you I have been crabby!
I loved how Amy centered her night around the books theme. So I tried to think of the book and one of my favorite parts is the tea that Anne puts on for Diana with the Raspberry Cordial that she thinks she is serving but gives her the wine instead. So we had a tea party for our book club night. I even had Raspberry Cordial (it was Raspberry Lemon Aid but I called it Cordial). When I told my girls that we were going to have Raspberry Cordial Elizabeth got REALLY worried and said, "Um...mom is it healthy for us...?" She was thinking I was going to get them all drunk like Anne did!!! I love this kid. I laughed and told her it wasn't wine and she could drink it, but I am happy to know that I have a kid that will keep me straight!!! 

We ate cookies from Smart Cookie, and chocolate bread from Kneaders, and a cinnamon bread from the store. I put a pretty table cloth on the table and used some of my mom's fancy plates and glasses and made it pretty. The girls helped set up the table with me. They really liked being apart of the getting ready process.

While we ate I had typed up some questions about the book for the girls to answer, like, Who was your favorite character...and things like that. We talked about the book for a short time, then I had them make friendship bracelets, because the whole theme of the book I thought was about great friends. This however didn't go over too well. Friendship bracelets take a long time and you need kids that have a longer attention span then mine. I did find it interested that the two younger kids lasted longer then the two older kids! So note to self if you do an activity at these little girl book clubs make it short and simple...basically something a preschooler might think is fun!!!

The Little Andersen's have not yet told us what our next book is yet but we are very excited to find out and get started on it, and then come together to talk about it!! I have noticed that my girls are learning to LOVE to read and have a bigger desire to find books that they like. Even at parent teacher conference this week Elizabeth's teacher commented on how dramatically she has changed in her attitude about reading and I know it is because of doing this book club. Even though it is not always easy to put on one of these I find that the benefit out weighs everything else! So I say...on with the next book....