Tea with Gammy (and big girl Gwyneth)

We took my mom to her first tea house experience this last week for her Christmas present.  She loves tea, has a teacup collection from her mom, and has tea parties every time the girls go over for babysitting.  Our day at the tea house was a perfect day.  The weather was sunny and nice.  We weren't rushed.  The girls were all fancy and felt pretty.  We sat at a pretty table with pretty tea sets and yummy, girly food.  Agatha had impeccable etiquette and manners.  Gwyneth ate quietly and didn't break anything.  My mom got to enjoy her girls and a beautiful tea.  It was everything I dreamed.  I wish everyday of parenting was this shiny.  Today, on the other hand, was back to reality.  Homeschooling in PJs, messy house, tons of chores, busy outings with late arrivals, pee pee accidents, a minor burn on my 1 year old's hand, screaming for two and half hours afterward (yes, you read that right-she was inconsolable), late bedtimes and work on the couch late into the night instead of sleeping.  Each day brings its own color and my world is rainbow.

Side note:  Gwyn is not a baby anymore!  She does flips at her Little Gym class, goes pee and poo on the potty, communicates with ASL and verbal words, sleds down huge hills in the snow on her own inner-tube, makes valid jokes and knows she is funny, refuses high chairs and sits on a normal dining chairs and even has a preference toward purple everything (what to do with all the PINK hand-me-downs from her big sister-RIT dye here I come!).  I am excited for this next stage of toddler!  Gwyn is precious.

False Eyelashes and Organic Makeup

Yesterday I got completely ready in my four year old's bathroom. Is it crazy that she has enough product to support her 30 year old mommy? There was deodorant, makeup, a hair dryer, moisturizer and mousse...I did have to use a Little Einstein bandaid and went for the gusto with her face glitter. Which, by the way what is up with the fact that every single mascara ad features a model or celebrity who is most obviously using fake eyelashes?

Nobody wears those things daily and it is totally false advertising. I even read there are controversies about it. Why not just show what your product really does? I want to start using Nvey Eco. It is organic and paraben free-any users? Does it work?

Pretty Pink Feminists

I have always raised my four year old to believe in herself. I never forced girly-ness on her, but as you can see by her blog she has definitely chosen it. She is one of the fanciest, pinkest girls I know. But she still is going to "change the world and make it so lots of girls can be pastors" (something that still needs to change in our evangelical Christian circles). She tells this freely to everyone and recently told me she wants someone to write a book about her life because she is going to change the world like Fa Mulan did for China (she impersonated a man and was in the Chinese army in 380 AD). I am glad my feeble attempts to keep the feminism alive by reading books like The Paper Bag Princess mixed in with the Cinderella and Fancy Nancy has worked. I suppose it is not really feminism, but personism as my friend Bill Catling says. I am the first one to stand up for my wonderful parenting partner and husband when people so rudely say "Is Adam babysitting the girls for you?", no he is just parenting them, Dads don't babysit. Women and Men have their special talents and roles, but we all should partner in life with parenting, finances, decisions, leadership, you get the drift...off my soapbox.

I love playing dress up!

We visited the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert today. It was awesome-I highly, highly recommend it if you have kids under 10ish and can make the drive. (I wish we had something like this in Riverside-maybe Adam and I should start it?) They have crafty arts, painting a VW bug, blocks, magnets, still camera movies to make (Adam loved), optical illusions, right brain/left brain (I rocked at isolating my right brain-apparently the hardest exhibit in the museum to do), weaving a loom, and a baby area to name a few things. It also has tons of imaginative play stuff from archaeologist, to veterinarian, to pizza chef, to grocery shopping, to dress up!!! Aggie and I loved this! Most of our dress up at home is in a size child 4/6 but everything here was thrift shop finds and in my size. Oh, fun. I recruited kids and dressed them up, found stuff for Aggie and had to put a few things on myself. I was the only mom-or adult for that matter, but I don't care. It was so fun to put on those awful prom dresses from my youth (what were we thinking with those sleeves?) and be sassy in fur coats. I love dress up!

A little bit of fancy

Aggie and I had an extra hour this week and Gwyn was in a great mood, so we marched into a nail salon and ordered up two pedicures. We had so much fun with the hot water spas and massages. We even got flowers on our big toes! I painted hot pink to match Aggie on Gwynie's toes. It was a fun, fancy day with my girls-a glimpse of my future...woohoo!