A Day With Audrey

This morning Audrey asked if she could have Cinderella hair.  I tried to explain to her that her hair was too short. In her mind, she thinks she has Rapunzel hair.  If she ever found out the truth it might break her heart.

 I attempted Cinderella hair.  The parts aren't straight, I wasn't very thorough but I knew it wouldn't last very long.  Surprisingly she never came and asked me to take it out. She proudly wore it all day.  

 She loves playing princesses with her mini stuffed animals.  She never touches the babies I've bought her.  Her animals occupy her stroller and her bed.  She loves them.  They are truly family.  I love to watch her imagination grow as she plays with them.  The monkey is her favorite.  She's always putting Cinderella's crown on her, and Minnie's clothes.  

I've noticed something when I pretend play with Audrey.  There is always a princess involved and after dancing with the prince for a mere few seconds the princess always runs away.  I realized that in the two Disney movies she loves the most the princesses always run.  Elsa and Cinderella are runners.  I have them to thank when I'm chasing Audrey's Cinderella monkey around the house with her prince bear.  After the running begins it's difficult to get it to end.  

 She's been really interested in cooking lately.  Today I made Fajitas and she cut a quarter of all the veggies with her plastic knife and cutting board.  I love that she loves to help me, and it usually helps when it comes to eating as well.  She's always so excited to eat the meals that we cook together.  When usually we have a difficult time at the dinner table.  I welcome the change.  

Stay a princess forever little one!

Singing in Public

Forgive me if I puke as I get ready to post this.  It's like pulling your soul out for everyone to look at.  

 I told everyone a year ago that I was planning to eventually post this song to youtube.  I pulled it out last night a worked on it for a little while and recorded it this morning.  I decided I would post it before I got the itch to make it perfect and then never post.  Hopefully the beginning to sharing my talents on the web, it's easier in the confines of my own home.  Then when I go to put in on the worldwide web where I can never take it back and I get a little nervous.  

I'll try not to apologize for all the horrible things about it. :)

I'm Just Decorating!

Audrey is my little interior designer.  She often decorates my piano or my table with her toys.  She always tells me that she's just decorating.  When I get frustrated because my house starts looking like a local garage sale she tells me that she's trying to make our house beautiful.  Most of the time I wait until her nap or in the evening to put away her creations because she is so proud of them and her artistic capabilities.  

Well during Christmas her interior design part time job became a full time job.  She was always redecorating my tree.  Most of the time it was with her toys.  I would often joke with Paul that when I took the tree down I was going to find all sorts of things I thought had gone missing.  I tried to hold my perfectionism in by letting her decorate on a daily basis and then randomly take things out when she wasn't paying attention.  Or a would tell her, today was not a decorating day.  She didn't usually like that.

As predicted she was really sad to see Christmas go.  I took everything down and she was not very happy about it.  My plan was always to eventually buy her a tree and let her decorate it but I wanted to wait until after Christmas sales.  So when I took everything down I took her shopping and we bought a tree. Instead of putting it away for next year we put it up and decorated for Christmas all over again.  She loved it and now when she decorates it everyday I don't mind, because it's hers.  The 10$ was so worth it!  I'm thinking about leaving it up for Valentines day.  We'll see, but for now I am enjoying the lack of garage saleness.  

Christmas Day

We celebrated Christmas Eve the way my parents would with a feast to feed way more than attended.  I managed to get sick that morning.  I still cooked for hours.  We had invited the missionaries and a family in our ward that we home teach. The family called to let us know that morning that they wouldn't make it to dinner.  We were left with the missionaries, but I don't think they minded going back for more...and more.  I was so sick on Christmas that I was glad I had went to all the effort the evening before when I was feeling a little bit better.  

After dinner we read the Christmas Story and acted it out with little stick puppets I had made.  The missionaries were kind enough to play the shepherds and the wise men.  Audrey of course was baby Jesus and the star (her favorite part of the story).  I don't think she completely understood what was going to happen in the morning, but she knew that Santa was coming.

In the morning we got ready before we went downstairs.  I know I'm a terrible parent.   I made her wait. In my defense, I knew if I didn't get ready beforehand that I would never get dressed. 

As we rounded the corner she got this big smile on her face.  She went for her stocking first.  She loves the idea of something filled with treats....who wouldn't? 

It was nice to have a small Christmas with just us.  I really enjoyed letting Audrey open a gift and then watching her play before we opened another one.  I think she was most excited about the gifts that she got us.  We gave her 5$ that she could spend on each of us.  She was so good at keeping what she called her,"special secrets".  

After opening gifts Paul spent most of the day trying to figure out our Chromecast stick.  Every time we would try to connect it the internet would go down.  We finally worked things out with AT&T and we are good to go.  Audrey spent most of the day doing my hair with box of hair stuff we bought her.  She kept telling me that she was making me beautiful.  She's such a girl, and I kind of love it!  The rest of the day she spent playing with her Minnie Mouse sets.  She still love pretend play.  Yes, I am still talking for them.:)  I spent the day on the couch playing with Audrey and enjoying Chocolate and new warm socks.  Paul knows me well!

We were anxious to open some gifts that were mailed from Paul's Grandpa. He was so sweet to make all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren these 3 dimensional puzzles. I mistakenly pulled mine apart thinking that I would be able to put it back together.  Bad idea. It tormented me until Paul took it from me and figured it out himself.  

I guess there was also a tradition for Paul's grandmother to make each individual who entered the family an ornament.  Which are pictured below.  I love homemade things.  I feel like more love goes into them.  So thank you for all your hours of love this Christmas Grandma and Grandpa Kendall.  We will cherish your gifts. 

Christmas Card

We finally got some family photos.  It was difficult with no one behind the camera, but out of the several family photos one was good.  ONE.  How does this happen?  I keep telling myself, at least there was one.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!  We plan on making this the best year yet!  We are so grateful for the Savior and for this opportunity we have to celebrate him.  It is because of him that I am able to be with this beautiful little family of mine.  It's because of him that I have the ability to make changes and grow to be the person that he knows I can be.  He's refining me, and I'm learning to trust his time and his hand in my life.  Change is a beautiful thing.

I couldn't be more grateful to spend another year with these two!

Christmas Cookies

I've never done Christmas Cookies before.  Audrey's been asking to do cupcakes and sprinkles.  I keep telling her that we will some other time.  We've had too much sugar around this house.  I finally caved and decided we'd do gingerbread cookies instead.  Although a pumpkin cupcake with a cream cheese frosting is sounding really good right now.  

Her favorite part was choosing sprinkles at the store. She kept pulling more and more off the shelf.  Luckily we only left with three. :)  We waited so patiently for Paul to get home.  I have to say that after this experiment I would much rather decorate cookies than Gingerbread houses.  This might be our new tradition.  They were yum.  I might have let Audrey have two right before bed, and I might have regretted it later.  Christmas traditions are the best!    

Later in the week we went to see lights.  There's a community here that has a contest every year.  Each street decorates and then prizes are given each year.  Audrey enjoyed sitting in the front seat and hanging her head out the window.  I don't think she remembers last year because she was just as excited to see the same lights.  She asked me later in the week why we didn't have lights on our house.  I didn't have an answer for her. I guess we're boring people.  Someday our house will look like Christmas on the outside too!