Sisters Tea House

My friend, Angie invited us to have tea with Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora.  Lilly was pretty excited about this idea.  She talked all about the princesses on the way to tea.  Non stop chatter.  This is really a great idea!  And so many moms, aunts, and grandmothers were having special dates with their certain little girl.

   The princesses walked around during our lunch serving tea and hot chocolate.  In fine china, of course!  Looks like Cousin Jenny isn't the only person who trusts four year olds!  This is Lilly's face when she first saw Cinderella was in our room.

 And Cinderella patiently posed for a picture with Lilly.  Lilly said not one word to her.  

 And this is pretty much how she ate her entire lunch.  In awe of the princesses.

 These girls worked hard today!  They sat like this for all these girls to take pictures!  And my child was not easy.  This is the best photo we could get.

 Sisters Tea House is an old house with rooms upstairs set up for browsing and shopping.  This room was any little girls haven!  There were old hats, boas, gloves, dresses, purses - and the girls were encouraged to play with it all!  All the girls were so quiet for story time.

And then they played a game with the princesses.  Note the little girl next to Lilly - she is clearly not finished playing dress up!

Breakfast with Santa

A friend of ours invited us to join her and her granddaughter for breakfast with Santa.  This is where I realized just how much she has heard about Santa.  I also realized most of my friends have grandchildren.  

 Our seats just happened to be right by Santa's great entrance.  And look at that face!

 She waited very patiently to meet Santa.  The whole time we waited in line, all I heard about was how she was going to talk to him and ask him for a Barbie.  She was very excited about this opportunity.

 She did not sit in his lap.  She did not talk to him.  About Anything.  We barely got this picture.  The Santa activity included a photo.  Lilly took that photo to school every day for at least two weeks to show her friends, her teachers, her friends' parents.  I can not imagine the stories she told about her breakfast.

 They had lots of great activities for the kids to do also!  Here is the cookie decorating station.  You can't tell, but Lilly did not get enough sprinkles on her cookie.  She actually poured some sprinkles in her goodie bag.  

Good Tidings of Christmas

Lilly was quite helpful this year in holiday preparations!  She did an advent calendar and waited patiently to do only one at a time.  She heard about Elf on the Shelf.  Naturally, she wondered why she didn't have her own personal elf.  I wonder how all those other moms have the time and energy to add an elf to their holidays.  She also knew about Santa this year.  And all she wanted from the big guy was a Barbie.

She and I were putting the tree up.  I turned my back for one minute...

 She went and got her flashlight and "fixed" the tree.  I'm still not sure what was "broken."

 And we did a little holiday baking!  Or maybe just dipping.

The goods.

Turkey Run 2012

So we ran down to Little Rock for Thanksgiving this year.  Ernie and Lilly gave me their cold which turned into bronchitis so I'm really not sure what all took place over the holidays.  I do however have evidence of Lilly and Cousin Jenny having some good times!

 They rode their bikes outside.

They had a tea party!  Only Cousin Jenny would give a four year old tea in fine china.

Lilly had bubble baths in the middle of the afternoon in Aunt Patty's fancy tub.

And they even managed to squeeze in "Spa Day!"

And of course, there was a birthday celebration!  Cousin Jenny picked out a wonderful Cinderella themed cake that was simply delicious!

Pancakes and Pajamas!

Wow!  Log time no blog.  I'm sure we've done things.  In fact I know we have.  Sorry for not posting.  I won't bore you with what we've been up to but will just start with today... AKA the best birthday party idea I've ever shamelessly stolen!  Pancakes and Pajamas in the morning was awesome!  All the kids had great energy.  The pancakes - plain, chocolate chip, confetti, and pumpkin - were delicious!  The kids loved their topping choices and best of all - I believe all had fun!  Even the parental units!

The toppings:  sprinkles of all kinds, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, nutella, peanuts, fruits, whipped cream.  I even made, although not shown in any photo, home made apple cider syrup!

 How do you stack?  The kids got to see how many pancakes high they were!  And yes, we measured with the pointy hat on!  

 And then again without.  The only guest she was taller than?  The 21 month old...

 The decorating madness!  

This was so fun to watch!

 Lilly's pancake.  I wish we had taken a photo of this before cutting it and in stages.  She had thick and multiple layers of toppings, including Nutella, sugar crystal sprinkles, star sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles.  And syrup.

 She ate quite a bit!

 Waiting on her gift from us...

The cutest Cinderella bike ever!

 We took her down to the pool parking lot to practice.  She had a few falls, but got back on it every time!

 At the end of the evening, we finally had cupcakes.  

She's the cutest little four year old I know!

Princess Butterfly

One of Lilly's prizes for potty training was this butterfly tutu set.  She really just wanted the shoes.

I'm a big girl now!

So we finally upgraded Lilly's bed to a full size bed!  

 This is her first night in it!

 She looks quite cozy, huh?

  She fell asleep "reading" Curious George!

 I know people think I'm the crazy parent in Lilly's world, but so is Ernie.  He can not believe how tall the bed is.  Direct quote:  "if she falls, she could break her neck!"

                                      

 Note the step stool.  It isn't just for Lilly!  I need it to!

Lilly's driving!

I bought Lilly this little Barbie Jeep at a yard sale last year.  She is finally able to reach the pedals!  I am not sure what happened to make her (or her instructor) think she needed to roll her pants up to her knees...

I wish I had taken a video of our neighbor Emily in the jeep with her.  Emily may have suffered a minor concussion from all the jerky stop and go of Lilly's driving!  Emily's parents were thinking about buying one for Emily, but I think Emily is actually scared of it now!

Field Trip to the Zoo

So yes, this was in April.  And I know it is now June, but at least it is getting posted, right?  Lilly won her class coloring contest (it was the impressive use of glitter glue) and got to pick out an animal for the class to adopt.  She chose the elephants in honor of our newest zoo member, Kinzey.

Our first stop was the children's zoo where they are apparently raising free range chickens.

 Lilly followed them around, trying to catch one because she is certain they want her to pet them.

 The fact the chickens are working so hard to get away from her hardly deters her.

 Meanwhile all the other kids from school have spent time here at the river otter exhibit.

 They just swam the same path but Lilly never "saw" it.

 So we stayed there for quite some time!

 We finally made our way to the playground.  She slid down the slide several times and hid in the hippo mouth for awhile.  We did not see a single class mate on the playground.

 So we call Lilly the Lollygagger....

 We finally make it to the petting zoo which is basically a bunch of goats.  There were some babies too!

 And Lilly brushed every single one of them!

 Next stop for us:  the Carousel!

After the carousel, we decided to go look for Baby Kinzey in the River Walk section of the zoo.  We got sidetracked by this little guy.  The friendliest orangutan ever!  He just sat there willing all of us to please sit and chat for awhile.  And Lilly did.

 So we still have not found the elephants.  Somehow though we manage to get back to the carousel which we ride again!  This time, our friend Chris was there and introduced us to the carousel manager who gave us a free pass!