I wanna makeup too!

As I was putting on my makeup this morning Sammie hopped up on her stool and wanted to join in. I gave her some of my old eye shadow and she had a great time. She kept saying funny little things to herself that I couldn't always understand. Mostly things like, "I am pootin' on makeup." "Put summore here." "Oh, I do it too, like this." She thought she looked very pretty.

Happy Heart Day

Olivia insisted on making valentines for her class. "Are you sure?" I asked her knowing that 18 valentines is a lot for one little girl. Just asking her to write her name 18 times was going to be enough of a challenge. She looked at me and said, "Umm. Yes. I can make that many," she answered. She had this look on her face like "how else are we going to do it? Buy them? NEVER!" I can't blame her. She gets it from me.
She was so excited to do it and came up with her own idea. Her pictures were getting really sloppy because she had to make so many of them. I kept telling her to slow down so that they would look nice. I was watching and hoping that the kids in her class weren't going to make fun of her little drawings of lopsided hearts. When Joey came home, he looked at them and noted the rushed look of the drawings. "You don't think the kids will make fun of them because they're not some cool valentine?" But this is what Olivia had her heart set on.
I helped at her class party today and as the kids were looking at their valentines so many kids were shouting out. "Wow, Olivia! You drew me!" and "Olivia made me a picture!" and "Thanks for the picture Olivia!" Others were just holding them in their hands and smiling. I was touched the kids felt so special receiving something that a little girl put her heart into. Hers were the only handmade valentines and she did them all herself. (I did help cut them out.) I'm glad that I didn't talk her into buying something else. After I looked at them all together, they really did look cute.

Good Sport

Olivia and Sammie like to have races--stroller races around the house, races to the car in the parking lot. Olivia always wins, but Sammie is a good sport about second place. Olivia will yell, "I won!" Then after Sammie gets there she just as cheerfully yells, "I lost!" She is completely accepting of coming in 2nd place. Sometimes Sammie will accidentally yell, "I won," after Olivia already won and Olivia will correct her, "No I won. You lost." Sammie just joyfully responds in an 'I knew that tone' , "Oh, I lost." Then they keep on racing.

There is stuff everywhere!

I really like it when my kids play, but lately I can never seem to keep up with all of the messes made everywhere. Not just from them. It's just "stuff" creeping out from everywhere. I don't know where it is coming from. As soon as I clean one room, another is messy. Sigh... Actually I was laughing to myself at the girls the other night because of all the "paper dolls" they have ALL OVER THE HOUSE. They like to color in coloring books or draw their own pictures and then cut them out. They also cut them out of magazines, or collect stickers; anything is fair game. Olivia will get excited when she comes home from school or primary with a picture that is perfect for cutting up. They will play with the tiniest pieces of paper and then gasp when I pick them up to throw them in the trash. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize this tiny piece of paper was a toy." And their is no discrimination amongst paper toys and real toys. They can all play together in harmony. A barbie doll may have a paper little girl for a child. A paper Strawberry Shortcake can ride in a toy car.
It makes hours and days of endless play. They just have a hard time parting with the old ones and I am often performing a bit of surgery with tape on the torn ones. So we have a box full of these "paper dolls" which I make them empty out every once in a while to make room for more, well, paper dolls.