Cinderella

Sometimes I forget that Elizabeth is Cinderella and I'm the evil Stepmother.

For example, the other day, I thought she was just being extra helpful when she ran to the drawer in the kitchen, pulled out a cloth, and started scrubbing the kitchen floor. "Wow", I thought. "What other 2-year old (she was still 2 then) is such a good little worker?"

I should have gotten suspicious when she asked me to "pour a little bucket of water on the floor" so she could "scrub it around", but I thought she just wanted to be extra thorough.

I decided a small cupful of water poured on the floor wouldn't hurt (I'm not one to complain about the way my floors are getting cleaned). Then I got out the camera to take a picture because she looked so darn cute scrubbing away, and that's when the truth came out. She gave me her best mournful/abused/"woe is me" look and said:




"Stepmother - why do I always have to clean up the floor? Huh?"

Rachel's Primary Talk

Last month Rachel got to give a little talk in Primary. I was pretty proud of her - this is the second one she's done now, and she's memorized both of them.

Usually when my kids have to give talks, we'll discuss it a little, then I'll write up a really simple talk, and then draw some pictures that they get to color in and hold up during the talk. I always type up the words to tape on the back of the picture, so if they need a little help I can read out the first word or so, but after practicing it a few times, Rachel insisted that she didn't need any help, and she just looked at the pictures to remember what to say.




Here's a little clip of Rachel reciting her talk again after we got home from church.

Rachel's Primary Talk from Joanne Mott on Vimeo.

And of course, Elizabeth wanted a turn giving the talk as soon as Rachel was done. However, she quickly realized she had no clue what to say, and she stomped off, giving me an "I can't believe you just let me embarrass myself like that" look. Because it was clearly my fault.

Ready to try again, this time with a little help from Rachel.

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth turned 3 on Monday (June 15th), but she pretty much celebrated her birthday the whole weekend.

On Saturday, she got to go on a little shopping spree at Target with some birthday money from Grandma Nini. She knew exactly what she wanted, which, it turns out, was all of this:

1. Two little red cups with flowers on them.
2. A princess wand.
3. A little tiny baby doll.
4. A pony.
5. A "beautiful Fancy Nancy rainbow skirt."
6. Sunglasses.
7. A new Snow White polly pocket doll to replace the one she got at Christmas because Rachel accidentally ripped the head off of that one.
8. A bag of pink and white animal cookies (she is my daughter, after all. I think it was my 4th birthday that I requested that my whole cake be covered with pink and whites).
9. A bag of Craisins. (she was super excited about this purchase - "And Mom, you know it's my own bag, right? Like, I don't have to share ANY of them, right? Like, I can eat the whole bag whenever I want?" I guess just knowing she could was enough, though, because she ended up being a great sharer of the Craisins.)

Then on Sunday we did a little celebrating, too, because Tristan and Daniel were going to be gone Monday evening. Here she is with the "strawberry cake with pink strawberry frosting and also strawberries all over it" that she had requested.




Finally on Monday (her actual birthday), she got to open up presents.


Let's just say she was a little excited about her new princess dining set


I guess because she's 3 now she wanted to try out a new, more "grown-up" way of smiling. She's exhibiting this strange face in several of her birthday pictures (if you click on the picture collage above, you'll see it there, too):



After presents it was time for a little fancy birthday cereal for breakfast.
She took about two bites and then decided that she'd rather just eat some plain old raisin bran.

And then after that she decided that what she REALLY wanted for breakfast was a big plate of Craisins.

And she was so pleased about this that she accidentally forgot to smile in her new grown-up way, and she let loose with one of her trademark grins.

We finished out the birthday fun with a little birthday picnic and swimming at the pool.

Elizabeth is so excited to finally be three. This whole week she's been saying things like, "Mom, did you see how I didn't even cry when Henry took my toy? I guess it's because I'm 3 now." Also, "Mom!! Look how tall my legs are! Can you believe it? I guess it's because I'm 3 now." And then she'll do her new 3-year old smile to show how mature and tall and old she is.

I have a feeling we're in for a fun year.

That's so posh!

*Definition of "posh": (adj.) Smart and fashionable.

*Definition of "posh" according to Fancy Nancy: "a fancy way to say fancy."
As in "Papillons are so posh!"

*Or, "Look at me, Mom - I'm so posh just like Fancy Nancy!"

Anyway, last week after church I was asking the kids what they learned about in their classes. When I got to Elizabeth, I was a little surprised at what she said.


Me: So, Lizza, what did you learn about in nursery today?


E (thinking really hard): Um. . .Jesus.


Me: Oh, neat. What did your teachers tell you about Jesus? (I was thinking there was a good chance there had been no actual lesson on Jesus, but that Lizza had just decided that was a safe answer. )


E (thinking even harder): Um. . . I can't remember.


Me: Try.


E: Oh, yeah!! I learned about how Jesus is "posh."


I was laughing pretty hard as I was trying to decide the level of inappropriate-ness (is that a word?) she had reached. I'd like to think that to Lizza, "posh" just means really, really special. In a religious way, even.


Either that, or she was just trying to be funny.

Natural Bridge Caverns Adventure

Over Memorial Day weekend we wanted to try something new that we haven't done yet in Texas, so we decided to drive down to the Natural Bridge Caverns (near San Antonio) and explore the caves.

It poured rain the whole drive down and continued to pour even harder once we got there, but we were just fine with that, since we were planning on being underground anyway. We sat in the car and ate our lunch/fed Henry, etc. during the worst of the downpour, and by the time we actually got our tickets and started our tour, it was only sprinkling.

The caves were amazing, and pretty family/kid friendly, although the paths were a little slippery. There was no crawling through tight, muddy tunnels or anything - we just walked on a little trail up and down throughout the caves. There were little lights so we didn't need flashlights (much to the dismay of the kids - they love a good excuse to turn on a flashlight).

For some reason blogger is acting weird and putting my pictures/captions all over the place, so these are looking a little random, but it's the best I can do for now.

Posing by the natural bridge:
























Going down into the cave. Everyone was being very brave:

Looking at interesting things:

Rachel wanted a picture of her pointing to this slimy bump:


















More cave awesomeness:

The end:

Rachel has decided that her calling in life is to hold doors open for people.