With all the snow packing us inside our cozy little home, we have spent more time in and less time out. I love it, though. When my "plans" don't materialize because of the weather, I am forced to be spontaneous and relax a little. Our hibernation began on Saturday with Dallas working a 15-hour shift, and I was at home with the girls on a FREEZING COLD day. The blizzard blew in, and the girls and I decided to take it easy at home.
I helped them get their "'sponsibilities" done first thing, and after that they put on a gymnastics performance for me. Miss Choobers was in her own world looking at books while they literally bounced off the walls and furniture.
Then I agreed to play dress up with them. I have to admit that I have never actually played dress-up with them. If they ask me to play with them, I usually ask, "Can I just watch you play?" Probably because their dress-ups don't fit me, and I have never put forth any effort to come up with a creative costume for myself. Plus, I have a hard time breaking out of my "mode" to pretend with the girls. Especially Raleigh. Because when she pretends, she wants so badly for the ENTIRE family to participate, she pulls out mountains of props, and it lasts for at least a couple of hours. It is a full-on PRODUCTION. And I tend to be such a control freak that I begin telling her our STOP time before we've even STARTED.
I know, I can really be lame like that. (Mom, I know you are thinking, "That's exactly how you were, Dionne!" Yes, it has truly come back to bite me. Do you remember when I dressed you up in my ballet costumes, David and Jess?? he he.)
We rummaged through the dress-ups and found a costume for me that I had forgotten about. It's this rhinestoney-pearly-OOOOGLY dress that you would find your great grandmother wearing on a cruise ship. And you won't find me posting a picture of it here. The reason I own it is because I had to wear it for a performance at a Regional Girls Camp. (Huh, another thing to add to my list of reasons why I hated Girls Camp.) So I put on this outfit, (and maybe it was the snow outside and I was feeling a little RELAXED), but I really got into Raleigh's little production.
Kensington wore a fairy skirt and crown and fed her little bunny a bottle on the rocking chair while us thespians performed.
Madeline had on a yellow froofy number.
Raleigh was dressed as a WITCH.
She had me act out "Christmas morning" complete with her own script and choreography. And the more I got into it with her, the more I could see how much fun it was. We were crazy and loud, and we finally stopped when I started getting dizzy. The fun part was teasing Raleigh and getting more into it than she really wanted me to. Or acting like I didn't understand my part or the directions she was giving me. I think it is so fun to tease kids. I think it's one of the best ways to bond- I don't know why. It's like jokes they can actually understand. Now I'm reminding myself of my dad.
"I Love Lucy" was on after theatre class, so the four of us got back into our comfy clothes and vegged in front of the t.v. for awhile. The girls had never seen "I Love Lucy," and it was hilarious to see Raleigh and Madeline actually understand the humor in it. I laughed myself to tears at the show AND at them. The girls got a big kick out of Lucy. Who doesn't?
When the show was over, I thought about maybe braving the weather and taking the girls shopping, but before we got out the door, Willard came over to play. He is the cutest boy. He's Raleigh's age and in her class at school. He came in his snow pants, snow boots, snow gloves, and parka. It took him a good ten minutes just to get out of his warm things and off of the rug at our front door. (I say "front door" as if we had other doors in our place. Ha ha!) So we broke out some kitchen goodies and made some little festive winter treats together. I couldn't believe what a cool mom I was. We made snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzels, and gumdrops, etc., and then we made little reindeer faces out of Nutter Butters, pretzels, chocolate chips, and gumdrops.
By the time the kids had a chance to play without me following them around trying to entertain them, the snow had finally stopped. So at 4:00 pm, we finally got out of the house to shop and had a GRAND time. I love to shop with the girls because, well, they love to shop, too!
On Sunday we felt like we were still living in a snow cave, so we broke out our aprons and made some sugar cookies. When I was young I remember my mom making these candy cane-shaped cookies that actually had red and white twisted frosting to make them look authentic. But they were made out of this not-so-great-tasting dough. (Sorry, Southern Living, it's your one bad recipe.) So we decided to make some out of sugar cookie dough. What made it even more fun was the way the girls got into it. They could maneuver the dough fairly well and made some pretty cute candy cane cookies. Notice how intent they are.
Then Dallas's (sorry, I just HAVE to add the "s" after the apostrophe even though it isn't grammatically correct because it drives me a little crazy) parents came over, and we enjoyed visiting with them while the girls ran around the house like maniacs on their little sugar-high. What is it about the holidays and snow and sugar cookies that makes us all so giddy?
I think it's the abundance of memories-in-the-making. We had such a great time together. But MONDAY! Now Monday was a good day. And TUESDAY! Tuesday was memorable, that's for sure. I'll think my next post will be about Tuesday . . .
