Souvenirs

L and I had a weekend getaway last weekend and left the kids at our house with a sitter. They had a magnificent time with her -- she was definitely more entertaining than we ever are! And we had ourselves a lovely time as well.

When we checked into the hotel, I noticed our room had a stash of nice hotel letterhead, envelopes, notepaper and a pencil. I tossed it in my bag to bring home to the girls.

I spent time looking in souvenir shops throughout the weekend to find something else to bring home, but nothing spoke to me like all that fancy blank paper.

The day after we got home, I needed to do some tidying in the house. I brought out the souvenirs I had beaten the streets (ha!) to get for them. I spread out the paper on their drawing table, and they immediately started leafing through it all. As I walked away to start my work, I heard Jellybean exclaim, "This is a good present!"

Chalk one up for good ol' Mama. You just have to know your audience.

Candid camera

Jellybean's big gift from us for her birthday this year was a digital camera. She's only 4, so it was a kid-proof (but functioning) digital camera.
For a couple months, she has been using blocks and Legos as pretend cameras. She holds something that's vaguely rectangular, aims it at us and says, "Say cheese." Well, now her pretending days are over! As we anticipated, she absolutely loves her camera.

Her pictures are so interesting and have provided a great insight into her life as a kid.

For example, here's what I look like to her:Here are L and Peanut:
As she practiced more, she got more accurate with her aim and actually came out with some pretty cool ones.The last one is a picture of her Father's Day gift for L -- her photo in a picture frame that she decorated. I liked the perspective.

We still hear a lot of "Say cheese!" around here, but now we know we'd better be paying attention! We never know what kind of blackmail we're in for when she's a teenager.

Birthday demands

With one child born in May and the other born in June, spring is birthday season around here! Both girls were very specific about how they wanted to celebrate their birthdays this year. It was fun to see them influence each other -- and celebrate each other.
For Peanut's birthday, we had a pretty simple party and invited many neighbors over to play and have cake and ice cream. Not just any cake and ice cream, though. Peanut was adamant that she had to have YELLOW cake and ORANGE ice cream. She told us that for a week before her party. She told everyone at the party, and she told all her grandparents on the phone after the fact. Pretty demanding for a newly minted 2-year-old. Ordering by color is fun, though, and I'll take those kinds of (easily fulfilled, not outlandish) demands while I can get them.
Jellybean also had particular birthday requests -- and hers were also fairly tame. She wanted to have her birthday party at the pool, and she wanted a rainbow cake. I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off the pool thing. We don't know anyone who has a pool, we don't belong to a swim club, she's not really old enough for a big waterpark, and I just didn't know how to make it work. She started talking about her party around the time of Peanut's birthday. As we got closer to June, I thought maybe she would back off on the idea or even possibly forget about it. Instead, she kept asking. So, I decided to, in the words of Tim Gunn, "make it work."
I did some research and checking around. Turns out the city pool allows people to rent the baby pool before public swim hours for parties. Perfect! Jellybean was onto something. The cost was reasonable, the timing worked, and there was just the weather to worry about. Worry, I did (about the weather and about Peanut's health, as it turned out). It was stormy and cool for the two days preceding the party. I refused to make a back-up plan, because I was willing it to work out. Then, lo and behold, about 2 hours before the party started, the clouds parted, the humidity cranked up, and it got downright hot outside. Yeehaw! Add to that that a friend of mine posted pictures of her daughter's rainbow cake a few months back. I had the rainbow cake in the bag to boot.
Although these were requests the kids made, I have to confess that their ideas really did make the parties fun. They weren't things that L or I would have come up with on their own, and it's cool to have kids who are old enough to create their own ideas and articulate them. Both parties were a blast, and I'm already looking forward to what they'll want to do next year!