Spelling Tuesday

We resumed homeschooling today after a long weekend, and my THREE year old had two major accomplishments. First, she was able to spell her first name perfectly several times! L-o-r-a-l-i-e!!!! Secondly, she drew this picture of Daddy which I think is her best human to date! Arms, legs, facial features... Genius!

Today we celebrated Loralie's 3rd birthday with a woodland fairy party! Here is the birthday girl in her fairy get-up! There is nothing cuter than little girls in tutus and wings! Loralie and Ada admiring each other's wings... The scene was set with a giant tree canopy that said "Welcome to Pixie Hallow" and lots of "wood-sey" stuff! The girls decorated "fairy houses", and then it was time for cake! Make a wish, and blow out the candles! Magic wands... and goodies galore! Loralie and Sophie strike a pose... Okay, just Loralie! Time to open presents! She got so many presents that she got bored in the middle of opening them and wanted to go play! Look at the great big fairies! The kids got to take home their very own Pixie Dust (which was actually Pixie Stix candy). When Loralie thought no one was looking we saw her try to sprinkle it on her head to make herself fly! Think Happy Thoughts! So Daddy had to help her wings work... At the end...

Loralie has officially graduated from toddler storytime at the Library, and will begin Preschool Storytime next month! Here is a picture of Loralie with her teacher, Miss Melissa. She looked about a foot taller than all the other kids in there today! My baby is getting so big!

Three years ago today, our sweet Loralie made her grand entrance to the world! What a blessing she has been to us! I wanted today to be a special Mommy-Loralie day to celebrate her turning THREE! She got to pick out her own outfit... And of course, she picked lunch at "Chick sa way"... She got to help mommy make a special birthday cake. She picked chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream! A girl after my own heart! When daddy got home we ate Mac N' Cheese for dinner (uhg.) and feasted on birthday cake and ice cream. And then Loralie got to open two presents. One was from Aunt Robyn and Uncle Levi. It was a bag full of girlie goodies which she was very excited about! Thank you Auntie and Uncle! The other present was from mommy and daddy. It was a dance bag with some new leotards and hair bows to wear to dance class! Yippee! Happy Birthday, Little Girl! Mommy and Daddy love you very much! Can't wait for your party this weekend!!!

Today would have been my Mom and Dad's 33rd wedding anniversary. Here is a story about their first anniversary, as told by my mom: "We were traveling on the road playing music, getting ready to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. In the audience one night, a couple showed up that made us take notice. He looked like a comedian from laugh in called Pat Paulson and she looked like Barbara Striesand. They were newlyweds too. They came to hear us sing every night in a small town in Minnesota. Rick would introduce them as celebrities, and the audience half believed him. They invited us over to their house one day. Mrs. Paulson (LOL) had worked at a glass factory that had recently gone bankrupt. She had collected a lot of stemware. and gave us two hysingware champagne glasses as a wedding gift. We toted those glasses around in our suitcase from gig to gig, trying hard not to break them.They are the same glasses I shared with you on your wedding day. Every anniversary ...

Yesterday, I let our dog Scooter in the house for about five minutes. I was in the living room, playing with Loralie when he comes racing past us and jumps up at the door, wanting to go out. As a put him outside I thought his foot was bleeding, but then I realized it was PINK PAINT. The door to the garage had not closed all the way and he had managed to trot right through some hot pink paint, and then proceeded to run through the entire house, leaving little puppy prints behind him! When I realized the amount of scrubbing this was going to require I literally cried. I called Caleb, my knight in shining armour, and more importantly the resident "carpet Nazi", and he left work to come help me scrub. It is really probably a very good thing I didn't realize what the dog had done until he was safely outside or I very well may have murdered him. Never a dull moment for us housewives, eh?

This was Loralies craft project during our preschool time today. I thought it turned out really cute! She used her little knuckles to make the pumpkins, and her index finger to make the stems. We had to talk a lot about "above" and "below" for the sky and grass. It is amazing how much she is picking up in the short amount of time that we spend working on school each day! She can aleady identify her name, A B C D 1 2 and 3! And she has learned two whole bible verses! Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:3! Not bad for two weeks of school!

Caleb is growing the worlds largest tomato plants in the backyard! They are literally the size of our back deck. The only downfall is that so far we have only gotten one measley tomato off of there! Right now there are about five tiny green ones on there. There were six until loralie picked one for me... Oops. Sorry Caleb. Your farmer dreams are dashed again!

So we kicked off this week with a little mini trip to the pumpkin patch. It is free if you go late in the afternoon, so we plan on going there a lot! We babysat cousin Ada all day on Friday, and Loralie had a lot of fun chasing her around and taking good care of her. Saturday we went to the Louisville Cider Festival. I was pretty fun, but a little bit overrated if you ask me. I would have rather gone up there during the week to avoid the crowds and just get some cider and doughnuts! On the way home we stopped off at this weird Large Feline Reserve out in the middle of nowhere. This angry leopard lunged at me and Loralie through the bars. We did not like him. Loralie is still talking about how he "wanted to see if I was tasty". Ha!