Curly Hair vs. Straight Hair

I had this conversation with Curly Girl last night:

CG (who had worn her hair down for the day, and we had spent a lot of time outside): Did you notice my hair today, Mom, when it was blowing in the wind?

Me: I noticed it looked very pretty.

CG: And straight

Me: well, yeah, because your hair is so long (it is now past her rear), it is heavy and pulls the curls out. And you brushed it a lot this morning, which is good.

CG: Well, yeah, but straight hair is beautiful. That's why I brushed the curls out.

Me - feeling a bit concerned: Don't you think curly hair is beautiful?

CG - picking up on the fact that she might have offended me - Mom, I like you, but I want my hair straight and beautiful.

Me: What?

CG: I LIKE YOU, but I want my hair STRAIGHT to be beautiful. Straight hair is beautiful.

Me: Curly hair can be beautiful too. It doesn't have to be crazy and wild like mine usually is.

CG: Your hair is fine. I want mine straight and beautiful.

Me with a sigh: Well, that is fine. But remember, what truly makes you beautiful is your personality, your attitude and how you treat people. God looks at your heart, not your hair. You know that, right?

CG: Yes, I know. (sighing herself like its an old lesson). But I still want my hair straight and beautiful.

Her braid was done, so she ran off at that point, leaving me, honestly, a little sad. And thinking maybe we should hack a foot of hair off her head so it would curl again and she could see it is beautiful that way too.  But I made a deal with her that if she brushed it and didn't cry when I fixed it, she wouldn't have to cut it. And she has honored that deal spectacularly, so I will too.

Maybe we just need to watch Brave again.

Happy with my Magic Number

One of my friends just had a baby.  We went and visited her and her newest little in the hospital and for the first time EVER, holding a newborn didn't make me want a new one.

Maybe it is because we had had a particularly awesome day.

My three little Curly's had cleaned their rooms to the point where I could actually vacuum without me standing over them or yelling, I just got to praise them (2 beans in ALL the jars!).

They voluntarily played in our yard for 2 hours without coming in and out or begging me to push them on the swing again and again and again.  They blew bubbles and made up games and just had a great time.  Came in all grimy and starving just in time for lunch - WHICH THEY ACTUALLY ATE.

They got along during quiet time, doing worksheets to help prepare for school (which is coming up SO fast) and stayed there until I said they could be free.
Then we went to the ice cream park.  This park is huge and awesome, mostly because they can run everywhere and I can sit on a bench and crochet.  Which is what I did.

For over an hour, my three played together, following my guidance of ignoring the nasty-talking 5th graders who were running around.
As I sat and watched them play, I thanked God for my THREE.  With three, they have all learned to play with kids of varying age and skill levels without leaving anyone out.  They've learned to share and have to wait an "extra" turn out while the other two do something. They've learned sometimes kids who are playing alone don't really want to be alone, but sometimes they do.
(A new little girl showed up and Curly Girl was trying to make friends with her.  The girl finally said "would you please leave me alone, I'm trying to find my friends." I held my breath to see Curly Girl's response, she adores making new friends and is hurt when others won't play with her.  I shouldn't have worried. She turned to her brothers and said "She just wants some alone time, let's go." And moved along.)

Plus, I got really great pictures like this:

(Curly Boy was taking Not Curly to the "secret entrance" into the playset)

So yeah, that's probably why that new little baby didn't fill me with feelings of longing.  I've got three little perfects to fill me up right here.

Great Acoustics - The Bane of My Existence

This event actually happened before Thanksgiving, but I didn't have a chance to blog then, so here is our story now.

It was the community Thanksgiving service, held at St. Joseph Catholic church.  This was our second attendance, and we already knew it was mainly an older generation service, but we took the whole family anyway.  If Mr. Curly is going to be part of the local ministerial association, than our family is going to participate in local community church events.  Right?  Right.

I should've known it was going to be bad when I herded my three young curly kids into the side entrance where we were greeted by a statue of Jesus.  "They have a Jesus statute here!" Curly Girl exclaimed.  Curly Boy found it pretty amazing too, pointing out the holes in Jesus's hand to Curly Boy 2 (who might start being called Non-Curly, but that's another post).

We made it to, well, in our church we call it the foyer, where we greeted some other pastor friends.  Curly Boy commented on the "stink" of the church - it was either incense or air freshener, I really couldn't tell.  We were waiting for Mr. Curly to park the car and join us.
He finally made it in, and we went into the sanctuary to find a seat, only Mr. Curly got stopped by another pastor.

So I was left with 3 small children who had never been in a Catholic church before and were suddenly met with the holy water fountain.  And huge stained glass windows, and the stations of the cross.  And the best acoustics you will ever find.
"Look, a fountain!"
"Yook, yook, water!"
"Where are the fish?"
"See how the water falls, momma?"
"See those windows! They're huge!"
"What is that statue thing on the wall?"
"Mom - you gotta see this place!!" (this last one was my particularly amazed 2 year old)

I finally shepherded them into the last row, well, second to last row, the last row is for handicap access.  I hushed them, Mr. Curly came in where it started all over.
"Have you seen this?  What are these?  Look at the water!" (Thankfully they didn't see the Catholics blessing themselves with the water, that would've been a whole new thing to exclaim over!)

Have you been in a Catholic church?  A whisper carries all the way to the front.  Well, my children were NOT whispering.  Which means every single person in the place heard all those announcements.

Including when Curly Boy 2 wanted to run the aisles, when he needed to go pee and poop, when Curly Girl complained that the church was too big and she couldn't see the person talking....
And to top it off, Curly Boy was bored so he counted the lights, much like his father once did during a concert of Handel's Messiah that I dragged him too.

I know, I know, they're kids.  Pastor's kids at that, which means they are particularly comfortable in a church building.  And they had never been in a Catholic church before.  But I'm pretty sure I looked like the perfect Christmas ornament with my green shirt and bright red face.





Other titles considered for this blog post:
1. Why I Will Never Go To A Catholic Church Again
2. Why yes, those are the pastor's kids swimming in the holy water
3. Gee, can't you tell we're from a small protestant church?

Ants on a Log

So Curly Girl has been struggling to keep up in school.  The teacher says she acts listless.  Head on her desk, working slow, fairly unanimated (which is NOT Curly Girl at all!).  The teacher was concerned that she wasn't getting enough sleep, or maybe was getting sick.

We did have a big weekend.  So Tuesday night (the day we heard of this), we put all the kids to bed early. We also had a nice chat with Curly Girl.

See, she comes home cranky and grumpy and snappy, until she has a snack.  And then she's absolutely fine.  We haven't noticed anything weird at home.  Only that she tends to fill up on snacks and then doesn't want dinner.  And at school, she openly admits, she doesn't eat her lunch, only the class snack.
We came to the tentative conclusion that maybe she's just too hungry to work, or that her blood sugar is low from lack of good food.

Yesterday was first day of "healthy snacks to keep our daughter's energy level."  Usually, snacks are treats - candy, chips, popcorn, jello, cookies....  It's a snack after all, and we eat our fruits and veggies and grains and all the other good stuff at meals.
But I can't let my bright little girl's school work suffer because of bad eating habits!

So in order to make sure she's getting what she needs, we had ants on a log yesterday (celery, peanut butter, raisins).  Curly Girl's conclusion: I LIKE THESE!!
AND she actually ate the celery! (Unlike our other problem eater, Curly Boy 2, who just licked everything off the celery).

She also had her first dose of homework yesterday because she was so behind.  But that's another post. :/

Sweet 6 Years

My Curly Girl turned six on September 28.

All she wanted for her birthday was a mermaid cake, a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, and a Peter Pan room.
Not too bad, huh?

We made it to Chuck E's.  Just a little walk-in party with Curly Girl and her brothers, but thanks to coupons, each kid had 40 tokens to do whatever they wanted.  2.5 hours later, we left absolutely exhausted, but happy.  Some very nice tweenagers had donated their leftover tickets (and in one boy's case, 411!!) to my kids to get prizes, so we all walked out with cheap plastic bracelets, dinosaurs, and boxes of nerds.

I think we could've probably gotten by with 1/2 the tokens, and just let them play in the free jungle gym/slide area the whole time!

We bought some Fairytale Pink paint (her choice) and then headed home for naps and cake.

Fairytale Pink.  IT IS PINK!

THE CAKE:
Pinspiration:

AAAANNNNDDDD - what actually happened:

We started out with a standing-up tail.  That began to fall.  So we cut it down.  And it still fell.  So we laid it down. This is now a mermaid just flipping back into the water.
While it looks NOTHING like pinterest, Curly Girl was pretty stinkin' excited about it.  And it tasted delicious!

And while I did some Peter Pan silhouttes to break up all that pink you saw up there, it isn't quite ready for pictures yet.  So, instead, here is the Pinterest inspired birthday gift we gave Curly Girl.

The Pinspiration:

 

The results:

 

As you can see, I chose to make my butterflies colored.  And I hung a tiny green tinkerbell right in the middle.  It is gorgeous.  And it was so much fun to make.  And it looks super fantastic in Curly Girl's new room.

 

All in all, at the end of the day, my Curly Girl looked at me and said "Mom, this was a really good day."  And there is nothing better than that.

Two down, one to go

That picture there?  That's my little man Curly Boy walking into his first day of preschool with his Daddy.

I haven't cried about it.... yet.

Now that Curly Girl is in school all day, and Curly Boy is gone for about 2.5 hours a day, right during Curly Boy 2's naptime, I should have it made, huh?

But it doesn't seem to matter how much I rearrange my day, I'm still not getting a lot done.  Makes me kind of sad that my kids are gone. 

Ok, makes me really sad.  I mean, I love when they come home excited about something they did that day, but I miss my kids.  Not so much as to homeschool or anything. I enjoy my down time.  And I know that they will learn better away from me.

Next year Curly Girl and Boy will be gone all day. It will be just me and Curly Boy 2 at home.  That terrifies me!  I have a feeling we'll spend a lot of time running to events where his friends are so he isn't bored at home with just Momma to play with.

I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

After all, I've made it through two....

Waiting for the Tooth Fairy

"Mom! Momma?  My tooth fell out!"

I was awoken by those words this morning at 3:30.

See, Curly Girl's tooth became loose while we were on vacation at my parent's.  And she's been wiggling it and pushing it and showing everybody who smiles at her for a week now (yes, just a week).

And sometime in the middle of the night, it came completely out and when she woke up, she brought it to my room.

Remembering when I found my baby teeth in a Dixie cup on top of the fridge, I took Curly Girl to the kitchen.  We put the TINIEST TOOTH EVER in a little plastic cup and set it up on top of the fridge.  Then I told Curly Girl to go back to bed and we'd leave it under her pillow tonight for the Tooth Fairy.

Which made her start crying.  She wants to keep her teeth.  She's VERY upset that they are falling out to allow bigger ones in, because bigger ones mean she is growing up and she doesn't WANT to grow up.
Believe me, I don't want her to grow up either!

So tonight, in order to make her feel better about losing a tooth, we're going to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy requesting that she gets to keep her tooth.
It's only fair.  After all, I not only wrote the Tooth Fairy as a little girl, but got letters in response!

Passing on the magic....

As a child, I was pretty solidly in love with Peter Pan.  And that love has endured, even though it has change.  Because now, instead of being the boy I want to run away with, he's just a wonderfully whimsical reminder of childhood magic that I want to bring home and mother.
Peter Pan is still one of my absolute favorite Disney movies.  He's the character I'm most likely going to want to meet if I ever get my kids to Disneyland.

I remember my first prince crush too.  Eric.  You remember Eric from The Little Mermaid, right?  If you say no, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore.
Oh Eric.  Wavy black hair, blue eyes, a sailor....  Definitely a great guy.  Except for that whole marry the sea witch thing.  But who could blame him?  He'd been half drowned when he first saw Ariel!
Yep, he was definitely my first Prince crush.

And here's the whole wonderful point of this blog:

Curly Girl likes the exact same guys!  Peter Pan is her favorite.  She was TinkerBell for Halloween last year, she wants a Neverland room....

When you ask her who her favorite Prince is, her answer is Eric.  And Flynn. She can't decide.  How cute it that?

I never thought my kids and I would watch the same movies and have the same reactions.  I was sure Disney was doomed as I aged and lost interest in their movies.  But nope, on a regular basis we watch Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Robin Hood....
My dad just showed the kids Pinocchio.  They thought that was pretty good too.

I love passing that magic on.  Because honestly, who doesn't want to live in that forever?

If Ariel had play clothes....

Curly Girl's friend had a birthday party Tuesday night.  We get together regularly with this family and one other for play date, and I've mentioned before the commiseration of SO MANY TOYS.

There are lots of fun little things to buy little girls - my little ponies that come with dvds, lalaloopsy dolls (which was the party theme), Barbie accessories, playhouse things.... These are all great gifts.  This little friend would've loved any single one of them.

But I wanted to be a bit more creative, so Curly Girl and I had a conversation about what her friend would like.  Curly Girl thought either slippers, or a princess dress.  The slippers would've probably been ok, but they are crochet, and this little friend is slightly picky about textures, so we moved on to the princess dress.

I'm a decent seamstress, but when it came to Curly Girl's Princess Ariel dress, I made my mom make it.

See - Puffy Sleeves

After convincing Curly Girl I couldn't replicate her princess dress, I used this idea I found on Pinterest of creating Princess-inspired play clothes.  (Seriously, go check out her super cute Cinderella and Snow White play clothes).
Knowing that this friend LOVED Ariel and the color pink (after we confirmed it with her mom), we created this outfit:

Pink shorts that I added ruffle to.
A pink tank top with silver dots that I put ruffled sleeves on.

Curly Girl will tell you it is ridiculous because the sleeves don't puff.  And I feel bad about that - but puffy sleeves are something I REALLY have to concentrate on, and after putting the sleeve on wrong the first time, and picking out a million tiny stitches, I went with a regular sleeve.
We threw in a tiara and a dollar store pink pearl necklace for good measure. 

I think it was a hit.  After opening all her presents at the party, the little friend had to go to the bathroom and change into her new outfit.  I'll call it good.

Little Tiny Food

I am the first to lament the amount of toys my children have.  My friends and I often commiserate at playdate that we enjoy giving our children things, but honestly, what do you give a child whose room is overflowing.

I know I JUST cleaned out their rooms, but I just couldn't help myself.  Yesterday afternoon, during quiet time, I made this:

I was really hating how much food packaging I was putting in the recycle bin.  All that cardboard - it MUST be good for something! 
And after cleaning up Curly Girl's kitchen stuff and realizing she had only yogurt and butter tubs as play food (besides a few felt things I made her at Easter and some plastic eggs), I decided I could keep some of that food packaging and repurpose it into something fun.

It was super easy.  Take a box.  Cut it down to size.  The easiest thing to do is use the bottom of the box and one side.  Cut out an extra side panel and the top of the box.  Use hot glue to attach.  A few of them I had to glue on the name because it wasn't near the bottom of the box.  The tallest box is the rice box, it is about 5 inches tall.    I need to do a little trimming on the edges, but I'm pretty happy with them.
I cut the sides off the flour and sugar bags, then glued them inside, this made them about half their size (after cutting off excess at the top as well.).

The best thing about this fun little tiny food is - they were FREE.  It was just recycling!  And when they get smashed.... well, I'm sure it won't be hard to replace.  We're still eating here after all.

My next project will be a puppet theater/pretend house front.  We have signs for the kids to play library, post office, vet, dr., grocery store, etc.... but our original house front collapsed when Curly Boy 2 tried to sit in it!  I'll have to pull down another big box from the attic for that project though.

A day alone...

Friday Mr. Curly took all three kids fishing.  I spent 7 hours alone at home.  Guess what I did?

If you thought anything that included sleeping, eating, tv or pinterest, sorry.  I'm much more of a mom than that.

I cleaned.  For 6.5 hours, I cleaned my children's rooms.  Rather than talk you through it.  Here are the before and after pictures.

BEFORE

 

 

 

 

AFTER:   

I moved their shelves to the empty closet space and added command hooks so I could hang up all those big tails those Curly Boys think they just have to have (and I love to make, honestly)!

Our "we're going out" center - hats, coats, shoes - and oh yeah, any dirty laundry from the day!



I used command hooks to hang that pink basket just a few inches
off the floor.  All Curly Girl's pots and pans are under it, food in it,
dishes stacked on top.  It looks SO CUTE!

Another 'head out the door" center.  Curly Girl LOVES having a designated place to keep her slippers!

 We are now all set for a summer of fun!  I'm hoping this new organizational system will help my kids clean their rooms quickly so we can move on to just enjoying the free days!

Trading Spaces: They Hated It

Despite the title, this is not about decorating (that post is tomorrow).  But I did a project with my kids last week that they were just disgusted with, and it made me think of all those great Trading Spaces shows where the people were WAY excited to begin, and at the end.... not so much.

The project: Paper mache' banks.

My kids have been BEGGING me for piggy banks.  Curly Girl has a little silver one, they both had (and destroyed) those Tootsie Roll banks, and they just can't believe I haven't bought them any  more banks to destroy by dumping their pennies out on the floor over and over and over.

When I took Curly Girl to the Art Center, she saw Paper Mache' art for the first time, and thought it would be fun to try.
It was "P" week for Curly Boy - so what better than to focus on paper! (We did several fun things with different types of paper, this one is the best story).

So I cut up 2 ginger ale 20 oz. bottles, mixed up some flour and water, tore up some newspaper.  And we got to work.

My kids were absolutely disgusted.  They thought the goop was slimy, the newspaper got too wet, the bottles felt weird.... every textile thing they could complain about, they did.  This from children who will gladly make mud pies for hours, splash in puddles, eat ranch dip with their hands..... It's ridiculous.




So I made two paper mache' banks. 

They painted them:

And here are the results - awaiting their pennies!

 

 

Girl's Day Out

Curly Girl had been begging me for some time with her without the boys, so Saturday we took a Girl's Day out.  We visited a local Art Gallery, ate some frozen custard at Culvers, spent her leftover Christmas money, and then she bought me dinner at McDonalds.  Here are pictures from our Art Gallery Day!

Contemplating blown glass sculptures.  When she heard Papa could do this, and you could watch it be done at Silver Dollar City (where Grandad likes to visit), she insisted we watch a demonstration of this some time!











Curly Girl was sure this really old classical painting (130 years old) was of Mary and Baby Jesus.












They had a hands-on art section where Curly Girl built people out of different blocks.  Some had ears, some eyes.  Some were shaped like duck's bodies or feet. 






And then a Massive Curly Girl was created on the giant dry erase board.

The hands-on section also had a magnet wall, a mirror to do a self-portrait, light up center, 6 foot tall lego house to build on, and computers with art programs.  We spent a majority of our time there.  Perfect place for my little budding artist!

And now, some of our favorite art work.

Curly Girl's favorite, simply titled Horse #36 by Michael Eastman.
Curly Girl wants a copy of this to hang over her bed.

Blush Edge by Keith Jacobshagen (who lived in Wichita, KS before moving to Nebraksa!)

A close up of the elevators - look at that detail in a 6 ft wide painting!

Held For Ransom

There's this great little pin on pinterest, that unfortunately I don't have, about a toy ransom box.  I believe the purpose was to teach kids to pick up their toys, or Momma would take them away until they did chores to earn them back.

Well, I have my own little version of this:

My poem says:

TOY RANSOM BOX

You didn't listen

So Momma took it away

Now you have to do a chore

Before it can play!

 

 

We were having distraction issues here in the Curly household.  I'd ask the kids to get shoes, 15 minutes later they were still shoeless playing with some toy they had found along the way.  Or it would take 30 minutes to put on jammies.  Those are just the easy examples.

 

My box is half blue, half pink.  One side holds boy chores that are specific to their room.  The other side holds girl chores specific to Curly Girl's room.  Both sides have household chores like "Put away dishes" "straighten bookshelf" etc.

 

The whole point is to teach focus and follow-through.  Each child has had to use it in the past few days.  My bookshelves look great (the kids section of them, I don't expect them to straighten my books) and Curly Boy's room has no dirty clothes on the floor right now!

 

It is definitely difficult for them - Curly Boy lost a toy while paying ransom for a toy due to distraction.  But it has cut down on repition and yelling and frustration.  I think it will stick around for awhile.

Don't Let Down Your Hair!!!

For her birthday, we bought Curly Girl a little 3 inch Rapunzel doll.  She LOVES Rapunzel, and this was the perfect size for her doll house and other mini-princesses.

Cute little Rapunzel came with 2 dresses, flowers, a crown, and beautifully braided hair.

And then Curly Girl was given "Tangled" for Christmas, and the next thing I know, Rapunzel's hair looks like this:

So then, following a pin (which said to add fabric softener to the water and then comb) I used this site which offered hope for frizzy doll hair.

So Rapunzel got in her little hot tub.

And then we brushed her hair.

 MUCH better.  I think I'll secretly braid it tonight while Curly Girl is sleeping.  And hope she doesn't take the braid out again!  Even though this was easy, I spend enough time combing out long curly hair on my daughter, I don't need to do it for a toy too!

I told you sew!

When Evie opened her own sewing kit Christmas morning, she told it was boring and the worst Christmas gift ever.

I couldn't really blame her.  She didn't ask for it, and so far that Christmas morning she hadn't opened a Purple Pony or a Rapunzel doll (her two big wish items).  AND, when I was six and my dad made me a bookshelf for my birthday, I told him it was the worst gift to give a little girl.  I think I thought it was going to be a kitchen that I had asked for.  It was BIG after all.
I got over that - I LOVE that bookshelf, and now my children use it for all their books.

Still, it rather hurt my feelings, her honesty did.

But about 2 weeks later, she spent 3 hours one day doing things like this:

She then learned how to pull all the stitches out and start over with new yarn and multiple buttons.  It warms my crafty little heart.

Happy Birthday to You!

Today is Curly Girl's preschool teacher's birthday.

It isn't very often that Curly Girl asks to write things - she's usually happy to draw and then sign her name.
But for Ms. Teacher, we not only bought a gift (a manicure set and 3 bottles of nail polish - Curly Girl LOVES to do her nails, and thought Ms. Teacher would like to as well), but Curly Girl even made her a handwritten card.

The Front - This is Ms. Teacher with spider fingers and toes!

This is the inside - She wrote it all herself!