Pool Playdate

Wednesday we met Makayla, Matthew and Carys (and Jennifer and Rhainnon) at the pool in Matthew and Carys' neighborhood. It is an awesome pool -- all one foot deep with big sprinkler toys! The kids LOVED it. The only downside is that the bottom is very rough (probably since it is so shallow and kids run around in it) and after three+ hours of playing, they all got blisters on their feet. Or in Lily's case, since she crawled and "swam" around the pool, she got blisters and scratches on the bottom of her feet, the top of her feet, her ankles and her knees. Not sure how she managed to get all beat up, but I don't think she regrets it one bit and is ready to go back again soon!

Makayla, Lily, Carys and Matthew having a snack.

(with Madison in the background)

A view of the cool pool. Too bad the water wasn't on when I took the photo.

More snacks after all the fun!

Mini Projects

On Monday, Lily, Chip, my Mom and I went to the movies to see "Despicable Me." It was cute, but not as cute as I thought it would be. I think all the positive word of mouth got my expectations too high.

On Tuesday, I started (and pretty much completed) my latest project around the house -- changing out and updating the picture frames. I hadn't modified any frames since we moved in, so the majority of the photos were Lily's baby pictures through about 16 months old, so it was definitely time to fix that!! It was slightly annoying since the computer has died twice and all the pictures are on CDs . . . hundreds of CD's. But the blog helped to locate and pick out the ones I wanted and I got most of the frames changed out and feel much better about it -- especially since I needed some pictures of Jeremy up too!!

While we were looking at old photos, Lily found one of her as a "baby" sitting in the living room in the office chair with a bunch of stuffed animals, so she HAD to do it again. :)
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The other half of my project was to create a wall montage in Lily's room with all her Princess and character photos. She talks about meeting the Princesses daily and the idea came to me when we got her picture with Alice last weekend. So we got some frames, pink of course, at Target and . . . . ta da:

Needless to say, she is very excited!

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Finally, some pictures from Tuesday night. She actually asked for pigtails in her hair!!! I was beyond excited!!

Doing a puzzle with her pigtails!!!

Chip and Drew Pearson

Last Saturday at work, Chip met Drew Pearson who was there as part of a tournament. I think you can tell by the size of the smile on his face, how happy and excited he was:Chip has a framed poster of the Cowboys from the 1970's with Drew Pearson in it, and he was nice enough to sign it. Apparently they chatted for awhile about football and stuff and he was very nice. He even gave Chip a fistbump while wearing his Superbowl ring! Since it was such a momentous occasion in Chip's life, I had to be sure to document it here and to make it part of my blog book someday! :)

Lily in Wonderland

Last night Chip, Lily and I went to the Gaylord Texan hotel to check out their "Summerfest" festivities. Apparently this summer, the theme is "Alice in Wonderland" and it lasts from Memorial Day until Labor Day, but I just found out about it this week. Since Lily LOVES Alice, we had to go check it out!! There are tons of different activities -- Tea Parties with the Mad Hatter, Breakfast with the characters, a 3D blacklight maze, Cheshire Cat scavenger hunt, The Queen of Hearts magic and puppet show, as well as photos with the characters and the hotel's atriums are all decorated like Wonderland. Most of the activities are at night and on the weekends, so we figured we'd better go when we had the chance since Chip is usually pretty busy on the weekends at work. As much as I would have loved to try all the different activities, we really didn't have the time to do it all. Breakfast with the characters was obviously out, the Mad Hatters tea party involved decorating cupcakes and I couldn't see that holding Lily's attention very long and the 3d Maze may have been too scary for Lily and too nauseating for me (since you had to wear 3D glasses). So we decided to get tickets for the magic and puppet show, visit with the characters and check out all the decorations!

Posing in her "Alice dress" outside the hotel. She wore this dress on Easter, the same day she got the "Alice in Wonderland" DVD and decided that since it was blue and she was obsessed with Alice that this was her "Alice dress". She always calls it that and she HAD to wear it to see her.

Some of the decorations in the hotel.

The tea parties and other character made of sand (or at least a sand looking substance).

Of course Lily was afraid of most the characters and wouldn't pose with them for photos. I can't blame her, they were pretty cheesy! We saw the caterpillar, Mad Hatter, some flowers, the Queen and a 8 of hearts card. But she was willing to go see Alice, even though she had a funky Cheshire cat with her!

I got this photo with my phone, so it is only okay . . .

and this is the official photo, but my scanner isn't working properly so it isn't that great either, but you get the idea.

She was very excited to meet her and give her a hug.

She even got her autograph!! And every time we walked by Alice throughout the night, Alice would wave hi and say "Hi Lily!" It was so sweet that she remembered her name and Lily was loving it!

The "Magic and Puppet" show started at 7pm. They had the kids sit on the floor and Lily sat on the other side of the room from us. I was curious as to how she would do way over there, but she was great!! And it was fun for us to be able to see her facial expressions as she watched and listened. She LOVED the show and was SO into it. It was perfect for a three year old. It was the cheesiest, hokiest thing I have ever seen. It was pretty bad. But Lily loved it and is already begging to go back and watch it again, so I guess that is all that matters! :)

Lily is in the back, in the center of the photo.

It was a one woman show, staring the Queen of Hearts. The puppets "sang" to songs she played off an ipod that sat nearby on a folding chair. But the "Queen" didn't realize the ipod was on the shake shuffle mode, so the songs kept skipping on her and she didn't know why. I told you it was pretty hokey!

The white rabbit puppet.

I didn't get any pictures of the "magic" tricks. But they weren't all that magical, and I am pretty sure even Lily knew how all the tricks were performed.

But it was a fun hour and I am glad we did it since Lily had such a great time.

More decorations around the hotel. . . .

And ice cream at the hotel to end the night!

It was a great way to spend the evening and Lily loved it!!!

Laundry

This morning Lily decided she was going to do her own laundry and how can I argue with that?!? So, she got it all out of the basket and into the washer and then I showed her how to turn it on and add the detergent. It is about time she learned how to earn her keep! :)

Better Late Than Never

Somehow in January with Lily's big birthday party and our trip to California right after, I totally forgot to do Lily's 3 year hand print in her hand print tower. I realized that last month as I was cleaning up her room, but forgot soon after until Michelle posted Alyson's tower all completed after her 6th(!!) birthday. I bought Alyson tower for her right after she was born, so I was happy to see it all completed, but it is crazy to think that was 6 years ago!

So Lily and I finally did her 3 year hand print this week. Technically she is still 3 years old, so we are still good. :)

Ta Da!

Lazy Crazy Days of Summer

This last week was busy and fun. Technically, it was kinda our first lazy week of summer since we had no school, no family or friends in from out of town and no real plans. But we managed to keep busy. I went to spin both Monday and Wednesday night. Tuesday, I went out with Rhiannon and Jenn for dinner and ended up closing the restaurant down (again) after talking for 5 hours. It was great and crazy how fast time flew by! Wednesday Lily and I went to see "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" with Emily and Patti at the $1 summer movies. Thursday we had Trent, Elise and Courtney over to play and hang out since we've missed them this summer. We haven't had regular playgroup all summer since everyone has been in and out of town and off on their own summer schedules. So we have missed all our friends! Friday we met Emily and Patti at the pool which was super fun and much needed since my tan was starting to fade. :) Not to mention our regular summer activities such as pretending to be princesses and prince (I am always the prince, of course), play doh, and Candy Land.

Ever since we saw "Beauty and The Beast" last weekend, Lily has been wanting to dress up in her costumes. But she still insists they are itchy and doesn't wear them very long.

Diva Cinderella in the middle of an important phone call.

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Lily also discovered the big basket of cat toys this week. Way back when, before we had Lily, those cats were pretty spoiled and they probably have just as many (if not more) toys than Lily! Of course they haven't gotten anything new in the last 3 and a half years. Poor kitties.

So Lily has been playing with them a lot and I am sure they appreciate the extra love and attention.

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When Trent and Elise came over on Thursday, it was Trent's idea to dress up. So we did!

Unfortunately, no one was very cooperative with me and my camera, so I didn't get any great pictures to blackmail Trent with later in life. Plus, they didn't stay dressed very long after Lily told them all the dresses were itchy.

Helping Trent take off his itchy dress. . . .

. . . and into another one!

Helping Elise too.

Beauty and The Beast

Last night we took Lily to see the Broadway Musical, "Beauty and the Beast" which is in Dallas for a limited two week run. Both Chip and I had already seen it (both in New York, but at separate times before we ever even knew each other) and we knew Lily would love it since she loves all things princess and Disney related. To make it even better, Emily (and Bryan and Bryan's Mom, since Patti had to go out of town last minute for a funeral) came too!

The girls ready and excited!
I was also excited to go to the new Winspear Opera House and the AT&T Performing Art center which just opened this year. It is a really nice theater. The chandelier that you can only see the bottom of in the above picture, folds up into the ceiling during the show and looks like stars in the sky. We had great seats in the mezzanine. It was also cool since we could see down into the orchestra pit. They were supposed to be $95 seats, but I had a coupon code and got the seats for $30 . I was stoaked.

Photos were not allowed during the production, but I snuck some in anyway and I am glad I did since Lily has already looked at them 20 times this morning and has re-lived the show.

I wish I could have just taken video of Lily watching the show. She was so cute. During the opening number she was so beyond excited to see Belle and everyone that she was literally moved to tears. The poor girl was blubbering with joy and was so embarrassed that we got yelled at for looking at her. It was actually pretty sweet. Emily on the other hand, was scared when it got dark and was crying for a different reason and just wanted to go home. I was proud of Lily for not letting Emily's emotions effect her and she wasn't scared at all.

Gaston in one of my favorite songs!

"Be Our Guest"

Lily had a huge smile the whole show and would dance to every number in a crazy kinda interpretative dance style. It was hilarious. There is nothing better than watching her enjoy herself.

Both girls did great considering that it was nearly 3 hours long and continued on a little past their normal bed time.

It was such a fun night!!!