Elizabeth Fairy Princess Outfit

I think this might be all the Elizabeth outfits. I'll have to count them up....I still might be missing the Longhorn cheerleader one. This isn't a great picture....next time she wears this I'll try to update. It's an organza-like material over satin, with matching shoes, and a fur accented crown and magic wand.

Jeans and a haircut...2 bits!

Who knew wearing jeans would be photo/blog worthy? It is when it's the FIRST TIME in years. Parker is a liiiitle sensitive about her clothes..how they fit and feel. At the beginning of fall I bought her a pair of jeans, even though I doubted she would wear them. Everybody needs at least one pair of jeans, right? Well finally she gave them a try, and the likes them! She can get past how they feel since she likes how she looks in them, I guess.

She also got a haircut. Just a trim, really, but I had the hair lady blow it out straight, and she was thrilled with her straight hair. She was not a big fan of the "kid cut" salon I took her to though. She cried all the way there and let me know next time she'd prefer to go back to the place in the mall. (across town, of course).

Happy Goforth Day!

I nearly forgot! Hope everyone had a great Goforth Day!

Homeschool Yoga

Last week Parker went off on a yoga tangent. She started doing stretches that she sees bob and I doing, some which resemble yoga poses, and I told her the names of some of them. She really like the idea that they have names.....cat, cow, mountain, etc. She can remember most of them too. I got her a kid's yoga book from the library and she used that to fill in her knowledge gaps.
Since I had not yet acquired the yoga outfit she requested (strappy tank top, fitted shorts), she improvised with her ballet clothes ...and tap shoes.


The next day I dug out her summer clothes and she was thrilled to have a proper outfit. Several outfits actually, which is a big part of the fun....changing clothes.

Notice that all these pics are in the kitchen....since they were taking while I'm prepping and cooking dinner.

Here is the commentary that goes along with the pictures and poses:
"Mom! Look at me! Look! Look at this one! Look! Take a picture! Watch! Watch me! Are you ready for this one! Take a picture! Look! Mom! Mommy! Look"

I have the outtakes uploaded here (click the picture):

Yoga

washing dishes

This would be cute....washing dishes in her ballet outfit, except that she was supposed to be sitting at the dinner table eating.

Here's another one:


It's gotten to the point where I have to wash dishes when she's occupied, or else I have "help".

More Elizabeth outfits

While we were skiing, Bob's parents (Parker's Gigi and Papa) came to stay with her. Gigi brought a tote back stuffed with material and patterns to make Elizabeth more outfits. Parker took a break from ballet-ing to check it out.

The results:
A Party Dress in plaid taffeta with matching headband, and matching shoes. I had to crop this photo because Parker is wearing red glittery high heels along with her nightgown.

A Cow Girl Outfit - With a denim printed top and denim skirt w/ leather (suede?) fringe and glittery red rickrack and matching boots and hat. The hat was 'store bought'...Gigi is such a slacker.

And yes, for those of you scoring at home, I still owe you a couple pictures of outfits from Christmas. I'm hoping these will hold you for a while.

More reading - still photo

Here's another reading picture, her reading to Car Baby, who is clearly a captive audience. She's really loving reading and being read to....we're doing "chapter books" now at bedtime. The Magic Treehouse series is a family favorite. The ironic part is that she HATES going to the library. She prefers that I be her personal shopper for books.

Parker reads Bob to Bob

Here's a little video of Parker reading. These are little books called Bob Books, and they have short sentences with mostly 3-letter words. She's really super proud of herself that she's able to 'read a whole book'. The teacher also sends home little "take home readers" from school and she's doing great with those too.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


EDIT: sorry the first video didn't work, I can't seem to make the Blogger video upload. Hopefully this one works using Dropshots.

Ski Trip

We've just returned from our annual ski trip. This year we went to Steamboat Springs with a group from Bob's work. It was a great trip - Bob and I could really tell that we have improved our fitness levels. I even skied down a Black slope (the hardest) with out getting stuck.
We had Texas-like weather...in that it changed frequently. The first day of skiing it was sunny and relativly warm, but with high winds. The next day there was about 6" of new powder (see trees in background) and it snowed most of the day, with VERY poor visibility and much colder. The third day started out like the day before, but ended up sunny. On the day we left, the temperature at the base was 10F....I'm glad we missed that.

I still haven't mastered smiling with ski goggles on. They smush your cheeks down.

Happy Valentines Day!

Couch Cushion Fort

It really doesn't matter how many toys you have, or how elaborate your play room is, the funnest thing to do always seems to involve building with couch cushions. This was one of those times where it's quiet for an extended period of time, so you go see what's up, and find a new couch cushion construction project in progress. She's made a fort using the end table as framing. By the end of the afternoon this game had morphed into "Inn Keeper Dog" where she was (in her mind) a dog that was the keeper of the Cushion Inn....dressed in her strawberry shortcake costumes...and a tail. Makes perfect sense to me.

Elizabeth's School Outfit

Here's another one of Elizabeth's handmade outfits. This is her school outfit. It was hard to get a good picture..the models weren't very cooperative. Typical.
She has a little plaid pleated skirt, a yellow top with crayola buttons, a hat and red sparkly shoes. The pants go to a different outfit, but she's wearing them because she was cold I guess. There is also a purse that matches the shoes and holds a little tiny chalkboard, but it didn't make the photoshoot. On her back you can see her little red vinyl backpack.

Iced in...somewhat

The rain and sleet left enough ice on the roadways to cancel all the schools around here, so we're stuck at home today. The sun is out, but it's still 23F outside. Bob made it into work and said it wasn't really a big deal, but I guess we're going to stay in as long as we can stand it. I bet the library closed anyway. I wonder if we could make it to Sonic.....

Since we have a LOT of time on our hands today, we took the opportunity to do complicated hair. She must have been SUPER motivated for this hairstyle to stand still long enough for me to fix it. Introducing, for the first time ever, braided pigtails. I did a side view so you couldn't see how crooked her part is. The rest of the art direction is by Parker ("take a picture of me looking at Elizabeth!").

Weather update

9pm. After an ENTIRE day of forecasting freezing rain, it is FINALLY sleeting. They even closed the schools early today in anticipation of ice on the roads, but there was nothing. They even pre-empted Oprah to have an hour of coverage of the (only) wet (not icy) overpasses! I'm torn between wanting all the weather drama buildup to pay off, and wanting them to be wrong so there will still be school. Continue to stay tuned.

General news

We don't really have any interesting news, so I'll just do a general catch up on what's been going on.
Parker had a dentist appointment last week. She did really well (it was really iffy) and even did Xrays. They estimate it will be about 2 years before she starts losing teeth. Thanks goodness. I'm NOT ready for that. She does have some mild tooth movement from sucking her fingers, so we have been trying to break that habit. This isn't a huge deal, because the dentist said that she can still suck them at bedtime, but while she's awake, it's too much. So no more fingersucking in the car or while watching tv. We're doing ok, the car is the roughest thing. So instead of fingers, she's chewing gum. We're going avoid extensive orthodontia, but probably create a TMJ problem.

What keeps a 4 year old busy while you read the Sunday paper? Clipping coupons.

We've added a little calendar to the refrigerator and every day she marks off the day and counts how many days until valentines day. It's helping with number recognition too.

And lastly apparently we're expecting a "significant ice storm" tomorrow. They've been downgrading the forecast all day. Yesterday they weren't even expecting freezing temps I don't think. Stay tuned.

New food group: food you can cut

I use scissors quite a bit in the kitchen when I'm preparing food - cutting crusts off of bread, chopping up salad stuff more finely, pizza, etc. Parker has picked up the habit. It's so rare that she's excited about food that Bob said "we've got to find more foods she can cut!". Here, she's cutting up pepperoni....the first time she's ever eaten it.

Also, she's wearing her ballet recital outfit from last year, and I've straightened her hair. She loooooooves having her hair straightened. She says dreamily: "I look like Barbie!"

Crafty crown

I had a burst of super crafty energy the other day and made a felt crown for one of Parker's friends. I'm making one for Parker next. I used a tutorial I found on another blog: http://juicy-bits.typepad.com/juicy_bits/2008/09/32-felt-birthday-crown-tutorial.html
But she machine stitches hers.....I did hand embroidery because I knew I couldn't stitch around my flowers as well as I'd like, and once I did that, I didn't want to mix in machine stitches. In the tutorial she uses 100% wool felt - I just used the regular poly kind from Joann's - they didn't have any wool in bright colors. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I've already started on the one for Parker, but hers will probably have more sparkly stuff on it, as per her request.

Modeling:

Another doll outfit

Here's another one of the doll outfit's that Parker's GiGi (Bob's mom) made for Parker's doll for Christmas. This is her rain apparel. It's a raincoat, boots and hat, all lined with the cutest green ladybug fabric ever.

Homeschool Ballet

Parker has rediscovered ballet this week. It combines all of her favorite things....dressing up, music and dancing. But she has made it clear that she does NOT want to take lessons again, she prefers to just play ballet at home. She knows we'd have to get a new studio (closer) and a new teacher and she's just not into it. But that's fine with me, it's less driving, and more money for my hobbies.
Every day after school, she gets out her ballet bag stuffed with leotards and tights and puts on an outfit and plays ballet student. I got her some books about ballet from the library....she's NOT interested in a DVD of ballet for some reason, I've tried that. Here our typical afternoon.

"I'm looking for moves"

I took a million pictures, hoping to get just a few to be able to share. I've uploaded them all to a web album in case you're interested in seeing the progression of the afternoon. If you play the slide show really fast, it seems like she's moving. Click on the picture below to access the web album:

Homeshcool ballet

It's a snap!

(I hope this video posts properly. I never know until I publish it. )



After weeks of practice, Parker has learned to snap her fingers. She's so thrilled with herself....she wants to demonstrate for us all the time, and she'll just absently snap here and there when she's talking to you.

Next up will be tying her shoes and whistling. She might get the whistling pretty soon, but I'm afraid shoe tying is way down the road.