Before the holiday break Ally earned another badge in Daisy Girl Scouts. She loves going every week and is pretty bummed there is a break until the end of January.
The last session they awarded the badge, did a friendship circle and gave each girl a candy cane. Ally LOVES candy canes (and all things peppermint) Becky not so much at all. I think Ally loves making Becky smell peppermint almost as much as Ally loves to eat it.
Goofy girl posing with her badge certificate.
Ally finally finished her Birthday thank you notes a week before Christmas. That is still within a month of the gifts so we think that is pretty good. We had a first wave go out on actual thank you note cards the week after her birthday. We wrote out something like “Dear ___ thank you for the coloring book and crayons. Love, Ally” but this was a lot of words and it was getting torturous for all of us. So I got out some oversized notecards and let her draw a picture on each one on one side and then all we required she print was Thank you Love Ally.
Personally I like the 2nd wave of notes these better – the pictures she drew were so creative, even the rainbow stripes – so time consuming and each one was different. And she had fun. Best of all was at the end she could write the card words all by herself without the copy, she had memorized it!
I am continually amazed at how Ally is growing up. Last week for our hair cuts she got her hair washed at the salon! She was pretty excited about it and kept saying how she was sure they would have a booster seat for her.
Ally looked so small in the big chair. But she had a big smile.
With Feri our stylist and with me after our hair cuts.
Ally is so patient and happy. It was great.
At ice skating lessons Ally is in the super beginning group and she listens carefully to the instructor. After lessons she told Becky and I how some of the things she learned – about how to slow down and balance better.
Then when she was home sick recently. I had an important meeting at work. So I brought Ally into my office and set her up with her dvd player and lunch so she would be occupied during my meeting. As I walked down the hall to the conference room she said “I love you mommy” She watched Peter Pan while I met. When my meeting was over she was lying down in the cubby, the dvd out of the player, the player closed and her special things cuddled close to her. I asked her later why she didn’t come tell me the movie was over and she giggled at me and said “because you were meeting” as if how silly of me to think she did not understand that my meeting was important. I work hard to let Ally know she is the priority, not my work, but being a working parent is a tricky balance to maintain and I am fortunate enough to have a flexible schedule and get to spend a lot of time with her each and every day.
The recent event in Connecticut have me holding her a bit tighter, a bit closer and treasuring every moment a little bit more.
I love Ally so much.
Yes we let Ally dance on the couch. Wouldn’t you?
Since we are going to be away for Christmas we have been receiving lots of gifts early. We plan on opening most of them when we get back. But we did open a few we were instructed to early.
We thought the gift from Great Aunt Louise was perishable (it came sealed in a Ziploc bag) so we told Ally she better open it.
Turns out it was not perishable but it was food related – a card game called Slamwich! Aunt Louise clearly paid attention at Thanksgiving and knows how much Ally likes games, card games are especially great because they travel well.
Great Aunt Martha instructed us to open her gifts early – as soon as they came.
Ally got a great shirt.
And some cash to spend at Disney.
She was so excited. So were we!
Thank you !!!!
Every year Becky makes Ally an ornament. It’s a tradition. I am very big on tradition. This year Becky has really over-extended herself with crafts and sewing projects. She made Ally and our 2 nieces matching Belle princess dresses for our Princess breakfast. Then since we are getting 2 new cousins in our family she made a matching skirt and we ironed on 2 Disney patches so the new family members would not feel left out. Becky has also been sick. But tradition is tradition.
So we started talking about what would this year’s ornament be.
We decided on a rainbow. If you read this blog you know that all year a rainbow has basically been Ally’s signature drawing. So a rainbow it was as an ornament.
Becky sewing the felt together for the rainbow. Ally when she woke up wanted to work on her puzzle first thing. Then all of a sudden she noticed the new ornament.
She got up to check it out then gave mama a big hug and thank you.
We kind of love how it looks like Rudolph and Clarice are jumping over the rainbow!
Later that morning Ally finished her puzzle. She was so proud of doing it and that it only took 2 days she thought it would take 3.
If you are interested here are the dresses:
They look amazing. Ally can hardly wait to wear it with Kaitlin and Meredith.
We had breakfast with Alice’s family and Santa again this year.
The girls exchanged Christmas gifts - they each gave a picture of the two of them. Ally peeled a hard boiled egg to eat. Tom commented that he had never seen her eat so much, an egg white, some fruit, a corn muffin, a glass of orange juice!
Santa was running late so I took the girls for a walk around the hotel. That is us up high in a balcony looking down to see if Santa had arrived. Then the girls sat in his chair for a photo op.
Finally he arrived!
Santa came right over to our table. Alice fled to Ally and I for protection as Santa hugged her mom Cheryl. I thought Alice was going to crawl right up and over me! Ally loved it – she was enthralled, but her usual hesitant self.
Alice soon got over her fear and was filing Santa singing songs and then danced with him!
Ally was happy to wait for him to come back to the table. One of the funniest things was the hotel staff all had their camera phones out taking pictures of Santa’s show.
After his song and dance it was time to sit on his lap. Ally has said for a few weeks that she was not sure what to ask for. She told him that and he said ok. She has told us she just had her birthday and got what she asked for then, and all kinds of neat games that there is not anything in particular she needs or wants.
Gosh I love her.
After Ally’s visit with Santa we took family pictures.
It was a very busy day for us.
We left breakfast and went straight to church. After church it was Ally’s last swimming lesson for a while. Then home where we had family movie time. We watched Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone. Ally really enjoyed it. But half way thru the movie she said she was hot, and she was – with a fever. So she stayed home from school the next day.
