sweet dreams

do you remember payton, e's bff? well, payton's momma finally convinced me to let the girls have their first sleepover. it was a huge success, in spite of my skepticism. jen did such an awesome job of making it memorable for e.

apparently, the girls were playing in the backyard pool and jen had a great idea. she asked the girls if they wanted to have a lemonade stand. (what she didn't know is that e has been asking to have one for the past few weeks.) both girls were enthusiastic about the suggestion, so off to cvs they went. after picking up the required ingredients for a successful stand, the girls returned home to make some signage. jen made the lemonade and they were off and running.

from what i am told, the girls were quite a spectacle. they were singing songs and really attracting a crowd. jen lives on a pretty busy street in a hopping neighborhood of chicago, so the girls had quite a bit of traffic. people were getting out of their cars, walking by and getting off at a nearby bus stop to buy their sweet refreshments.

they totalled $14 for the day (at 25 cents a glass!). and then jen did the best thing she could have done. she took the girls to a neighborhood toy store and let them each spend their $7. they each picked out a little stuffed animal and ellie hasn't put it down in over a week. she is so proud of her purchase and seeing how her effort paid off.j

and like any good successful sleepover, this one was pretty much void of sleep. our girl returned to us the next day tired, crabby and full of sweet memories of 24 hours in heaven with her favorite friend. we will certainly be doing this again soon.

and one last thing- to my friend jen: i'm sorry it has taken me so long to get on board with this idea. you rock and i am forever grateful for the way that you love my girl.

aren't they just adorable in their hello kitty pj's? i want to eat them up!

peek-a-boo

not much to say, just that i am savoring these little moments with d. as the days draw closer to the arrival of baby three, i fear that i will be pulled in so many directions that i might miss out on some of these simple (but ever so precious) activities. i hope that doesn't happen, but in case it does, i am trying to get them in large doses right now. i mean really, isn't that smile/giggle intoxicating?

i'll take those in a size 5 please

" will work for shoes."

"if the shoe fits, buy it in every color."

"cinderella is proof that shoes can change your life!"

"boys are whatever, shoes are forever."

"two things you can never have too many of: good friends and good shoes."

"never stand before a girl and her shoes."

so as you can see, delaney is a little obsessed with shoes. she prefers them to toys these days. i'm not kidding! if shoes are around, she will spend hours of dedicated time to trying them on, walking in them, and then taking them off again. if i leave my closet door open, you can guarantee that the bottom half will be dismantled in a small amount of time. the irony of the story- her new fave obsession is removing her shoes everywhere we go. she did this yesterday in t.j. maxx. literally, she removed both shoes and dropped them over the side of the cart. thankfully, i noticed right away and was able to retrieve them but it got me wondering, is this a strategy to get new shoes?

swimming lessons

isn't sh"e" adorable? this babe began swimming lessons this week. she was more excited than i expected. in preparation for the lessons to begin, we bought a new suit and some goggles. since buying the goggles, she began the countdown to the start of lessons. when she couldn't take the wait any longer, she decided to just start wearing the gear anyway. this week, we have worn our goggles to the grocery store, the park, and home depot. and who could say no to that smile?

the day of swim lessons finally arrived, and can you believe, she didn't want to wear her goggles. go figure.

note to self: hide the harmonica

i hesitate to post this picture because, well, for the obvious reasons... i am gigantic and not feeling like i really want to show the world my ninth month glory. but since most of my readers are in fact my friends, i figured you've already seen me anyhow and been pretty sweet about the fact that yours truly has turned into a balloon.

anyways, for the past few months we have been trying to get buggy to see the correlation between my expanding belly and the general concept of "baby". this week at the park, i think we did the trick. we ran into a very new mom with her wee one. buggy sat on the park bench next to the baby and kept pointing to the baby (with an angry face- i swear if i had gotten a picture you would laugh out loud) and then to my belly. each time saying "ba ba" (her translation of baby). she would angry face the real baby and then love all over my belly and give it kisses.

i left the park feeling like we had accomplished something. d needs to know that her world is about to change a bit and finally, after months of trying, i think she understood on some basic level. and since that day, miss d has indicated she "knows" on some other levels. she has not slept through the night in over a week- getting up in the wee small hours to just hang, she has begun to remove her diaper as soon as she wets it, and she totally wants her bottle back.

in addition, she has started singing the "new baby blues". i'm not kidding!

she's pretty good at it too!

life lessons from an artichoke

i grew up eating artichokes with drawn butter. my mom served them to me pretty regularly. we even had special plates that are designed to hold the choke, butter, and discarded leaves (which i have now inherited). i never knew that eating them on a tuesday was not the "normal" dinner fare until i moved out and bought one for dinner in atlanta. my roommate thought it was fascination and wanted to know more. later, she gave me a book titled she taught me to eat artichokes. i served artichokes for dinner last night and thought of the book.

after the girls went to bed, i took it off of the bookshelf for the first time in many years. it is a sweet short story about a woman who is befriended by her neighbor, and in the process learns about the prickly vegetable that she has always held a curiosity for.

...we are most comfortable with the things we know the best. but if we always avoid the unfamiliar, how will we ever know what riches may be waiting for us deep within the heart? A first encounter with an artichoke can be a perplexing and somewhat formidable experience, for the artichoke gives little clue from its appearance of the delights that wait within. the heart of the artichoke is surrounded - protected if you will - by both leaves and the choke or thistle. when properly prepared, the choke is easily removed and the small amount of meat on softened leaves yields a promise of what is to come.

i read that last night and thought it was pretty beautiful and definitely thought provoking. how often do we "judge the book by its cover" and avoid things that are unfamiliar? if we are honest, probably more often then we care to admit.