Mommy-Daughter & Daddy-Daughter Dates

Ken and I decided that it was important to us to have Daddy-Daughter and Mommy-Daughter dates with our girls regularly. We sat down with our family calendar and scheduled them about once per month. Each month one of us will take one girl out while the other has an "at-home date" with the other. This has been working really well for us so far and I'm so glad we're doing it!

Talia & I with our Dessert

A couple of months ago, I took Katrina on a swim date. She had been talking about going swimming at a local public pool for quite some time, so we found out when their public swim times were and we made it happen! It was really nice to do that with her and to have that one-on-one time! She practiced her swimming and diving and I helped her out. She came up with her own system for putting her arm up if she felt she needed my help to get above water and it worked really well- we were quite a team! ;) We took a quarter with us to get a treat from the vending machine when we were finished, only to find that the machines had been removed! So, we drove to the closest Walmart and bought a treat there. :)

Most recently, it was my turn to take Talia out on a date, and I took her to Applebee's for dinner (kids eat free on Wednesdays) and dessert. I took her there once before and she really liked it, so requested to go back again this time! I love introducing her to some of my favourite places to eat (food or dessert) and sharing that fun with her! On our way home, we stopped at a few stores and found her some new sandals and pajamas. :) Meanwhile Ken and Katrina had walked to a fast food place near our home for their dinner date. In the evening, Ken shared with me some of the funny conversation they had during their walk. :)

This has been such a fun tradition to start with our kids!

Do you do things like this with your kids? 

I'd love to know what your favourite Mommy or Daddy Daughter dates have been!

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Monday Moments: What Am I Saying?

This is what we woke up to this morning!  It's a snow day! :)  Most of us are still in pajamas over here and enjoying the day off- there's something magical about a snow day and having no choice but to miss school! :)

In light of the snow day, it seemed like a good day to share the following "Monday Moment":

The other day, Talia was brushing snow off of the car and Katrina was standing at the front door, watching her.  I overheard Katrina say this to her:

"Good eye, Tal!.. I don't know what I'm really saying.. good job I mean!"

haha! So funny when they try to use words or phrases they've heard- sometimes they're right on even when they don't know what they're saying ;)

What kind of weather do you have today?

Do you have a snow day?

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Monday Moments: You Made Your Bed, Now Lie In It

A couple of Fridays ago, Ken was out with some friends at a games night. We had plans to attend a movie the next morning as a family. Before the girls went to bed, I was encouraging them to clean their rooms so we could go to the movie the next morning (any motivation I can find..). They did pretty well but Katrina had not finished her room yet. She carefully and seriously suggested that she could maybe stop cleaning for tonight and have time to finish her room in the morning. I said sure and the three of us hung out for the evening, reading and talking until bedtime.

After putting the girls to bed, Katrina came downstairs a while later (I would have expected her to be asleep). She was wearing a housecoat (which is odd because she rarely wears it). She told me she had stayed up too late. I hugged her and agreed and encouraged her to go back to bed and go to sleep. She told me she had been working on cleaning her room and asked me if I could do up her housecoat for her.

I suggested that she probably would want to take it off before she went to bed and she said that's why she needed it, because she had made her bed so she would have less to do in the morning and she had no more blankets to put on top of herself! What a girl!

I told her she should have time to make her bed in the morning and she went up to bed. A little later I decided to go up and check on her and I found her bed looking like this (I turned the light on for the photo, later) :

I thought "Oh no, poor girl is probably sleeping on the floor because she was so worried about her room being clean so she could go to the movie!"... then I looked around her room and she was nowhere to be seen.  My next thought was that she might be in my bed.. but she wasn't.  Next I tried Talia's bed (sometimes she'll climb in with her) and again, not there... at this point I started to get a little confused and had to get creative, looking for her!  I turned on her bedroom light, looked under her bed and in her closet.  I started calling her.  I checked my closet and behind my curtains.  I even went down to the basement and checked the bathrooms.  Finally I lifted Talia's bed-skirt and found this:

What a girl!  I'm not sure what made her decide to sleep under there instead of on her made bed (perhaps under that soft blanket she had draped over her quilt!)   Realizing it would be a tricky task to get her out from under Talia's bed and back into her own (and not wanting to wake her up to do it), I grabbed my camera and snapped these photos. I waited for Ken to get home to help me transport her to her bed.

Before that happened, Talia woke up to go to the bathroom and I asked her if Katrina was still under her bed.  She looked confused for a moment and then a look of realization passed over her face, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Oh, she's FREAKING ME OUT!"... haha Talia had woken up and heard Katrina breathing under her bed, but didn't know what/who it was!

Have you ever found your child sleeping in a strange place or position?

What's your best one?

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Monday Moments: "In all the land Roundabout"

One morning last week, we were reading our scriptures (so far our plan is going pretty well).

Anyway, Ken was reading and came to this part:

"...and the Lamanites who were in the land of Amulon, and also in the land of Helam, and who were in the land of Jerusalem, and in fine, in all the land round about..."

Katrina turns to me and seriously says, "I didn't know they had roundabouts back then!"

I love these girls and getting to have a glimpse of what's going on inside their minds! :)

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Monday Moments: A Sheep of Milk

At the girls' school you can order milk for their lunches. They can buy the milk individually or they can buy a sheet of milk tickets at a bit of a discount. We were talking one morning at breakfast about sending some money with Talia to buy a sheet.

Katrina listened quietly to the conversation and then with a confused look on her face, she asked,
"A real Sheep?"

haha :) When we explained it to her she was like, "Oh... that makes more sense." :)

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Monday Moments: Details

Katrina: "Mom, are bears just details?"

Me: "...When you say 'details', what do you mean by that?"

Katrina: "like is it like people make them up and put them in books and movies?"

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Monday Moments: But My Room Is Not Tidy!

So, I'm out shopping with Katrina and this is the conversation we have:

Me: "So, do you remember my friend Robin?"

K: "Yes"

Me: "She's coming over to visit tomorrow!"

K: "Uh oh."

Me: "What's wrong?"

K: "My room is not tidy!"

Me: "Yes it is! Remember we cleaned it up yesterday? But she is not bringing her kids with her this time."

K: "She's just coming to see how much we've grown?"


hahaha :) What kids think.

A shot of part of Talia's room on a tidy day.. a long time ago before it got rearranged a lot
Apparently it is getting through to Katrina that we want to keep our rooms tidy. I am working hard to teach the girls to keep their rooms in good shape and if they don't get it done before a friend comes over, sometimes I'll tell them it is too messy upstairs so they can't play upstairs. The other day my mother in law called to see if they could stop in and Katrina answered the phone. She said, "Sure you can, but you can't come upstairs because it's WAY too messy up there." haha.

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Monday Moments (Sew Butt On)

Katrina's pajama top lost a button.
She wanted me to remember to sew it back on, so she decided to write me a note.
From her room, she called out to me and asked how to spell "Sew Button".
I called out "S-E-W... that's the word sew. Then button is B-U... T-T... O-N and that's it."

Well, you know how kids are when they write words, right? It really doesn't matter if they've got room for the whole word on one line, they'll just continue the word on the next line.

Which is what she did:

So you can imagine when I saw the note, I knew exactly what it said & didn't give it a second thought.
But when Ken saw the note, he was like, "What?" ... "Sew Butt On?"

hahaha :)

Living with kids is so fun and so entertaining :)

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