Luckily Marti came to help with hair which is always tricky to make my kids happy and she took the boys on an auntie date to the mall so they wouldn't feel so left out. Marti is sort of the honorary 3rd parent more than just aunt. We've loved having her in Mesa this year!
For years these 2 girls lived and breathed princesses. The movies, the dresses, the little people, meeting people dressed as them. They were Elsa, Anna, Cinderella, Mulan, Snow White. My friends had warned me it only lasts a short while. I think this might have been our last princess oh-rah (they wouldn't even go meet or get a picture with the teenage girls dressed as princesses because they were too cool). They went out with a bang! Matt is such a good dad to take them to things like this- luckily he likes to dance and let me have some input on his outfit too! ;-)
The girls had lots of opinions on the dress, color, hairstyle, gloves, tiara, make-up...
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| Dinner |
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| Dancing |
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| Not sure why Abby is on the floor here... |
I had already booked myself a parenting class with Ralphie from Simply on Purpose. I love her calm, rational parenting and I knew when I saw she was in town from Texas I wanted to go see her. I feel like I need a parenting jump start every so often. The kids change their phases so often and so much of parenting feels like winging it. Matt is always so supportive of me doing things like this. I like to have a game plan!
Some of my main take-aways: water the flowers (constantly look and acknowledge, reward the good things our kids are doing) and ignore the weeds (most behaviors are annoying and will get less as we give them less attention- there might be an initial upswing called an extinction burst). Another thing that I like to remind myself is to "stay safe". It's not my job to prevent all tantrums or sibling fights- it's my job not to have a tantrum or fight myself. Teach them self- control by example. There was lots of other good stuff and I try to re-read in my workbook but those are the main habits that have stuck with me and allowed me to enjoy parenting without feeling the pressure that I need to resolve every issue my kids have.
I was so tired and sore but so glad I was able to do so many things I love in one day!
The girls looked so very pretty that day! Such cuties!
ReplyDeleteYou didn't want to post pictures of me and the boys eating Chik-fil-A and riding mechanical cars at the mall on our auntie date?? ;-)
I'll have to do a part 4 and find those probably in our shared folder?
ReplyDelete