Funny Girl

Happy New Year to everyone! 

Evie enjoyed her last week at home before school starts again tomorrow.  Seth took her to the Children's Museum one day and to a bounce house place on another day with Jason and Ivy, so they had some fun Daddy/daughter bonding.  On another day I took her shopping with me and then to play at Chick-fil-a which she likes because of the playground.

We rang in the new year with my high school friends as we (or I, at least - Seth hasn't been able to come every year) have done since New Year's Eve 2000.  Evie stayed with Granna and Grannadaddy (thank you!) and was asleep when 2016 rang in.  New Years Day we hung out with Megan and then drove to April, Jason, and Ivy's house where the girls had fun playing together.  They played some air hockey and funnily enough the dads and the girls were wearing similar clothing colors so we joked about them being Red Team vs. Blue Team.  (Go Blue!)

Last night, Tia came over and played with Evie.  Evie loved having Tia all to herself and told her "I love you" several times and specifically requested Tia to help her with a variety of things from going potty to playing with her 101 Dalmatians set.  They planted edelweiss seeds that Tia bought when she and several other family members were in Europe.  Did you know you're supposed to plant Edelweiss in sand?  Neither did we.  So we used some sand I had in a bottle from 2003 when we went to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park - I knew I kept that around for some reason!  Then we watched the songs from The Sound of Music together and Evie even acted out "So Long, Farewell".  I was sitting there crying, thinking about how much fun Tia and I had as kids when we acted out that movie and how sweet it was to watch Evie doing the same thing.  Too bad her cousins weren't there to help in the show too.

 

Planting Edelwiess

 

Evie impressed me the other day when she decided she wanted to play "Sleeping Beauty" which consists of her assigning roles to me, Seth, and herself, and whoever is the dragon roars at whomever is Prince Phillip, who slays the dragon and then gives a kiss to whomever is Sleeping Beauty.  She started out as Sleeping Beauty (Sleeting Booty, as she says it), with me as the dragon and Daddy as Prince Phillip.  Over the course of about 10 minutes, she assigned us to every possible combination of characters and you could see her thinking through who had already been which character and which combinations had already been used.  We had no repetitions.

I also loved the other day when she wanted to play Doc McStuffings.  She sat in the back of the car as we were going home and she was Doc, I was Lamby, and Seth was Chilly, the snowman.  In the show, Chilly frets about melting and the other characters remind him that he can't melt because he's not a real snowman.  Well, Evie set up the scenario perfectly:

Evie/Doc:  We need to do surgery.  Everybody wash hands!

Me/Lamby: Okay, Doc, my hands are washed.

Evie/Doc: Oooooo, the water is so warm.  Chilly, wash your hands (she's grinning as she says this)

Seth/Chilly: But I'm scared of warm water, I don't want to melt (good on Seth for remembering this schtick)

Evie/Doc:  Chhilllllyyyyyyyy,  you tan't melt, you're not a real snowman! (just like the characters say it)

Another funny happened this morning.  I had left Evie in the living room eating breakfast while I got a shower before church, as is customary.  As I was getting out, I heard a thud, but no crying, so I didn't immediately rush in to investigate because she seemed fine - was talking to herself and not wailing.  When I came out, she said, "I fell off the couch."  "You fell off the couch?!  Why?"  "The alligator was going to get me!"  "He was?"  "Yeah, he wanted to eat my feathers."  I don't know what kind of elaborate scenario she had going there, but her imagination is so wonderful!

Today at lunch Evie got out Tia's Little Mermaid toy set and we were playing as different characters.  I was Prince Eric, Tia was Ursula, and Evie was Ariel, of course.  Grandma Jeanne was assigned the role of Max, the dog, and she did such a great dog impression!  She threw her hands up into paws and panted and barked.  I love my grandma so so much.  I love how even at nearly 86 she can play with and connect with her great-grandchildren.  As we were playing, Tia/Ursula said, "Ariel, tell you what.  You give me your voice and I'll give you legs," as happens in the movie.  Evie/Ariel replied, "No thanks, I gotta keep my mermacy."  

A very exciting piece of news we got this week that, I'm told, has been circulated to any who might read this blog (and I very much apologize if anyone's hearing it here the first time), is that Jill is getting married!  We're thrilled and glad to have Eric as a brother-in-law.  I was relaying this information to Evie who has recently begun to understand what it means when people get engaged because our friends Becca and Fisher got engaged at Thanksgiving so I explained it to her then.  I told Evie, "Guess what!  Aunt Jill is getting married!"  Evie said, "Oh!"  I said, "So you're going to have a new uncle.  He'll be Uncle Eric."  Evie thought about that for a minute and then said, "Mama, who's your prince?"  I didn't understand how those things were connected, so I said, "Who's my prince?"  She said, "Yeah.  You know.  Like Aunt Jill has Uncle Prince Eric?"  So adorable.  I went on to tell her that I supposed Daddy was my prince and she asked about other members of the family and then said, "Who's my prince?"  I told her we'd have to wait and find out.

One last picture of her looking darling in the hat and coat that Aunt Aimee got her.  She's like a little Russian girl (and she came up with this pose all by herself, I promise).