Princess Tea

 This Saturday was a very special one for the girls.  Mother took them to a Princess Tea at The Cake Bakeshop.  

It was a very small event with about 10 little girls in attendance.

I was the biggest girl there, aside from my equally ginormous mother. 

We were served hot chocolate and chocolate chip scones as soon as we were seated. 

I was pleased.

I do love chocolate.

We had place cards with our names on them, preceded by "Princess."

It was ridiculous.

They were thrilled.

After we dined on scones, Cinderella arrived.

She read a story, and sang some songs.

This Cinderella did not come from the same Fairy Tale Forest as our precious Rapunzel from G's birthday.

This one was sweet, but looked like she might have been on a bender the night before.

My brother said she looked like Amy Winehouse.

I must agree.

G was clutching the autographed picture that she received from Cindy.  

She was lovely, kind, and G was completed enthralled with her performance.

After those activities, we got down to the business of cookie decorating.

Genevieve was serious.

She squeezed out enough buttercream to decorate an elopement cake.

I like icing, but gross.

Caroline was a bit more dignified throughout the experience.  She did not go nanners with the cookie pearls, and tried to be patient when Genevieve's sing along with Cinderella sounded more like a bad karaoke audition.

Cinderella's voice was pretty, if you could hear it over my daughter screeching, " a dream is a wish your heart makes..."

All of us received a dusting of magical and edible shimmer dust.  

I wore the tar out of some MAC shimmer eyeshadow at IU.

Thankfully, I shimmer, not glitter, these days.

I also swirl out a decent B in buttercream.

It was a beautiful and memorable morning, for sure.

We met Robeghan and Li'l Robby for lunch.  

He fell asleep right in the middle of lunch.  

He is insanely cute and sweet.  

2017 Is Off To a Great Start!

Genevieve was serious about our New Year's Eve celebration.

She wore a skirt with sequins and Rapunzel heels.

She asked me to take a picture of her, and this was the face she gave me.

Good heavens.

We lasted until about 10:30 at Tim and Jamie's.

She partied hard.  

We also visited the Art Museum recently, where she was also very serious about appreciating art.

We received a bag for children with crayons and a clipboard with paper.  It was kind of like a kid kit, if you were Kristy, Dawn, or Claudia and also a member of The Babysitter's Club.

Genevieve worked on her sketching, as she calls it.

I love this picture.

We celebrated Uncle Robby's 36th birthday by meeting for lunch last weekend at The Irish Lion in Bloomington.

He was all smiles with his two nieces.

We also celebrated Caroline's 10th birthday, which was the week before.  I brought the cake, because that's my thing.

It was amazing.

Caroline was excited to open gifts.

My nose and mouth are profiled nicely here.

Mouth breathing, as always.

After a hearty lunch, I drove back to Indy with Meghan and baby Robby.

Mom took G home with her and Trinity, Chip, Katie, Robby, Caroline, and Dad went to the IU/Illinois game.

Bob bought pants for the children.  

Trinity was quite thrilled with his first IU basketball experience.  

I can't believe January is half over already.

Real Christmas

On Christmas Eve morning we left my parents' house and drove to spend Christmas with Trinity's parents and Shirley.

G was more than happy to snuggle with Shirl.

Shirl sings and has the best fingernails for arm and back scratching.

G usually sidles right up to her!  

We watched Elf on Christmas Eve.

It is Patsy's favorite Christmas movie and it is so so funny.

On Christmas morning Genevieve was thrilled to find that Santa had visited!  

The cookies and milk were gone!

Abby and Papi gave G a musical carousel, for all of her singing and humming needs.

She was most happy!

She was very happy to show Papi all of the presents that he bought!

The big hit for Christmas was a dollhouse from Aunt Shirl.

We stayed for two nights and ate a lot and played a lot.

We didn't stay in the dollhouse.

Papi and Abby invited G to stay for 3 nights!  

We said, "see ya!"

We were able to go home and take down the tree and organize all of the new stuff that G received from the family. 

We also hit up New Day Meadery in Fountain Square.  We had some fun tasting and boozing before we went to St. Elmo's for dinner one night.

I was reminded of just how much I love Indy.  

In the meantime, Genevieve was painting the town with Abby, Papi, and Shirl.

They went to see Sing!

They visited the Children's Museum.

Genevieve wasn't sure if she wanted to come home, but we missed her so she did. 

It was a fabulous week of Christmas fun with our families.

Christmas Celebration Number 1

I almost forgot to blog about my sweet BFF Marinda and our fascinators.

We wore these all day on our final student day.

Actually, she did.

She's more dedicated than I am.

I think it must have been her pageant days that instilled fashion stamina in her bones.

My ears started to hurt and I had to take fascinator breaks.

We were really popular with the children.

We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family on the Thursday before Christmas Sunday.

Everyone wanted to get their hands on Ole Big Eyes.

Baby Robby's sweet face made this Christmas even more fabulous.

Sister Cousins Caroline and Genevieve were about to get into one of their brawls when my sister pulled out these amazing art kits.

Crisis averted.

Art is really like therapy.

Caroline is very patient with G, but G can be quite difficult.

She usually chills out when she starts coloring.

I am learning that to avoid random meltdowns in public I need to start carrying Pirate's Booty (crack for G) and crayons.

Sharp ones.

My girl doesn't tolerate dull crayons.

Geez.

So when my sister pulled out the art kits it was as though a flock of doves flew in and angel harpists were playing.  She is always prepared.

Mother decorated for the holidays.

I mean someone came and decorated her house.

But mother supervised, so that's kind of like doing it.

It looked fabulous and I will clarify that her decorator just  "does the tree and mantle, Betsy."

She does the rest herself.

That sounds easy, but most everything that does not move is ribboned, sparkled, and firred up.

That means it is covered in fir.

Not fur.

Katie squeezed Robby from the time she arrived.

I put on my headpiece and started downing the bubbly.

Mother requested that no one (me) wear pajamas to her Christmas dinner.

I am notorious for not wearing real clothes 

around the holidays.

Or around my house

or your house, for that matter.

Don't invite me over unless you want to see my fuzzy socks and  buttonless pants.

Katie and Chip went to Old Navy and bought matching pajamas for the entire crew, just to contradict our momma.

They're funny that way.

After her wardrobe change sister was back to baby cooing.

My husband was there too.

Everyone slept in on Friday morning because we opened our gifts on Thursday before dinner.

Everyone but me, that is.

Genevieve likes to wake up early, and protocol states that I must take care of her since I'm her mother.

We had a leisurely breakfast.

Chip was squeezing Robby.

 Robeghan bought a harmonica for Trinity and a guitar for Genevieve, so they gave a performance for all of us in the morning.

The cousins got along very well all morning.

On Friday afternoon, we had our cousins over.  Twinnies John and Scott look nothing alike and are now 22 year old adults.

We are exactly 15 years apart in age.

Uncle Kent and Aunt Cindi came too.

Mother and her brother look quite a bit alike.

Aunt Cindi is not pictured because she was playing with my child.

It was a wonderful two nights with my family and then we left on Christmas Eve morning for my in-laws' house.