Locks sent with love

My big girls have been asking for over a year now if they can cut their hair short and donate it to little girls that have cancer and need it more than they do.

Well, they cut their hair yesterday. We saw a sign that a new Great Clips near us was cutting hair for $3.99, and so we decided the price was right.

I couldn't be prouder of my two big girls. They have read so many books about kids and parents with cancer, and one of their favorites is "Sophie's Lovely Locks." They have also known 2 little girls that have passed away because of childhood cancer- little Alexa, whom we knew through an Air Force friend of Dan's, and Alexia (crazy name coincidence) from Maddie's dance class when she was 4 years old. Alexa passed away at the age of 4, and Alexia just passed away this past August. Alexia would have been seven years old, and they both had Stage IV Neuroblastoma. Needless to say, these 2 girls still have a place in their hearts.

I was gently asked yesterday at the hair salon, "are you ok? You look like you are going to have a panic attack." I really did feel like I was going to have a panic attack. After all, I just love my girls' beautiful hair. I can't help that feeling, and I think every mother has an attachment to their daughter's hair. But, when I saw Maddie and Faith sitting there so proudly without any hesitation and saying so confidently, "I want to donate my hair!" I felt the pride in my heart quiet the anxiety.

Gorgeous fall day

Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for my Sunday with my 3 best girlfriends.

Dan has been working a lot of overtime lately, and yesterday he slept for 1 1/2 hours. He is crazy. I don't know how he does it, and so today we decided that we'd spend the day outdoors so poor Daddy could have quiet for sleeping.

Girlies spent the entire morning playing Cars and then Ponies. They had quite the elaborate set-ups going:

Faith has been wanting to go up to the creek, and Maddie agreed this would be a great day to ride her bike there. Of course Abrie brought along her doll stroller and was as happy as could be.

We finished up our afternoon at the "instrument" playground, and I couldn't believe we had the entire playground to ourselves! I'm still not sure why there wasn't anybody else there on such a beautiful day?!

Earlier this week...

Faith loves to clean. This is the girl that put an ironing board and an iron on her Christmas list when she was 2 years old. Well, let's just say she's in 7th heaven with our new (*finally, after 9+ years of our poor ol' vacuum cleaner) vacuum cleaner. She helps me vacuum all the floors, and Abrie is content to sit in a chair and put up her feet;)

My two buddies also got around to doing their skeleton craft this week... the day AFTER Halloween. They loved it, and I was even impressed with how well Abrielle did. Of course, Maddie wanted to do one when she came home from school too!

If only there were a Neverland

We were reading and singing the "Puff the Magic Dragon" book before bedtime tonight. I should have known where this would lead for a certain little Flop who happens to be ultra-sensitive about "growing up" these days (que the memory of a certain other little girl named Maddie who used to be the exact same way at this age and younger... I vividly remember a time at the apartments when 3-year old Maddie came up to me in tears out of the blue saying "Momma, I don't want to be a teenager!").

Anyway, Maddie and Abrie came out looking for me about 10 minutes after they had gone to bed. They had been in there singing the song to each other, and Maddie told me that Faith seemed sad. I went in and asked her what was wrong and she started bawling: "Why does Jackie Paper have to grow up?? I wish nobody would grow up. I don't want to grow up, Momma! I want Jackie Paper to always be with the dragon!"

Oh, my little Flop.

A Mr. Lightyear follow-up

Just as a quick comparison...

The many costumes of Halloween 2011

Halloween Pt. 1 (Maddie's school celebration on Friday Oct 28th):

Maddie was so excited to dress up as Dorothy for her parade. Faith and Abrie like going in costume to watch their sissy, so Faith was a cat and Abrie was a "cute bunny, Momma" (in her words). It's always so fun to see Maddie marching with her class. She looked so cute, and her sisters and Dan and I are always so excited to see her. I stayed afterwards to help during the Halloween activities, and it was fun but slightly disastrous at the end. I should have known that this would happen since she only likes me coming to school to help if she gets to go home with me afterwards (last year she loved when I would go in to help with kid's writing every week, but HATED when I had to leave her after I surprised her for lunch one day). It is the worst feeling in the world to see my little girl crying because she just wants to come home. At the very least, it was an early dismissal day and so she only had to stay another hour after I had left and she came out happy when we went to pick her up that afternoon.

Halloween Pt. 2 (Star Wars day at the library)

The characters from Star Wars visited the library again this year. I was so excited that I was off again for it, and the girlies were really looking forward to it! The snow started that day though, so we couldn't stay too long because it was getting worse while we were there. And, the Shock Trooper plowed over Abrie twice (by accident!). But, they did have a good time and met a cute little girl named Tiana (which Faith thought was the coolest thing in the world to have that name, and Maddie thought she was so cool because she is homeschooled!). The 4 girls were quite the entertainers while everyone waited for the Star Wars characters to get there (delayed because of the snow) and the newspaper photographer actually took a picture of Abrie dancing that made the paper's website. The photographer just loved Abrie!

Abrie dressed as Minnie, Faith was Cinderella, and Maddie came up with her own costume-- a 'pirate princess:'

Halloween Pt. 3 (Trick-or-Treat night)

Our power was restored as I was getting Jessie, Buzz-y Boy, and Rosetta ready for an early Trick-or-Treat (I refused to go out in total darkness, and had told them we would only be able to go while there was still light outside). Needless to say, all 5 of us were super excited! Dan enjoys Trick-or-Treat night just as much as these girls do! He was excited to be able to take them out at night.

Faith has been dying to be Jessie for the longest time. She just ADORES Jessie!! She was beside herself waiting to wear her costume, and was so excited to have a yellow hairbow just like Jessie. Abrielle was the cutest Buzz Lightyear ever!! I really have to go through old pictures and compare Maddie, Faith, and Abrie as Buzz. That costume was Maddie's 1st ever dress-up costume since she was so in love with Buzz Lightyear at the ripe age of 21 months. Abrie was so funny in the costume and loved wearing the wings!! And, Maddie was dying to be a fairy and we borrowed the Rosetta costume from Ella. It was perfect!

Picture inundation

Jotting down my mental notes just hasn't been happening much lately. I try and remember to write everything down at some point-- my girlies' funny quips, their latest antics, etc, but I'm also trying to keep up with everyday life here and the jotting down sometimes seems to fall by the wayside.

Maddie has spent the last 2 days here at home which has been wonderful. We were still without power yesterday, and things were still chaotic so I chose to keep her home. I had to call off work because of Dan staying late at work, so we invented our own fun in our "power-less" home. And, today Maddie's school was actually cancelled because now the primary center's power is out! Board games were very popular the past couple of days. And, the team of 3 here has been playing "cowgirl/cowboy camp" with their princess dolls. They have a little "camp" set up in the playroom upstairs. It's quite cute.

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Picture taking has revved up recently. Dan almost always comes with me to wherever I am taking pictures that given day, and of course our 3 girlfriends come with him. I love that I can see them playing in the distance and hear "Momma!!" as soon as they see me walking back towards them. A lot of the pictures have been at the museum lately so Dan uses the museum pass and then lets them run around outside. And, just last week I was able to take them with me to meet one of my friend from work's granddaughter, Gia. Gia's mom just got married and wanted to take some more pictures in her wedding dress before it went to the dry cleaner. My friend Jeanette has a friend that owns an absolutely gorgeous 100-acre estate in Oley, and she invited Maddie, Faith, and Abrielle to come along and see the place. It was a fun time. The pictures were fun, and the estate was breathtakingly beautiful. Picture it: the little girl that lives there has her own playground outside, a pond, golf carts to take her down to the pond and around the many trails that encircle the back of the property, etc etc. My girls were in heaven. After I was done taking pictures, we rode with Jeanette's son on the golf cart down to the pond to go fishing. Maddie and Faith have caught little sunfish before with Dan down at our duck pond, but they got to see some pretty good sized trout and bass that day. They loved it!

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We were cat sitting this entire past week for our next door neighbors. Madison was in cat heaven. This girl wants a cat so desperately! She is always looking for stray cats to try to adopt. Of course, Abrie and Faith like cats too. Anyway, we were in charge of their 2 cats. One of them is super sweet, and the girls had a lot of fun playing with Nikki every night. The only problem was I was in charge of giving Nikki his seizure medication that he has to get every night. Talk about pressure... if I didn't give him his pill (and the hard part was catching him), he would have seizures by the next day. Luckily, it all worked out fine!

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We enjoyed a whole day with beloved cousins on Sunday! These girls just have so much fun with Donovan, Ella, and Chase. They had a fun time snowtubing down the quickly melting snow (my OCD was on pointe that day because of all the mud created by the melting snow.. I am embarrassed to say!) and creating waves out of mud, and later marching with their Halloween villains masks:

Coincidentally, Maddie also lost her 3rd tooth while we were with cousins!! She was so excited since she's been trying to wiggle that tooth out for a couple of weeks now. She looks like a cute little jack-o-lantern now;)