Saturday, September 10th started out as a day filled with excited anticipation for all that we had planned that day. Pratt was out of town and so I had tried to fill the day with fun plans. Shelby and I were scheduled to go to a Princess Tea Party for lunch and grandmother was going to come over to play with JP. I think that JP was more excited about having time with grandmother than Shelby and I were about the Tea Party which is pretty amazing because we were really excited.
Grandmother arrived and we left. By the time Shelby and I got to the party grandmother called; JP was having one of his famous and notorious breakdowns over nothing. "Oh joy" I thought, "now we are going to have to go home". Of course grandmother said not to worry, she is a mother too after all and she could handle it. So I got off the phone whispered a prayer for her and Shelby and I walked into the party.
It was more beautiful than I can say. The room really looked all princessy and on each table they had beautiful flower arrangements, placecards, a menu of what was being served and the 10 Rules a Princess Must Always Follow.
The Salt Marsh Fairy was on hand to give the young princesses the rules and instruct them on how to walk, talk, sit, etc. It was sooo cute and all those little girls were precious.
When we got home grandmother gave the run down on what had happened with JP and since the outburst involved going to the pool and someone who shall remain nameless (yes, me) leaving the house with the pool bag I told JP that if he would rest quietly for a bit that we would go to the pool for a late afternoon swim. It was one of the best things we could have done! The children were excellent!!! They listened extremely well and even said Yes ma'am and No ma'am without being prompted. It was definitely a proud momma moment for me as an older couple sitting next to me commented on how impressive it was that they said yes and no ma'am (whew, they would have been saying something totally different had they been at the pool the day that I carried JP away kicking and screaming).
Normally Shelby and JP stick to the pool, but this day they took to the splash deck as well. It was so enjoyable to watch them running through the water. They both looked so free and happy.
Sometimes it is good the reward for good behavior in order to encourage and this moment was just that; I mean perfect strangers said how good they were, I couldn't let that go unnoticed or unrewarded. So on the way home I told the children what they couple had said and how they did such a good job so we were going to make home-made from a tube cookies. You would have thought they won the lottery the way the responded.
After we got cleaned up from dinner and had our bathes we pulled out the dough, rolled it and then they got to pick which shapes they wanted. It was so much fun!!!
Once the cookies were in the oven I told them it would take about 12 minutes and that they could go play, but they prefered to sit in front of the oven and watch them for the whole 12 minutes. Every once in a while they would shout out the status of the cookies. "Look mom, they are getting bigger." "Look, they are getting brown, are they done yet?"
After the cookies cooled they each got to pick one to decorate with whatever they wanted. Look at the concentration going on here....
And the finished products. JP ate is cookie in no time flat. Shelby took her time and eventually decided she didn't want to eat any more. She isn't that big of an icing fan and she put a ton of icing on her cookie so I may have had a bite or two before I threw it in the trash (hey, no sense in throwing away a perfectly good cookie)
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