Fancy Allyson

This past weekend was a busy one. We camped out on Friday with our ward at Hagan-Stone Park. We roasted hot dogs for dinner, had smores for dessert (or, if you're Cora, just 7 marshmallows and glassfuls of lemonade), ran around with friends, took a long walk to the bathroom, and then tucked ourselves in for the night. We bought a new, bigger tent for the occasion. Cora was extremely tired, but also extremely restless. When she finally passed out, it was between the two queen mattresses. And that is where she stayed, face-down, all night. Ally, Sally, and Nephew slept quite comfortably on their bed, and Chris & I were quite cozy on ours.

We woke in the morning, had breakfast, packed our stuff, and took another long walk to the bathroom. We returned home, cleaned ourselves up, and headed over to Barnes and Noble.

Jane O'Connor, the creator and author of Fancy Nancy was visiting Greensboro on her tour to promote her new chapter book. Ally got all fancied up for the event and even did her own hair. Cora accompanied her as JoJo, the unfancy little sister. Jane started her speech with an apology: She usually dresses fancifully for her appearances, but had accidentally left her bag of boas, ribbons, tutus, and rhinestone-studded glasses in her last hotel room. (I wonder what the hotel staff thought when they found that bag!)

We listened to Jane read her book The Mermaid Ballet, watched some girls walk around with bananas on their heads for good posture, learned how to curtsey, and then stood in line to meet Jane and get her autograph. Jane loved Ally's choice of clothing and hairstyle.

Ally was ecstatic. That's fancy for very happy and excited.

Lest We Forget to Mention It

Ally had a birthday; shout "Hooray!"

We lunched at Chick-Fil-A that day.

Played with friends and ate chicken, too,

Happy (April 5th) Birthday to you!

Ally opened presents in the evening, and then we went out for dinner. She had a hard time choosing where to eat since we now live within 15 minutes of every imaginable type of restaurant.

She and Chris reviewed some options the day before, and Ally made a list of her top choices, but that didn't really help.

In the end, she decided on CiCi's Pizza; it met the requirement of having Mac 'n Cheese-- and it was baked on a pizza!

The next day Ally had a Playdate Party with some of her friends. They dressed up, used play-doh, colored, put stickers on a princess, popped balloons, played musical chairs, blew bubbles, plastered our walkway with chalk, and then decorated cupcakes. At the end of two hours, it looked as though a tornado had gone through our apartment, but a good time was had by all.

Happy 5th Birthday, Princess! We love you.

Jump Back to January

I gleaned the following little memories from the photos in my Picasa folder from January. It appears we didn't do anything major that month, but still managed to have some fun.

The girls took a few baths and made good use of Cora's new Christmas bathtub toys, crayons, and water-coloring tablets.

Looking more dirty than clean.

They read more than a few books, and lost one. (If anyone finds a stray copy of Fancy Nancy: My Family History wandering around Greensboro somewhere, please let me know.)

My Fancy Nancy addicts.

I've been driving around with a stack of books in my car to appease my passengers as we run errands. One day Ally was so engrossed in her story that she bumped her head into the stairs outside our apartment. Another time, she slowly tripped right over the neighbor's bike that was in the breezeway. Sometimes it's hard to get them to put the book down long enough to use the bathroom, eat dinner, grocery shop, or even dance. They have become multitasking queens (when they want to be).

Chris found an awesome park down in Jamestown for us to try out. The girls had fun climbing on and sliding down the huge play structure. Ally thought she was on a modelling shoot half the time.

Strike a pose.

We drove into High Point to see what we could see. We found a large chest of drawers for sale. Anyone interested in making a unique purchase?

Guaranteed to hold all your clothes, and more!

We went to the Children's Museum of Winston-Salem one Saturday with Daddy.  They have a crawling cage with ramps near the front entrance. It has become the most talked-about part of the trip because Cora likes to tell the story about how "I was in the climby thingy and someone called me a sassy baby. I said, 'I'm not a baby, I'm a todd-el-er.'"

We had a hard time pulling Ally out of the climby thingy. Cora was more focused on repetitively conquering a different structure. To visit the second level, you have three options: the stairs, the elevator, and the beanstalk. Cora loved the beanstalk but was too tiny to navigate it herself, so I got to contort my body around the leaves and go up-and-up-and-up too.

They enjoyed the fairytale land, the giant letter land, and the silk scarf tubes. They also shopped in the grocery story, made donuts in the Krispy Kreme shop, and built some stuff in the construction zone. I'm sure we'll visit there again sometime.

So much to do! So much to climb!

Life wouldn't have been complete in January without another one or two visits to the Greensboro Children's Museum. Cora found this rubber ducky by the stage and carried it around with her for most the day. She was a little obsessed with bathtub ducks, so to stumble upon one this size was a dream come true.

Rubber Ducky, I'm especially fond of you. . .

And, I realized last week that I forgot 2 Christmas light events from December. I'm just going to write them down here so they're recorded and so maybe we'll remember to do them again this year. No pictures, but. . .
#1- There's a neighborhood off of Market Street in Greensboro where most the houses put up huge ball lights in all their trees. Ally and I both thought the streets looked like the floating lanterns seen from Tangled.
#2- We also drove out to Tanglewood for the Festival of Lights. In an effort to avoid the "weekend crowds", we went on a Monday night. We waited in line in our car for 90 minutes, and spent 40 minutes driving through their light display. Awesome display, but man did it take forever to get to the entrance. And Delilah's voice and advice on the suggested radio station didn't help make the wait any more bearable.