Showing posts with label Pappy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pappy. Show all posts

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Daddy's Girl...

When I was sixteen, I had a long, lonely summer. My boyfriend and I had broken up. One of my good friends was hanging out with said ex-boyfriend (and therefore she was not hanging out with me), and I was spending those long, hot summer evenings with...my dad. Not exactly the way a sixteen-year-old girl wants to spend an entire summer, huh? Instead of having slumber parties, watching movies, and falling in love, I was sitting in the passanger seat of my dad's car, holding a giant spotlight, searching for deer. I do believe that spotlighting is considered a sport in this area, and I must say that I was pretty good at it. Around the middle of the summer, my dad had another brilliant idea...it was time for his little girl to learn to.... are you ready? Shoot a Bow and Arrow. Yes, the boyfriendless, lonely teenage girl was handed a weapon and told to shoot it. Nice. It was quite a summer. The funny thing is that I don't remember the summer I was 15 or the summer I was 17. It is that long, lonely summer that I spent with my dad, holding a spotlight and searching for deer, that will forever live in my heart. I guess it wasn't so "lonely" after all.

It is that summer memory that makes me smile when I see Steve sharing his passions with the girls. He has never complained about having girls (or about not having a boy), but he has made it clear that dance and gymnastics will not be the only interests that we share with the girls. Steve is not a spotlighting, archery shooting kind of guy, but like my dad, he does believe in teaching a girl how to use a weapon.

He has started sharing his love of karate with the girls, and he bought them swords and shields to balance out the tiarras and pom poms. Our little girly girls should be fairly well-rounded, thanks to a dad who loves them enough to share his passions with them. Who knows, maybe someday they'll spend a long, "lonely" boyfriendless summer with their dad... learning to break boards with one karate chop.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Christmas Part IXX (or something like that)

I'm back. Told you I wouldn't be gone long. So where were we? Yes...coming out of a foggy haze. Eating shrimp. Marveling at Santa's ability to travel through a faux fireplace. Right. And now we're on to Christmas Morning.

No one woke up early. Isn't that great? I'm not sure when that crazy insanity sets in, causing wee small children to wake their parents on Christmas morning at the butt crack of dawn (as Steve would say, because he's classy like that). But my girls haven't reached that point. When we lazily rolled out of bed around 8:30 a.m., we just wandered downstairs, almost like it was a normal day. Except this was no normal day. It was Jesus's birthday, Santa brought presents, and one look at the tree was all two little red haired girls needed to snap them back into the fun and excitement of the holiday. Watching their faces as they saw the tree and the gifts...now that was magical. So magical, in fact, that I just watched them and smiled like a big goof (and forgot to take pictures of their sweet little faces).

When Grammy and Pappy arrived, the madness began. Ripping, tearing, opening, looking, throwing, ripping and tearing, again. Kate kept saying, "Oh my word, oh my word," which I thought was hilarious until Ellie started saying, "Oh my word, I eber seen." What?!? I think she was trying to say, "Oh my word, this is the best thing I've ever seen." Or something like that. But "Oh my word, I eber seen," was all she could get out, over and over.



Apparently, it was the year of the fairy/princess dress in our household. Poor Steve is surrounded by fluff and sequins and tulle. He's a good man who knows the difference between Belle and Tianna, Silvermist and Tinkerbell! That should serve him well, should there ever be a Disney category on Jeopardy.
Kate's one request from Santa was a snow globe to replace the one she broke over the summer. It was just a tiny request, except she wanted a snow globe with all the princesses in it and she wanted it to have a heart on it and she wanted every princess to be dressed up and she wanted glittery snow inside of it. I told her that Santa might not be able to find that exact snow globe and she replied, "That's okay...his elves can make it." Duh! In the end, I had to explain that Santa's elves had a hard time fitting all the princesses into that tiny snow globe, so they decided to give her a very special one with Tinkerbell inside. She seemed happy with that!
Baby All Gone was a hit, even with Pappy! Ellie pretty much liked everything. When she sat on Santa's lap, she told him she wanted a shiny present with Santa on it. She also mentioned a new sled. Santa managed to bring both (plus a million other things), so she was happy.
And I finally figured why all of our baby dolls are naked. I told Steve that our playroom looks like a scene from "Girls Gone Wild." Notice how Miss Ellie has the baby's hat and pants off before Kate has even finished opening her present. She opened the baby doll and immediately ripped off her clothing. And that's not the only one...Baby All Gone was missing her pants before breakfast.

And there you have it. A magical Christmas morning. Seriously, though...it was a great day. Stay tuned for more. You didn't think I could possibly be finished with Christmas yet, did you? I'll still be sharing Christmas photos at Easter time.

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