It's the Yittle Fings, Part Twenty-Three.

Among the typical stalling methods of probing questions at bedtime, Ali asked, “Is Daddy going to wear HIS princess nightgown to bed??”

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When we were at the beach with Kitty and Leo, Ali saw the cranes landing in the water. She squealed and said, "Look Mommy!! The birds are turning into ducks!!!"

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We were headed home for what Ali knew would be bedtime, so she decided to try a new stalling tactic.

Ali: "We need to go to the store before we go home."

Me: "Why?"

Ali: "To buy some things."

Me: "What things?"

Ali: "You know, some...stuff."

Me: "What kind of stuff?"

Ali: "Some stuff to eat."

Me: "What stuff to eat?"

Ali: "Just stuff."

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I gave her some sunglasses to put on, and she told me, "Those sunglasses don't really look right with my pigtails."

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Chris almost missed his turn the other day, so he did one of those slam-on-the-brakes-and-take-a-sharp-turn things. I said, "Whoa!!!", but Ali reassured me and said, "It's okay - Daddy just slipped."

The next day when we got in the car, Ali said, "Be sure to go slow, okay Daddy? So you don't slip again."

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After I got her dressed the other day, she told me, "I am the one with the brand new shoes on, and you are the one without."

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We had a long discussion about Jail and what it was the other day, thanks to a bible story about Paul and Silas in jail. I explained that it was kind of like long time out for adults when they do very bad things. She said, "So you go to jail sometimes, right Mommy?"

Orphaned Photos of the Week, Part Ten

I’m pretty behind on posting my Orphaned Photos, so it’s more like “Orphaned Photos of the Month”, but I’m here, finally…

Ali asked for Ice Cream one day after Gymnastics, and being that it was the first sunny day of the year, I happily agreed with the idea:
Ali and AJ have been doing a lot of dancing lately.

Experimenting with Line Dancing,

Irish Jigs,

And Freestyle.

Ali and I pulled out one of her Christmas Presents that I put up for a rainy day. Project Runway Fashion Dolls.

They were an immediate new favorite toy obsession.

And Ali liked them too:

Her fashion designing skills are impeccable, right down to the big rhinestones on the kneecaps.

I wanted to get a picture of Ali in her St. Patrick’s day shirt. At first, she wasn’t quite as excited as I was:

But I must have bribed her with something (it was too long ago to remember), because she got increasingly happier:

I managed to also snag a couple of pictures of Ali’s scrunching routine while she wasn’t looking:

Oh – and her favorite hobby, texting Daddy, Pop, Leo, Gramamma, or a number of other people from my phone:She’s going to break that world record of texting speed, I just know it.

Here’s a few more pictures from Ali, AJ, and Ethan’s fun at Botanical Gardens:

At small group the other night, I felt that Caroline needed some flair with her outfit. So I worked tirelessly at shoving this toy onto her head:

Then Nikki and I proceeded to make her Dance the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker:

We’re easily entertained.

One more family picture from Easter:

What’s left of Ali’s Easter Basket, after she frantically searched for eggs with Jelly Bellys in them:

Who knew that Jelly Bellys were so good that it would make her shun M & M’s. Wow.

And, finally, the aftermath of our Easter eggs. This egg is peeled:

…and I am a horrible Mom, I’m sure, for letting my child eat it:

Organic I am not.

The Beach, In Pictures.

Playing with Lightning/Taylor/Liittle Bit/The Cat With Too Many Names.

Scolding Sapphire for playing with her “toys”:

If you can’t beat ‘em, dance with ‘em.

The location of my Parenting Advice of the Week, “Ali, if you’re not sitting on the roof, you MUST hold Mommy’s hand!!”

Ali’s portrait of Me:

It’s The Yittle Fings, Part Twenty-Two.

It was time for bedtime prayers.

Ali: “I want to thank Jesus for my bed and my blanket and my pillow and my friends in the bed and my friends in the baskets and my chair and my railing and my headboard.'”

Chris: “Okay, baby. Say Thank you Jesus, then name all those things.”

Ali: “Thank you Jesus for all my stuff. I’m done.”

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I asked Ali the other day, “Is it more important to be Beautiful or Kind?”

She immediately responded, “Kind!!”

I was quite happy with my wonderful job of teaching morals to my daughter. “Great! That’s right! Is it more important to be Fancy or to be Wise?”

“To be FANCY!!!”

Oh well. I did the best I could.

However, this conversation thread started a whole new game for her. For the rest of the day, she went around asking puzzling questions such as:

“Is it more important to have lips or hands?”

“Is it more important to read the Bible or be wise?”

“Is it more important to be Snow White or to be Ariel?”

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Me: “Do you want to go to work before we go to Gramamma’s?”

Ali: “No.”

Me: “You don’t want to go see Gina and David and get Skittles from David?”

Ali: “I already have some PEZ.”

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The morning before I left her at Gramamma’s so that Chris and I could go off for the weekend, I asked, “Will you miss us while we’re in Tennessee?”

Ali: “When you go away, Jesus will come back.”

Me: “He will?”

Ali: “Yes. He’s been to my house before. He’s sitting over there – on that couch.”

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Ali: "Mommies say yes and no but Alis just say yes.”

Me: “Well, you can tell me no if I ask you a question, like if I say, ‘do you like coffee?’ You just can’t tell me no if I tell you to do something.”

(Silence)

Me: “Let’s practice. Do you like coffee?”

Ali: “I really like Juice better…”

Me: “Well, okay. That works too….”

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Ali: “Hey Mommy, what’s that long, skinny country?”

Me: “That’s Chile.”

Ali: “We ate there…we ate at Chili’s.”

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One day the washing machine was being especially loud in a rhythmic manner. Ali informed me, “The washing machine is counting to one hundred.”

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Ali was playing with her Cinderella and a Prince when she had a startling realization.

“That’s not Cinderella’s Prince!! That’s somebody else’s Prince.”

Me: “Whose prince is it?”

Ali: “It’s Prince Phillip. It’s Sleeping Beauty’s Prince. She won’t be mad.”

Mommy’s T-Shirt Makes Everything Better.

As I referenced in my post yesterday, we spent part of the evening Wednesday night on the trampoline. Ali is into wearing my T-Shirts right now, and I happen to find it pretty adorable, so I willingly oblige. And with it, of course, she could jump higher, run faster, and smile bigger:

She still let us have turns, too, of course. And, since she was getting photographed, she wanted to pay the same tribute to us. So, here is how Ali sees Chris and I:

Me: Very Fuzzy and apparently always in mid-conversation.
Chris: A Bright and Shining corner of her life.

I tried to take a picture of the sky above us, and Ali happened to run by at that exact moment, so the picture actually ended up being the sky above us, plus a bit of her crazy trampoline hair:
And really, I think I like that one better than the “Just the Sky” picture.