evening at the dollhouse

  i had the best time playing doll house with my girls this evening!  we had a simple sabbath meal of curried vegetables and rice (the girls are learning to eat "grown-up" foods, and i am learning to be tough on them about that! hurrah!), and a lovely family devotion--well, interspersed with toddler training for whining, leaving the room, etc. but lovely nonetheless. the girls were all ready for bed by 8, so we had time to play! sparrow wanted to keep her dress on to play "lion," so we played lion for awhile, which segued into dollhouse, as our lion uncle, the playmobil lion, was keeping prisoners in the dollhouse, so it happened. soon he was teaching the prisoners to sing lovely christmas songs as a collective choir, and before we knew it, "uncle tony" had become a dog and we were setting up family relationships between the dolls and naming them all. 

sparrow and golden were given this dollhouse when thomas' boss' daughter was getting rid of stuff she didn't play with anymore! we were excited to receive such a grand present. it had come with several barbies, and i had promptly gotten rid of them. in the words of holly hobbie, those dolls are "just...too much." we replaced the barbies with whatever we had: several old dolls i used to play with as a little girl, a few mcdonald's happy meal dolls, a playmobil, a home made spoon doll, and some other characters we've picked up at various places. 

how GLAD i am that we decided to get rid of the barbies! sparrow is obsessed with beautiful princess stuff, and i think it is not healthy to indulge that too much. this, their eclectic, piecemeal family, is so much more interesting, despite the fact that most of the dolls are spatially challenged (way too small for their environment)!

 

left to right: aunt zelda, father harry ("because he's very hairy!"), mother isabella, daughter ann, daughter cherry (she's only nine!)(and i don't know why both of the daughters are naked at the dinner table...sounds about right, though), ...princess olivia, also known as rosemary (me: "and what is she in the family? the cousin?" sp:"no! she's the princess!" ...oh. of course. the princess of the family...) at the bottom we have cousin angelina sitting down with baby ocean, and of course "uncle tony," their dog who looks like a lion. the beloved pet horse, "starfish," looks on.

 oh and how could i have forgotten the doctor, Dr. westerband in this photo!?! sorry, my dear, diminutive dr. westerband. (it was the name of my real OB, of course! hahahaha!)

 here is the pet room. not all the animals are named yet. they also have a pink pony which they have named "elead."

i love playing with my girls!!

september funnies

sp: "in heaven there's no throwing crumbs at people. but there ARE fire crackers." -sept. 2

g: "silas go da class?"
sp: no, silas can't go to class! he's too little, he can't walk! and secondly, he can't do what the teacher says!" -sept. 3

sp: "i put the cake in the oven. it's boiling for 40 minutes. but we have to eat it all up, cause it's rotten." -sept. 3

sp: "or if this painting falls down, it might be really heavy and we don't want it to fall on him (silas) and break him. cause he's really cute." -sept. 4

me: "so when we're cold and hungry or when someone takes our things, we can still praise the Lord!"
sp: "yeah cause maybe those were old toys and we didn't want them and somebody takes them, so we praise Him!" -sept. 5

(playing store with sparrow)
me: "i will buy some strawberries and a banana so i have food on my journey."
sp: "and here's some butterfly meat. the dog meat is one dollar, but we're living in mexico." -sept. 5

golden woke up from her nap and searched the house. she came to me with tears in her huge blue eyes and said sadly, "i can't find it, the daddy." -sept. 9

golden's abc's: "ABCDEDG, HIJJ ellenono P. QRS, Y and Z, now I know my ABC's, HIJK ellenono P. QRS, Y and Z, now i know my ABC's, HIJJ ellenono P..." (on and on and on!) -sept. 10 and beyond


"you can pull your own hair." (sparrow to golden) -sept. 13

"roll it up, the panties." -golden, when she *pulls* up her panties. (potty training!) -sept. 14

we went to the pediatrician, and they had me do an assessment with each of the girls to see where they are at developmentally. on one of the questions i was doing with golden, there were five little pictures: a cat, dog, bird, horse, and man, all in a row. you are supposed to point to each one and see if your child can identify them. golden: "kitty!...doggie!...birdie!...horsie!.................Jesus!" -sept. 15

golden has finally been completely potty trained (except for the occasional night accident) and it is so funny to watch her enthusiasm for going potty. every single time she has to pee, she calls out, "gotta pee 'gain!" it is apparently never the first time that she has to pee. it's ALWAYS "again."

apparently there is an imaginary bagel that interacts with the girls. golden runs through the house yelling, "bagel, bagel, bagel!" the other day sparrow asked me if "that bagel" were still around.
me: "what bagel?"
sp: "the one that always chases golden around the house!" (oh, of COURSE! that one!)


golden was having a whining episode at dinner time and i was talking to her about her grumpy attitude.
me: "where's your happy smile?"
golden pauses and then painstakingly forces the most cheesy smile, and says,
"i found it!" -sept. 14

sp: "i wish my teeth were curly." -sept. 20

sp: "yesterday when daddy left, i missed him the badliest of ANY missing!" -sept. 21

sparrow calling after daddy in the morning:
"bye bye! feel safe!" -sept. 22

me: "let's draw a landscape today. do you know what a landscape is?"
sp: "yeah. if there's flowers in somebody's yard and you pick them, that's a landscape."
after a little time of discussing landscapes, golden points to her drawing and says,
"look, lamb cakes!" -sept. 22

sp: "is GOD a jolly good fellow, or is JESUS a jolly good fellow?" (she thought that song was a hymn! love!) -sept. 24

sp: "sometimes, if somebody's gentle and nice to you, you can say, 'no thank you, i can be nice to myself.'" -sept. 28

sp: "i think it's so amazing that we live."
me: "it IS amazing! what made you think of that just now?"
sp: "because when i was asleep, i didn't notice that i live." -sept. 29

me: "daddy has a pretty cool job. he gets to teach dance all day. but do you wanna know a secret? i have an even better job, because i get to be your mommy all day long!"
sp: "i get to be your special one all day long." -sept. 29

sp: "goliath and the devil should be cursed. they should be cursed with a sword, cause they're badder than sin." -sept. 30