Dance, girl, dance!

Lilee had her first dance recital about three weeks ago. I'm late to blog about it (job loss got me a little depressed and out of the writing spirit), so if you read this when you grow up LiliputianB, know that your recital was really important to me!


I have to apologize for not having pictures. I deleted pictures on my camera before downloading them...UGH! Perhaps is was better anyways...I was not thrilled with the fact that the kids wore t shirts with their mismatched dance attire after all the hard work they put into their routine, and the little boy wore holey sweats! Hopefully in the next recital--May sometime--the kiddos will be dressed more appropriately and I won't erase the pictures!


But, for the important part--Lilee. She did GREAT! Despite my great annoyance with having to buy her new dance shoes the day before the recital (Emerson has suddenly developed an appetite for leather), I was very impressed with my little diva. She began the class about two months after everyone else, so she had a lot of catching up to do. She is the littlest bug of the crew but makes up for it with all of the attitude in her hips! The other kids did well, but they lacked the sass necessary for putting on a show (I'm not biased a bit, nope!). Patrick and I, GiGi, Nana, and G Pop totally ate up her routine. We all have plenty to be worried about concerning taming that attitude in future years!

Diva and Dudes' Days

Patrick and I have long been saying that we need to spend more time with each of our children on an individual basis. One of the reasons we had 3 kids instead of the 12 I wanted (Patrick only wanted one...sorry Daegan and Holt) was so that we had enough time to focus on each of them. Needless to say, to this point we've not been all that great at focusing on each of them individually.

So, this new year we made the resolution to have family day once a week (typically a Friday night movie in the Casa de Bennett) and to spend 3 weekends a month focused individually on each one of our children. I am proud to say that the first two weeks of our Diva and Dudes' Days have been smashing=-)

On February 21st, Lilee and I spent a Diva Day with one another. While photography plans were thwarted due to rain, we managed to pack the day full with lunch at Red Robin, shopping, visiting the Fuzziwigs, a local candy shoppe, and then the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. Needless to say, I felt a little guilty about shopping after seeing this movie, but Lilee was ready to continue our spending spree. (No need to worry, the day cost less than 50 bucks--which a zillion dollars in a seven year old's mind).

This past Saturday was time spent with Daegan. We got a late start as I've been a bit under the weather with a pesky sinus infection. Around 2:30 we headed out and spent the first part of our time together eating Daegan's favorite American food: pizza. We decided to go to Costco for our feast because money from a return would help fund our Diva and Dude day. Pizza there is yummy and cheap, so it worked out perfectly. We left Costco and ventured to Avenues Forsyth where I took some pics of my little man. It was a balmy 75 degrees...a far cry from the snow and ice just six days earlier! Fuzziwigs was next on our list where Daegan bypassed all of the colorful bins of candy and opted instead for a pack of gum and a cherry slushie. We rounded out our time together with the Game Stop where he picked out a used game, Spiderman of course, for his Nintendo DS. All told, we spent about 12 bucks. Not bad! If I keep up this rate of decline in the amount of money I spend for these Diva and Dude's Days, Holt's weekend will be free!

(Oh, and no need to worry about Patrick in all of this fun. He and I are alternating months honoring each of the rugrats, so I have mommy time in March with each and he will have daddy time in April.)

The Spirit of Lilee

My Liliputian is an amazing little girl. She has the most tender heart and feels things that happen to others as if they are happening to her. I'll never forget when she was about one and a half and she attended a baby shower of a very dear friend with me. At one point, my friend was so overwhelmed by the expression of love from the room full of people that she began to cry. Lilee stood up out of my lap and walked over to my friend and said, "It's o-tay" and gave her a big hug. That, at a very tender age, showed Lilee's Spirit.

Her Spirit has been expressed many times since then, and several times in the last couple of weeks. About one week ago Lilee came inside sobbing. I couldn't imagine what could have happened to have prompted such emotion from her, but I finally gathered, between sobs, that a butterfly had died. Apparently a hornet stung the butterfly (Patrick had seen the event while mowing the grass) and the butterfly immediated fell to the ground, lifeless. The reality that the butterfly was dead was excruciating to her. Nature just doesn't seem fair to her...too often, I agree.

Tonight, as I was on my way home from tutoring, Patrick told me about a conversation he had with Lilee in my absence. Lilee was talking about a little girl with whom she eats lunch. The little girl said that she does not believe in God. Lilee asked the little girl how, if she did not believe in God, did she get warm when she was cold, because that is what the Spirit of God does--makes you warm when you are cold. I don't know what the little girl's response was, but I do know how very proud I am of Lilee's faith and of the Spirit God has given her which both warms her and my own heart as well.

I've often wondered at God's sense of humor.

Lilee and I are polar opposites which is why she is so quick to make me laugh...and pull my hair out.

Lilee loves nature. I can't count how many times I've asked her to not bring leaf piles in the house, pick up flies with her fingers, encourage the neighborhood ducks to come on our driveway (they leave lovely piles of...well, duck poo). So, when her room was being cleaned Friday I was not completely shocked at the pile of leaves found under her bed--which crumbled into billions of pieces, impossible to remove from the high pile of our carpet without moving her bed to vacuum. When questioned about the leaves, the story she gave admittedly made me laugh.

We have a lovely butterfly bush in the back yard and Lilee is aware that butterflies were all once caterpillars. The prospect of raising her own caterpillar and then having her very own butterfly pet was too great and apparently overruled my edicts concerning leaves in the house. So, Mr. or Mrs. caterpillar lived under her bed on a nice pile of leaves....for who knows how many days...which were found while cleaning Friday...with no sign of Mr. or Mrs. caterpillar anywhere.

I hope Emerson ate it.