Hannah's 'Boutique' Restaurant

We were stuck inside for some of the afternoon today as the wind howled, so Hannah made a restaurant. 'Boutique Restaurant'. I love projects like these because they take so much energy and concentration and time as she makes menus and plans and sets up tables and makes food. Then is the actual restaurant when we get the food. Yum.

This time, she took it to a new level. She drew coloring pictures and had crayons ready in case any kids came to her restaurant. They did, and they appreciated the effort.

She also had puppets ready if coloring bored them.

Ignore his face and shirt mess. He ordered three popsicles. She was a very attentive waitress.

I want to show you her dessert menu. This is the front.

Apparently, she's warning you about what will happen should you order from it.

It wasn't an empty warning. I ordered 'a bowl of chocolate ice cream'. This is what I got.

As you can see, I then ordered a few more spoons. Then I ordered the waitress to sit down and help us finish it.

I'll be going to that restaurant again. And taking more people to share my dessert with.

Hawaii in my kitchen.

If you're around Hannah for very long, you know that she *loves* Hawaii. It's one of her main obsessions. Hawaii and Style. Those are her two main obsessions. Well, Hawaii and Style and Superheroes. Those are her three main obsessions.

Let me start over.

The girl loves Hawaii.

We still don't know where she originally heard about it, where she got the idea that it is this beautiful place equivalent to heaven, but she did, and the past two years have seen lots of talk and learning about Hawaii.

Today she decided to make Hawaii in our kitchen. She ran into a problem. She's frequently made Hawaii in our bathroom which is easy - there's a bathtub there for the ocean. She had no such option in the kitchen. Well, there was the sink, but she didn't think of it and I didn't suggest it. I would have had to do the dishes.

She came up with another option.

The stuffed animal bucket.

It's funny how much work kids will do when they're focused on a goal. She and Ains hauled a lot of water to that tub, getting it just the right temperature.

She was Ains' waitress.

Then she got tired of being the waitress.

Bowling fun.

About 8 months ago now, we were having an 'off' day. You know those days when every. single. person in the family is just ... off? Snarling, squabbling, all because you're just ... cranky.

So Matt had the brilliant idea of taking us bowling - the kids first time. It really was inspired. It was such a hit that we go about once a month now. Ains in particular *loves* it. She even has her special designated 'bowling socks' that she has to wear when we go.

This last weekend, we went again. Too much winter blah. It worked its magic again.



But I'd like to say one thing.

She needs to stop growing up.

Look how old she looks!

And him.

Carrying around a 6 pound ball like it's nothing. STOP GROWING UP!

And HER!

Oh. Never mind. She's good.

Balloons are back.

Balloons have been relegated to the game area for months while new interests have taken over. A few weeks ago Hannah wanted to play with them some more, so she started back up.

Poodles, of course.

And swords. Those are the fastest and easiest.

Then dragonflies.

And fairy wands.

Then Ainsley got into it, but she was not going to stick with 'normal' balloon items. She made her father a sleeping hat.

(and insisted on him trying it out that night)

Then she made herself a sleeping hat.

(and decided that it wasn't very useful)

But this ... this was the crowning achievement of the night. Ains and her daddy put together an entire warrior outfit. Helmet and all.

She designed it. The helmet *still* kills me.

She made her daddy an entire outfit too. She was the queen and he was her knight and she led him into several battles that night. Oh, how I wish those pictures had turned out.

Hannah was slow to the warrior party, but once she got involved, Ains let her be a knight also.

This holiday was made for her.

Please. A holiday to celebrate love? That should have been Hannah's birthday. It's almost bigger than Christmas for her.

We've been working up to it for a week, making mailboxes,

making lots of little crafts.

Not nearly as many crafts as I had planned though. You see, Valentine's Day is so important that it can't be just one day. It has to be a week. So she took my craft ideas and recipe ideas and spread them out over the next week. A week filled with love - I'm not complaining.

I made foam lips and moustaches and stuck them on lollipops for the kids.

That was fun to find in the mailboxes first thing in the morning.

All day they were checking the flags on the boxes to see if they had any more mail. All day they were putting valentines in each other's boxes.

We made stamps for her to seal her Valentine's letters with. (You have to send the cards *on* Valentine's Day, she says, as they have more love in them that way.)





Then, though she didn't want to do the next day's project that day, she went through the ribbon she wanted to use for it and exclaimed over it and sorted it in ten different ways and then built a tower with it. Then she took pictures and asked me to share them on the blog.

Picture by Hannah

Picture by Hannah

Picture by Hannah

Flowers from Daddy.



The rest of the day was spent on a mix of Valentine's day and normal day stuff.

Tractor pulls.
The ever-present art store on the stairs.

Microscope time.

Diego - on dvd and on the computer. My son loves Diego right now.

Hannah teaching violin class.

Reading.

Picking out fabric for library bags.

Cuddling by the heater.

Farm chores.

Going to Coldstone Creamery for their Valentine's special - free ice-cream for the kids, $1.50 ice cream for the adults. Yum.

Picking up a heart-shaped pizza for $6 - who doesn't love V-day specials?

Letting the kids dream at the pet store.

Then home to eat and go to bed.

Or not.

More Valentines made for everybody. Daddy gave them his.

An experiment about how useful opposable thumbs are.

Very useful.


More reading.

Bed, finally.

Yes!

It was a love-filled day.

Cause they're crazy.

Hannah's cousins told her that they were having a bonfire.

So we had to have a bonfire.

We knew our little cold-hating redhead wouldn't last longer than ten minutes - if that.

Turns out that she stayed out there for thirty minutes and Hannah headed in after ten minutes.

Ains is so ready for spring to be here.

The day in which Hannah realized that 'Museums are my thing!'

Yesterday was Hannah's violin lesson. She got a violin - purple, no less - for Christmas and has been wanting to start lessons ever since. Last week was her first lesson, this week her second. Since she's taking lessons from a Suzuki instructor, I have to pay close attention in class to take practice notes for her, so I have to bring stuff to keep the other two quiet and engaged.


Done and done.

After class we had a few hours to kill before Ainsley's gymnastics class and it was too cold for parks. We decided to go to our local museum. It's small but has cool stuff.

Like this replica of a human skeleton. We hadn't seen that before. It captured imaginations.

And this one always sucks Ains in for some reason - a recreation of a living space in a cave for American Indians that lived in this area.

They also have a room with art that changes every so often. The last time we were there there was a bloody and gruesome settler/Indian 'Hamlet on the Plains' display. We had to stay well clear of that one, but now they have abstract art in there. Ains loved this painting.

And Hannah, after spending 20 minutes having me read signs above dinosaur bones to her declared "You know, Mother, museums are my thing. They really are. You can learn so much here, and what's the point if you're not learning?"

Ainsley looked at her like she was nuts and ran back into the room with fluorescent lights where Gray was already giggling at his shoelaces.

Teddy has a tea party.

But he missed it.

You see, he told Ains he wanted one, so she enlisted a lot of help to make it happen.

She sent Gray to go get all of Teddy's friends.

She set Hannah to work making tea cakes.

I was assigned popover duty.

She put everyone in their proper places.

She wrote the invitations and handed them out.

"Daddy Come to my Tea Party. 10:30." We took it to work and put it on his truck seat.

Then she set the table and we waited until 10:30.

Gray made sure he sat beside his elephant.

At exactly 10:30, Daddy showed up for the tea party.

Have I mentioned how much we have loved moving so much closer to his work?

We all got lectures on proper behavior for a tea party and were required to call each other "Ms. Hannah", "Ms. Sarah", "Ms. Grayson", "Ms. Ainser", and "Mr. Daddy".

It went on politely for longer than you would expect before it started to break down. How often can you politely shake your head 'no' when your sisters are politely stuffing things in your face before you just want to start boxing Daddy?

Not that often, that's the truth.

And Teddy? He's MIA, so he missed the tea party that he asked for. Poor guy. He's lucky she saved him a brownie.

Now the tea party's cleaned up and Ains is setting up a movie theater complete with a pie store...

and a popcorn store.

For the record, my to-do list has been thrown out for today.

And I've been informed that nothing electronic is allowed in the theater except for the movie, so I'll have to post this and shut down. Scooby Dooby Doo, here we come!