My Small Moments: Summer Update

It is once again summertime where I can update this sad little blog with random happenings. Let's face it, during the school year, it seems this blog is only updated when I REALLY want to share something importantish. I say that with the -ish, because it's important to me and others could probably care less. :)

But I still kick myself for not journaling more about what is going on in our family because I LOVE LOVE LOVE looking back on posts from years ago. You think you won't ever forget the details of certain things, but my goodness you do!

So here we go again with me trying to keep up with the blog. Let's pretend it will last longer than the summer, but we all (and by all I mean the two people that actually read my blog when I don't post it on Facebook) know that won't happen. ;)

I had another birthday last week. 33 this time. For some odd reason it doesn't sound as old as I thought it used to. :) I was so blessed by sweet friends early in the week who gave me sweet presents and even took me out to lunch. Then on my actual birthday it rained buckets. I would have loved to stay in my pajamas and just curl up with a book and enjoy the rainy day, but K had a dentist appointment and we were in serious need of food at our house so we had to go to the grocery store. The perk was I got to rock my cute rain boots that morning!

Later in the day I had the best tea party ever from the cutest daughter ever!

She is always into creating parties for any and all occasions, so she was extra pumped that it was actually my birthday.

Later in the day, after Cody got off work he spoiled me with gifts as usual. He didn't use to be great at giving girly gifts, but man is he good at it now! Love that man!

We also went out to eat at one of my favorite local Mexican restaurants and then went to Lowes to get a new fan for our bedroom and K's playroom. You know you're a total grown up when you get excited about picking out fans on your birthday. I love doing anything to update our house so I was seriously giddy when Cody told me he was going to put one of the fans up that night. I love being married to such a handy man. He seriously can do anything in our house and I think that is just so darn sexy. (Yes, I said sexy and it's weird, but I'm talking about my husband so I'm totally allowed to.)

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In other news….I am a total dance mom now. Seriously. I can make a nearly perfect bun with or without an accent braid in about 4 minutes flat. I used to cry over those stupid buns and now it's not a big deal at all. Now, those fake eyelashes that I have to put on K for every competition and I aren't exactly the best of friends yet. They just tick me off more than any other inanimate object. I hate them. There, I said it and I don't care that they know it. They have caused me to yell at them like an idiot in front of my husband and daughter so they deserve my hate. And don't give me tips if you have them. I've googled and read them all. I'm just not good at them. We all have our strengths and I'm telling you putting fake eyelashes on my kid is not a strength I have.

But K has LOVED dancing on the competition team this year. She didn't like all the practicing at first, but once they actually started competing she was hooked. It's a crazy world at competitions and those episodes of Dance Moms aren't too far off from the truth for some studios. But mark my words, I will never be one of those moms who lets my kid get up on stage in less fabric than a Barbie doll wears and scream, "Work it girl!" If you ever see me doing that, you have permission to beat me over the head with something. I mean, for the love! It's so sad to see what some of those girls are encouraged to do! I am so stinking thankful for our studio with our awesome director and teachers. I just didn't realize how thankful I needed to be until I saw what else was out there.

K went to dance camp the first week of the summer and now we're in the middle of Nationals. She has practiced twice this week and has practice again tomorrow. She competes with the mini company this Friday. Here she is about to leave for practice Monday.

My goodness she keeps growing up too fast. I hate it - maybe even more than those stupid eyelashes.

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K's cousin, Cadie, invited her to twin day at her church's VBS today and they were so very cute. So you get another picture because cuteness.

13 days apart and the best of friends!

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Now on to what has taken over my daughter's heart as far as toys go.

These guys.

Meet the Shopkins.

I don't know where they came from, but man they came in strong. I first saw them in my first grade classroom when a few of my girls started bringing them to school. K eventually found out about them and was hooked. She actually got two books about them before she even had a single Shopkin, and she learned all there was to learn about each one in the book. Then we gave her some for kindergarten graduation. She LOVED them and I loved that even though they were small, you didn't have to put anything together or change parts, etc. She uses her imagination to play with them all the time and I love it!

Whoever made these things is very, very smart. They make some really hard to find, they make the same ones in different colors, they put mystery ones in packages, and even get you (I totally mean your kid) wanting to find the super hard to find special edition ones.

So then K yells at me from the other room the other day, "Mom! Come quick!" Thinking there was some kind of emergency I ran to the living room only to see that K was watching a Shopkins commercial on tv. Now they had "fashion spree" ones and one of those was even a ballet set.

Oh, come on now! K loves dance. K loves Shopkins. Guess what she really, really, really, really wanted??

This might be a good time to tell you that I have zero will power when something is hard to find and my kid wants it. I become a hunter and the hunt thrills me. Judge me if you will, but I just call it a hobby of mine.

So today after dance I drove my kid to Burleson. Now, Burleson is not exactly that far, but I usually won't drive 25 minutes to get a toy. But the Target there had it in stock according to the website, so to Burleson we went. When we got there, we immediately looked for the ballet set, but we didn't see it anywhere. We almost left the store, but the silly mom in me went to customer service and asked them if they might have it somewhere else.

Three incredibly nice and helpful employees later, this happened.