Katie and Emily's Overnight Adventure.

My nieces, ages 5 and 7, came to stay last night and boy did we have fun. Now I know why my mother likes to go to bed at 7pm... I am beat. We started yesterday out with a chic fila lunch, then headed to the pool for some fun in the sun or fun in the clouds! We get to the edge of the pool, dip our bodies half way in and then we hear a high pitched sound... the whistle, we have to stay out of the water for 10 mins. Do you know how long 10 mins are for a 5 and 7 year old? At least 10 hours in comparison. Finally, the kids were allowed back in and we got to dip our heads under the water. Katie, the youngest, has now mastered underwater swimming and we did a lot of; throw the ring; dive for the ring; bring the ring back up!
__________________________________________
After the pool, we of course had to refuel with some gummy fruitzels and a fruit smoothy... already starting to buzz from the sugar overload. We head home for some "rest" before their gymnastics practice. The below pictures are the result of our "resting". Since they were staying in the photo studio overnight, I have all kinds of fun "dress up" props to play with, except for "princess" dresses. My wedding dress ended up being a fun “princess dress”. Since the dress was about 100 sizes to big for her and it was problematic to walk in the dress and the size 6 women's high heels, she was sitting on my favorite studio chair and I thought, what a picture... so we had a little 5 min studio session with my wedding gown. She finally showed me one of her rare and beautiful smiles and looked just like a princess!
_________________________________________
Getting lost in time... which is my favorite pastime... we were running late for gymnastics. So we rush in and I got to go back to memory lane and watch both girls dance, hop, twirl around in their classes. Emily, the oldest, is progressing so far that she is in a class with 10 and 11 year old girls... she can do a back walkover by herself and a cartwheel on the beam! It was so special to see her confidence building one handstand at a time!
__________________________________________
So, I am already exhausted and I haven't even started on dinner! Yikes! The nice thing about the girls ages right now is that they can occupy themselves for a bit so I could gather up dinner. While they were watching the 12 dancing princesses, I was stirring up some mac-n-cheese (in the box of course) and Tilapia... I actually cooked fish last night! It was actually quite easy, of course, my brother had given me the recipe and the fish to cook... Still I cooked the fish!
_________________________________________
To make a very long story even longer, we ended up the night with a little more dress up and a whole lot of imagination. I am just terrible at the imagination games... I clearly have none. The imagination children have is astounding... truly amazing. I realized this last night while I was sitting in the dark with my nieces and only a dim glow from the flashlight, wearing our "princess" dresses and pretending how we were going save the earth with our magic wands. The reason for the flashlight only party was that a half hour earlier we had painted "glow in the dark" nail polish on our fingers and toes and stuck "glow in the dark" stickers on the ceiling. Emily and Katie then decided that we needed to get our "princess" dresses on and hold a state of the union meeting on how we were going to save the earth. Emily proceeded to put the wedding dress back on and then had to pick out my "princess" dress. So, here we were at 9pm at night in the studio, with the flashlight glowing, sitting in "princess chairs", in "princess dresses" (except for Katie because she was the kitty cat), and waving the "princess" wands to save earth. Katie then began a very long, heartfelt speech about how we all had a mission to accomplish to help save earth. I was to stay on Earth, Emily headed to Mercury, and Katie when to Mars. After we fought off the bad people, we had to report back to Katie, the queen kitty cat about how we went about defeating the bad people. The girls then turned to me and said, "Aunt Amanda, tell us how you defeated the bad people", I think I said something like "I destroyed them all"... I just have no imagination... even now... I can't think up anything else to say! If only we could keep that imagination once we grow up! I must be the old peter pan that has forgotten their "happy thoughts".




______________________________________________