“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” –Clementine Paddleford

Never play the princess when you can
be the queen:
rule the kingdom, swing a scepter,
wear a crown of gold.
Don’t dance in glass slippers,
crystal carving up your toes—
be a barefoot Amazon instead,
for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.

Never wear only pink
when you can strut in crimson red,
sweat in heather grey, and
shimmer in sky blue,
claim the golden sun upon your hair.
Colors are for everyone,
boys and girls, men and women—
be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,
not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.

Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,
fierce and fiery toothy monsters,
not merely lazy butterflies,
sweet and slow on summer days.
For you can tame the most brutish beasts
with your wily wits and charm,
and lizard scales feel just as smooth
as gossamer insect wings.

Tramp muddy through the house in
a purple tutu and cowboy boots.
Have a tea party in your overalls.
Build a fort of birch branches,
a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of
Queen Anne chairs and coverlets,
first stop on the moon.

Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,
bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,
not Barbie on the runway or
Disney damsels in distress—
you are much too strong to play
the simpering waif.

Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,
paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.
Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.
For the ground beneath will hold you, dear—
know that you are free.
And never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.

P.S. Your mama still lets you play with Barbies & Disney Princesses—but only cause you sweet things never act like the silly damsel in distress.

Here are pictures of me with all my friends:

Invitations: Ollibird made the invitation look like Abby! I sent over some pictures of her and that is the tooth she was missing at the time and she does squint her eyes like that and stand like that!

Decor: Rainbow of Balloons, shamrock covered windows and table to display the cake, very simple. Also I blew up the front of her invitation to stand by the rainbow. I wanted to take a big black kettle and fill it with paper plates covered in gold wrapping paper to put a put of gold under the rainbow but didn’t get to it.

The Cake: They made the little leprechaun look like her invitation!

Games/Activities: I started off by reading The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day  and we had music playing from the St Patrick’s Day children’s Party (Fun and Games For Kids) CD. We did stations where we played games and did crafts. I lined up my sturdy craft tables (one of the best things I own) to do a rainbow out of fruit loops glued on a piece of paper with pre cut out suns and clouds to dress it up, a shamrock hat out of a paper plate, and playing St. Patrick’s day bingo. Then we did some games in our big family room with all the couches pushed back. Find the gold coin (you know that you pass to each other secretly while sitting in a circle), freeze dancing and leprechaun says.

Party Favors: Magic beans (green watermelon jelly bellies) and gold coins (chocolate coins) and they also took home their crafts.

We did have a lot of kids but we handled it quite well until the last 10 minutes when it got a bit crazy. But it was worth it, the girls and I have such fun planning their birthday parties. Some of the best highlights of our year!

French Toast

Dance class where they SING to you and you beam

Getting your hair done curly

Smelling your birthday flowers- daffodils

Dad goes with you to school to read a book to your class

Grandma picks you up to bring you home to your birthday party

Crazy St. Patrick’s Day Party (more on that later)

Out to The Pie for dinner

Staying up to watch shows and organize all your presents

Fast asleep

Baby Doll

When I watched you twice at your birthday party run to help a friend that you noticed was very sad-I knew for sure you are a very important daughter of God. When I watched you try to cheer them up, talk to them about what was going on while your party continued on, games were being played, friends were having a blast without you-I knew for sure you have a very special heart.

But then your Mama stepped in and told the sweet girls it was time to get over it and sent you on your way to have some fun at your own birthday party. They were fine! We are used to handling emotions and girls in this house, almost pros I dare say. 

Your special sweet heart who cares so much about others being ok, others being happy, others smiling, is a gift. It’s a special gift from your Father in Heaven. You’ll be able to help lots of his children.

Make sure though you take time to be sensitive to your own heart and take care of yourself as well. Promise?

Love you special girl,

MAMA

At school I had to be a dog ladybug and I had to do this huge packet. In the packet I put pictures of the ladybug and dog, interesting facts, lots of stuff.

3 Interesting Facts about Dogs

#1 Ancient Eygptians when their dogs died they would put mud in their hair, shave off their eyebrows and cry for days.

#2 There are lots of working dogs, police dogs, fire dogs, eye seeing dogs.

#3 Dogs use their tounges to keep cool.

3 Interesting Facts about Ladybugs

#1 Ladybugs can have all different patterns some can be yellow orange red or brown.

#2 Ladybugs predators are spiders, wasps, bees, birds, etc.

#3 Ladybugs are actually lady beetles or lady birds.

We got BARBIE Christmas DVD and another BARBIE Christmas DVD and we got TONS and TONS and TONS TONS TONS TONS TOOOONS TONS TONS TONS of candy canes!! He always brings us candy canes.

I loved our special breakfast because we ate really yummy stuff and I liked thinking about Jesus at our breakfast because I thought about like how he made the sacrament and when he was born and I LOVED the little presents we got. They were at our dinner table and they asked questions and mine was, “WHATS YOUR FAVORITE JESUS SCRIPTURE STORY AND TELL IT TO US.

And thats all.

I LOVED the beach by our house because there were waves that I could jump over but I hated it after a little while because there were two big waves. And the little beach with the little waves it was very nice because we like had fun and we were glad there were rays at our beaches. And my mom when she was surfing this huge ray was jumping up to her face but it actually went down below her surf board and well there was like 5 or 30 jumping around mommy. And I’m glad known of them stinged her.

I loved the little baby sloth because it had a mask around it’s face and it was in a cocoon like a catepillar. I loved the monkies because we woke them up and they were like woo woo ahh ahhh. I LOVED THE DEER! Because we took a picture with it and everybody else was amazed.

I LOVED the crocodiles because one was named LADY GAGA. I saw on the boat ride my favorite was the herons cause they were beautiful and it had very nice feathers. And I was on the crocodolie tour….do you know about those like birds that deliver the babies? We saw one of those.

I miss that our iguana pets, the iguanas were our pets, that was our only pet. And I miss them now. I LOVED being together as a family because we were like go in the pool swim and swim.