Update: One More Fairy Has Entered The House

Within three hours of being up and excited about her mouthful of investments that are starting to yield in big dividends, tooth number two has exited. Now she's 2/5 of the way to her new pair of shoes. I'm afraid of what her smile will look like when I return from DC on Tuesday.

When I told her she still didn't have enough money
for the shoes she wants to get,
this is the face she made. Hahahaha. This Tooth Fairy needs
to take out a loan at this rate.

One More Fairy Has Entered The House

3:58 a.m - Our bedroom door opens and there is a thud on the bed, it's Kensington Grace. She rolls over Chris to the landing strip between us and grabs my face and with hints of ruby red lipstick still on from the night before, says, "She came. The Tooth Fairy came! And she left me a roll of paper." That roll of paper was the special note the she left behind after securing KGrace's first tooth. With crust in my eye (Sandy the Sandman came back and visited the family as well last night), I placed her on my pillow and covered her up, hoping she would quickly come off of her 'missing tooth high' and would go into a deep sleep - at least until 7 a.m.

She slept with a death grip on the note in her right hand, and her pink tooth pouch in her right.

Just after 6:30 this glorious Sunday morning, she smacked my sleeping face with the Tooth Fairy's note. With a whistle coming out of her mouth due to the gapping hole in her mouth, and another tooth looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa occupying some of the new space that just opened up, she screamed again with excitement, "Papa. Wake up. She came. And she left me paper in my pouch and a roll of paper. She really came!"

Realizing that my parental duties should take precedent over my continued need for sleep, I hugged my munchkin and tried to buy a couple more minutes to allow my eyes to start to focus. "Ken's, lets go potty first and then we can she what she brought you." Chris and Rasmus were already in the kitchen making her a celebration feast in honor of the big day.

Yesterday, it became apparent that the tooth that has been loose for almost two months now was on the verge of coming out. What we didn't except was the second tooth that was loose, the one that has only been wiggling for a month, would be the first one to jump ship. When she pushed it with her tongue, it made the first move to let us know that its time was up. Chris went and grabbed the dental floss so he could tie a nice little bow around it to help it escape, but that trick wasn't happening. Then Rasmus decided he was just going in for the kill. 10 seconds later, she was giggling with joy that her tooth was out. Now was the time that she's been waiting for... the opportunity to meet the Tooth Fairy. She left her "Tooth Fairy Please Stop Here Tonight" sign on the front door, and placed her tooth in the satin pink pouch that has been waiting for a guest.

Last night was the first night that we didn't have to struggle with her to go to bed. Normally there are 4-5 excuses throughout the night of reasons why she doesn't need to go to bed, then another 4-5 excuses to get up once she's in bed. Not last night. Once the lights went off, it was like Christmas Eve all over again. She was down for the count.

The Toot Fairy's note shared with Kensi that this was one of the best teeth that she's ever seen, and thanked her for being a great brusher; and encouraged her to keep up her brushing skills each morning and night. It also stated that she would be back soon for that second tooth (that Rasmus already tried taking out this morning, but Kensi said she needed that tooth in her mouth to eat breakfast with, but may want it out my lunchtime). She was very excited about her "Two Thousand" dollar bill (if only) and also has her sights on a new pair of high-heels that she would like to use her money on. I told her that for the shoes she was eyeing the other day at Bloomingdales, she's gonna need to loose 4 more teeth. I shouldn't have said that. Knowing how much she loves shoes, and now she knows the going price for a tooth, she's going to be in dentures by the time she's 7.

It Takes A Village

Our soon to be Madame President once re-penned a proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” I think that statement still rings true for every working parent out there. In a time where kids no longer go to school and come home and play stick ball in the neighborhood, todays activities become more and more time consuming and require extreme dedication – not only for the child, but for the parents of such said kid. ‘It takes a village…” also acknowledges that it takes more than one person to teach a child the ways of life; and more than two parents, which in today’s society is far from norm.  Our youth come upon many different experiences and circumstances during their life and often times, are influenced by the many people that surround them. These people show them, through their own actions, the difference between right and wrong.

Going back to my initial statement around time-management, when Kensi was a mere tot, it was easy. Okay, somewhat easy. Oh, alright… it was a juggling act.  Chris and I would be traveling for work, and we really only had three options: A) take her with us, B) ensure one of us rearranged our calendars to meet her needs, or C) rely on our "village".

For many of the occasions when we knew we were both going to out, we simply chose option A. This way Kensi could see the world and experience new sights and sounds. She got used to traveling on plane, trains and automobiles and enjoyed the room service and indoor pools of many hotels. This was a great option when I was traveling for events, not so much for meetings and conferences. We’d fly in a city on a Friday night, go to an event on a Saturday, hop on a plane that evening, and then to another event on Sunday morning and then back home. Was this the easiest option? Well, no. The advantage was being able to go through the TSA family lane at the airports. We came home with many-a-bruises from lugging her car seat on my back with her inside of it.  I know those Native American mommas used to carry their babies in a papoose across country without complaining, but they never had to tote that as well as a diaper bag, carry-on luggage and a laptop. Pocahontas made it look so easy.

You need to surround yourself with a support system that can assist you in your time of need (as well as in other moments when you haven’t actually realized you’re in need but they can sense that you are and step in anyway). Chris and I have been extremely lucky to have that type of system in place. “Aunties” and “Uncles”, then real aunties and uncles, cousins and friends, all who have enlisted -not drafted- in the Irwin-Dudek village (I’ll get to the “drafted” part in a minute). These caring individuals have made a sizeable impact on K-Grace’s life. Not only have they been a source for us to go to when we’ve needed assistance, but they have played an integral role in molding her to be the princess that she is today. Royal prep is no easy task, but these Village People (minus the Indian who is still carrying the papoose) have made it possible for us to continue with our careers so we can best provide for HRH.

When we moved out of the Pocono’s Kensi’s schedule then came into play. Being closer to more resources meant she took advantage of more. Soccer, dance, swimming, gymnastics; she was enrolled in these activities all prior to the age of 5. With her school in walking distance, it became easy for the daily routine – getting her to and from school. When you add these layers on, in addition to play-dates in the park with her circle of friends, complex arrangements needs to be made. We first started with an occasional sitter; one that could pick her up from school when we knew we couldn’t get there in time. We found a great online resource that did all of the background checks and had client feedback from other parents that had used them. After intense rounds of screening and putting them to the test, we found a couple that we could really rely on. Everyone that we found was able to get the job done, but then three months into the new place and the new school and additional activities were popping up on her calendar. Kensi’s dance card was starting to get full so we decided to get a Manny (yes, we ended up getting a male nanny) that came once a week on Wednesdays; our families busiest day. That nanny lasted for several months until he was able to secure a full-time opportunity. Then came Mr. Kyle, who was part of the US Navy’s Special Ops force in Afghanistan. Back from his tour, and attending grad school, Mr. Kyle took side jobs as security for celebrities and their children, as well as our lil diva. Chris and I felt totally comfortable with Mr. Kyle protecting our most precious possession. Whether it was reading her to sleep or walking the streets of the concrete jungle with her, we knew she was safer with him than she was with us.

Part of me wanted to take a trip with her (and him, of course) to Tijuana just so he could escort us around in a black Escalade, fully packing. He was the Denzel Washington to her Dakota Fanning in Man on Fire. Unfortunately, that has had to come to an end, not because of Mr. Kyle or anything that he did, but the fact that he’s in school he has a very set schedule of when he can guard her  - I mean watch her – and her schedule is becoming even more complex.

We’ve come to the conclusion that we needed to looked to full-time help, and decided to go the au pair route. Between the cost of Mr. Kyle, our housekeeper Rosario, and the occasion Mr./Miss sitter that we’ve needed to call upon, we realized that we could not only cut cost by consolidating roles, but we could provide Kensi with more opportunities that we’re currently able to. Having someone that can pick her up from school (not after-care) gives her two additional hours in the day to try something else. It also allows her to learn a new culture and hopefully create an additional bound with someone from another country so when she goes and visits there when she’s older, she has an extended family to reach out to.

Now, this wasn’t an easy decision by any means. Papa is quite selfish, and he doesn’t like sharing, especially the attention of one little angel. With that being said, we realized we can’t be everything and can’t be everywhere. She wants to take cooking classes, which for her age group, starts at 4:15 on Thursdays and because of our schedules, that doesn’t work. Because of her new age group, gymnastics is now at 5:15 on Wednesdays, and it takes us longer than 15 minutes to get there. I don’t even get off the train until 5:30. Soccer is during school (taught there on campus), but she wants to take additional lessons. Swimming is on the weekends in the winter and weekdays during spring and summer.  Chris would prefer her not being in ballet because of the weight and self-image issues this particular form of dance places on a child, and lyrical and jazz are both before the hours of 5pm during the weeknight. Now I know what you’re thinking… dance, soccer, gymnastics, cooking classes, swimming and tutoring lessons all for a 5 year old. I want to state for the record, these are activities that she has chosen, not us – well, except for the tutoring lessons. Those are not an option.  I’m not a pageant-mom pushing my Honey Boo-Boo to do something she doesn’t want to do. While I have cheered her on, I’m not scolding her for not sticking her landing at the gym and making her do hours of practice at home. I’m not counting her calories, nor am I making her do kicking and blocking drills in the hallway of our apartment. I am though making sure her homework is done right and she spends the right amount of time study and practicing her writing skills, so take that tutors!

 

These are all activities that she chooses to participate in and when she wants to move on to something else, she has that ability. We provide her the means to afford the opportunity, now we just need the means to get her there. That’s where the Au Pair comes in. While initially I didn’t like the idea of an individual living with us (they could be a part of the village, but they don’t need to stay in our hut), it quickly dawned on us that this was the only option for us if we were to continue on this path of never-ending activities being added to her roster. She needed some additional stability, and we needed additional eyes, and hands, and drivers. Our daughter is no dummy; she knows how to work the system. If we have needed help three nights in a row and had to use different resources, she has convinced them all that cereal is an appropriate dinner, fruit roll-ups are okay for dessert, and that an 8:30pm bedtime is optional. No matter how many times we leave a list of do’s and don’ts, no matter how many conversations we have and text messages we send,  she ends up getting what she wants when she wants. Have you ever seen a straight Navy Seal Special Ops wear nail polish, make up and read the three little pigs in character? Oh, we have. It’s not a pretty picture. Funny, yes; pretty, no. We actually had a picture of the situation of Mr. Kyle being made up but when he told us he would kill us if we didn’t delete it. We didn’t want to take our chances so we deleted it quickly… then smashed up the phone to prove to him that we wouldn’t be able to retrieve it.

Chris, Kensington and I interviewed numerous individuals to be our Au Pair and have found, what we believe, is the right one. Meet Rasmus who comes from Denmark and teaches soccer, swimming, loves to cook, and  - from what he’s told us – loves to dance; all of the things Kensington was looking for in an Au Pair. Kensi loves the fact that Rasmus’s job is to play with her and protect her. While we did look into a female Au Pair for Kensi, quite honestly, I wasn’t up for it. No offense to 98% of our fan-base, but I’ve lived with a woman. Actually, I lived with a few of them (in my college years) and it just wasn’t fun. Yes, there are the occasional monthly mood swings, the never-ending boy drama (for those that I didn’t date… well, actually the ones that I did date as well), as well as the disgusting habit of leaving your unmentionables hanging from the shower rod to dry. Nobody wants to see it. Seriously, nobody. Yes, I may hang Kensi’s leotard on the shower rod. I don’t need frilly bra’s and stockings in my bathroom (once I hung up my crown from my award-winning drag-queen days, I vowed never to have these types of garments in my house again. And yes, I’ve already told Kensi these was forbidden in her future, but at the convent she’s going to it in a couple years this shouldn’t be an issue. I don’t know where they hang the habits out to dry, but quite honestly, it’s not my issue to worry about). We liked having Mr. Kyle around… it made us feel uber safe when we knew she was with him. Knowing that if they were walking down the street of NY and something were to happen (yes, it’s safe here… but ‘what if’), we would want someone to throw themselves in front of our daughter. If Kensi gets tired of walking and wants to be carried (as any princess should be)... If a soccer coach gets too competitive and starts screaming at the kids for missing a kick, or fumbling a ball, would Rasmus step in and mediate, you bet his Danish arse he would. That's what he is here to do.



Kensington and Rasmus on Day 1
Stop - LEGO time!

Roller Skating in the hall

Rasmus at Au Pair training... okay,
so he needs to work on his
Arts & Craft skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are advantages to having an extra person in the house, and having that person be a guy, makes us feel a little more comfortable. Yes, having a college kid in our home dealing with other female Au Pairs in the area is an issue, and we have vowed to his mother that we are not allowing him to date nor are we allowing his year in the States be a party for him. Yes, We have welcomed him into our family and will share our U.S. culture with him, but he is here on a duty – to help us mold Kensi into the fine young lady she’s becoming. So, our village has opened the gates and welcomed an outsider with open arms. Lord help us all!

Auld Lang Syne

Jingle All the Way

Kensi loves her new Christmas present!

Kensi wants to keep Christ in Christmas...

But Santa scares the crap out of her.

As we prepared to get Kensington to sleep, tonight we needed to up the ante.

You see, for the past several months, Kensi would - from time to time - get out of her bed and crawl herself onto ours. And leading up to that moment, there would be 4-5 times within the first two hour of us putting her down that she would come up with endless excuses to get out of bed.  

“I need to go potty,” (This one always works, and she knows it… we don’t need her having an accident in her sleep);

“I’m thirsty,” (Two sips of water and then its back in the bedroom);

“I’m hungry,” (This one doesn’t work and I’m not sure why it’s still in her rotation);

“There’s a noise outside,” (We make sure the ipod is playing in the room so this is a non-issue);

 "I'm scared of the dark,” (Don’t start with me… you have three. Not one, not two, but THREE nightlights on in your room. Wait. This might actually be why she can’t sleep. No worries, she has a sleep mask that she got for Christmas last year);

“There’s a monster under my bed,” (Yes, and we put him there to make sure you stay IN your bed. You get out again and we’re going to tell him he can bite your feet the moment they touch the floor again).

Okay, the last one is a stretch. We wouldn’t want him to bite her feet… maybe just gnaw on a toe or two until she realizes that we mean business.

Tonight, we couldn’t take ANY chances. Santa was coming and needed to assemble all of her toys so they would be ready for her to play with in the morning.

After Kensi placed Santa’s magic key on our doorknob (now that we don’t have a chimney for him to crawl down in, he needs some way to get into the house), we tell her that Santa will come in, but if he sees her or even thinks that she’s still up, he will leave and take all of the toys with him.

She runs down the hall into her bedroom and hops into her bedroom. As I start to read a book to her (‘Twas the night before Christmas), Chris places our wireless speakers outside of her bedroom window. Half way through the book, Chris enters her room with his iPhone hidden behind his back. Mid sentence, he presses play and outside, you can hear the bells on Santa’s reindeer. Deadpanned face, Kensi looks at me and says, “You’re done reading for the night. We can finish this tomorrow. I gotta go to sleep. Now,” and gives me a peck on the cheek. Looking at Chris, as serious as can be, she says, “Dad, no cuddles tonight, only kisses. Do you understand?”

“Kensi, what’s wrong?”

“I can hear Santa’s sleigh. I have to get to sleep so I get presents.”

Our master plan had worked. We wait 20 minutes to start our evening’s activities, waiting until we knew she was out. At minute 21, Chris walks into her room to check on her and she peeks her head out from underneath the blanket. “Daddy, I’m scared.”

“Baby, what’s wrong? Why are your scared?”

“I’m so excited I can’t get to sleep. Feel my heart beating, daddy, its going fast. I can’t wait until Christmas but I don’t want Santa to know that I’m still up so I’m scared he’ll find out. Don’t tell him, okay? Promise?”

“Yes, baby… I promise I won’t tell Santa that you’re still up [cue music] but you really need to go to sleep. He’s almost here”

Ten minutes later, she was out like a light.

_________________________

This year, Kensi had asked Santa for only three things. We told her that she’s very fortunate and couldn’t go to him with her initial list that consisted of everything she’s seen on a TV commercial . Since September, every toy, movie, character and set of Ginsu knives she’s seen on the screen, her response was, “I want that. Can you buy me that? Can Santa bring me that?”

We’ve had to sit her down and let her know that there are other little boys and girls that don’t have the things that she has, and Santa not only needs to make sure there are enough toys for everyone on his list, it’s also our duty to make sure that we buy some items and help Santa deliver them to other children that are in need. It took a couple times saying this, but she understood. We went out and got the toy catalogs from the major stores (These are NOTHING like it was in my day… I remember they were as thick as the Sears catalog, or the size of a phone book. Now they are a couple pages, like a Sunday paper advertisement, as most everything is now online.

She looked through the flyers with a marker and narrowed her ask down to three; A pink microphone with a stand, makeup, and the latest LaLaLoopsie doll with blue hair that she can comb (the other LaLaLoopsie dolls all have hard plastic hair)

When she finally had the chance to sit on Santa’s lap, she forgot the name of the doll. She was a little stumped as she wanted to make sure she got a specific as possible so he would know which one to bring her. Heck, if he’s only brining three things, they BETTER be the ones she wants.  And that’s the holiday photo that we went with.

 

The Thud Heard Round The World

At home with her arm wrapped

 

 the following day in her pink cast

two weeks later in her Christmas cast
(having breakfast in bed.. yes, she's milking this)

Texas T

No, not “Texas Tea”, as in oil, but Texas T as in Thanksgiving. This year’s Lone Star Rally included a special surprise for our family – Thanksgiving. As we experienced the rally and honored Mazha while we were in Galveston, we also took the opportunity to celebrate being together as a family at the beginning of November.

The past three years of the rally have been interesting. Three years ago we got a blizzard in PA that canceled Halloween and almost postponed our trip to Texas, last year we had hurricane Sandy that did postpone Halloween and impeded our travel (shortened our stay to just the weekend), and this year there was, what seemed to have been, a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Okay, maybe not that bad, but enough where we were home-bound for a day with the TV sirens going off. No worries... we ended up playing 6 hours of dominoes and watching the water rise outside of our window. We called it bonding.

With our usual activities taking place on The Strand, Kensington also experienced her first haunted house at the old Mayfield Manor, the former home of Dr. Horace Mayfield, once a respected doctor, upcoming community leader, and son of a prominent physician in Galveston. It’s an 1867 building that served as a morgue after the 1900 Storm – still the deadliest storm in U.S. history having killed an estimated 8,000 Galveston residents. When we entered, Chris told them not to hold back. She insisted that she go through it and loves the thrill of being scared and while we tried to warn her, she’s didn’t want to be babied. So we went through (with a flashlight) and she laughed most of the way through it. When we were done, she wanted to go through it again. It wasn’t worth the admission for the first trip, and we we’re going to even attempt it a second time.

Click here for a photo slideshow

Kensi loved the fact that our beach house was 50 yards away from the ocean. Within a minute, her little feet could be hitting the sand. Besides swimming, burying her feet in the mud and chasing after seagulls, she loved flying her kite with Fazha. Unfortunately, after about 2 minutes of piloting the craft solo, she let go of the string and the kite went soaring up in the air. I tried chasing it and stepping on the spool, even running through the brush and dunes to catch it. I had no luck. There was a huge gust of wind that carried it away. When all hope was lost, I found the spool that went over some power lines and found that the kite had actually landed on the deck of a vacation home. While I shimmied my way up the deck the best that I could, there was no way that I could get it. Cousin Chase also tried working his magic so K-Grace could have her “shark-attack” kite back. Then Daddy came to the rescue when he drove the truck up to the deck and I was able to climb on the rooftop of the cab and un-snag the sails.

We also made our annual trip on the ferry to feed the seagulls. With Chris, Simone and Jordan off at the spa, a group of us (loaves of bread in tow) stepped onto the ship and noticed that K’s throwing skills greatly improved over last year. Mighty impressive. Watch out Dorothy “Dottie” Kamenshek, this girl may actually beat your record.

CLICK HERE

This holiday season... let them eat cake

The holiday season is coming up quickly and this poor little blog has been unduly neglected. I thought when I changed jobs it would allow me more time to spend crafting our paternal experiences in my down time (while waiting in the terminal for the next flight, in the evening hours at some random hotel or on an Acela train that has been blessed with free wi-fi).

Needless to say, that hasn’t happened at all.

Quick recaps of K-Grace’s fifth Halloween:

Halloween this year was a whirlwind experience which lead to her treat-or-treating six times (yes, I said five) in four different states. How does one do this? Why, with the magic of Santa, of course. If he can travel all around the world in one night, Kensi can travel to a handful of locations that are separated from each other by a mere 1600 miles. No big deal, right?


Okay, there was a trick (and treat) to the multiple locations. First, it started with the festivities at Seaworld, Lego Land and Disney Land in Florida. The wonder of these two location is that its Halloween for the weeks leading into the actual date. While we brought Kensi’s costume with us, the weather ended up being 80 degrees and we couldn’t have our little sugar cube melt, so we declined the traditional costume and went with festive t-shirts. We do have to say, Halloween at Disney is ten times better than Christmas at Disney.  While K-Graces loves her princesses, she takes after her papa and leans towards the dark-side and enjoys her villain experiences, especially the headless horseman that lead the parade.
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
This leads us to TOT number three; Sleepy Hollow. I never knew this was a real location, but it is and happens to be only 20 miles north of NYC. So we took a day trip to this tiny village with “Kensi-Marie” in full getup. Tarrytown gravitated to her more than poor Ichabod Crane. Can you blame them?

We took a story time excursion at The Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow (a 17th-century stone church located on that has a five-acre churchyard feature prominently in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"). The 40 minute story time theme was “Halloween Tales for Tots to Tweens” so we thought it would be a great little break from our packed agenda. Boy, were we wrong. We ended up leaving about 15 minutes into the event, but not without our own laugh that we will remember for years to come.

When our “master storyteller” started, she had asked the group for a name that she could weave into the story. A little girl in the first row stood up and belted out her name, Chloe.

The storyteller echoed in response, “Great, Chloe it is.” Then another little girl on the opposite side of the church stated her name, Nicole. The storyteller then said, “Great. We will use ‘Chloe-Nicole’ as our character.” That’s when it got comical. You see, Kensi was standing in a pew behind the other attendees (because she was the only one in costume and was wearing a wig taller than most of the kids in the room). Kensi raised her hand and cleared her throat so everyone would notice that she demanded their attention. The sound echoed through the (sleepy) hollow church. “Yes, Marie?”

 And then it began…

“My name is Kensington Irwin-Dudek, Princess Grace”

There was a small chuckle from the adults in the room. One of the dads at the front said, “They call her ‘Bob’ for short.”

“Okay, love. That’s quite a mouthful, so why don’t we call the little girl in the story ‘Chloe-Nicole Kensington,’ okay? So once upon a time in a little village like this one, there lived a young girl by the name Chloe-Nicole Kensington. Chloe-Nicole Kensington lived in a little house with her mommy and daddy.”

Interrupting the story, Kensi said just loud enough for the small group to hear her, “I don’t have a mommy.” There was another round of stifled laughter from the adults and our narrator rolled with the punches.

 “Oh, honey. This story isn’t about you; it’s about another little girl named ‘Chloe-Nicole Kensington’. So let’s continue. Once upon a time in a little village just like this one, there lived a young girl by the name Chloe-Nicole Kensington. Chloe-Nicole Kensington lived in a cottage with her mommy and daddy.”

Kensi, this time a little upset that she wasn’t taken seriously enough the first time decided she needed to command the presence of everyone in the room. Speaking in a royal tone and at a volume loud enough to make the windows vibrate, our little queen belted out, “Hey Lady. I just told you, I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I have a daddy and a papa!”

At this point, Chris is nowhere to be found. He dropped on the floor and rolled his body under the ten pews behind us to the exit and left the building. I only the other hand tried covering Kensi’s mouth with one hand while lifting a finger of my other and putting it up to my lips indicating that Kensi needed to be quite. “Kensi, hush. You’re being rude by interrupting the story” I tried to whisper.
 
“Well, Papa. I don’t. So stop trying to shush me.”
 
I try to cover her mouth again and she pushed back throwing up her hands in the air and giving me this look like, “For the love of God, stick up for me on this one. The woman clearly is getting the story wrong and I need to you defend me. I’m not the crazy one here, she is. Oh, and by the way, where did daddy go, he was JUST sitting here next to you.”

Tears are now being wiped away from my eyes from holding in the laughter and I grabbed her and kissed the top of her forehead. She pushed me away… I now know not to cross this little diva and to stick-up for her no matter what.

The story continues, “Okay. Lets try to bring this back together here people,” now speeding through the part, “Once upon a time in a little village just like this one, there lived a young girl by the name Chloe-Nicole Kensington who lived in a little house with her parents.”

All is well until two minutes later Chloe-Nicole Kensington’s mother gets sick in the story. Kensi looks at me, rolls her eyes and shakes her head. My finger goes up to my mouth and Kensi whispers, “she just doesn’t get it, papa.”

Ten minutes in, and the story is now boring me, Kensi and the entire audience of 25 so I pretend like I’m trying to find the bathroom for Kensington and we exit. Unfortunately, as I run around the church, I forget that the front of the church is surrounded with glass windows and everyone can see Kensi’s wig running across the cemetery.

That’s the end of this story, but the wig did make an appearance in Texas during Halloween at The Lone Star Rally and this time no one was referencing Chloe-Nicole Kensington or where she lived (or with whom).

Our little darling was the hit of the parade with hundreds of onlookers wanting their picture with her or of her. Perched upon her daddy's shoulders (come on, there were 400,000 people in attendance and with there being a group of us, her wig being so high we could see her and Chris from three blocks away) people would stop us for her picture. She would extend her hand as if she wanted them to kiss the ring, and tell them to “please hold”. Then she would flap open her feathered fan and cover Chris’s face. She wanted to be the only one in the picture. Then she would give the okay to have her picture taken. After a few snaps, she would hold her hand up as if she needed them to stop, fold up her fan, and then indicated to daddy that she was ready to move forward. Each vendor had their Jack-O-Lanterns out filled with candy and when they would look up and she who was in front of them, would literally empty out their container of candy into her bag.

Long live the queen of the Lone Star Rally.

Then, once we were home, Kensi wanted to visit her NJ friends and trick-or-treat at their homes so she “Boo’d” them. She made Halloween cupcakes and knocked on their doors and surprised them. Not only by providing them with their own little treat, but asking for, in return, some of their leftover candies. It worked.

 

 

Missing Princess

Kensington had her biggest highlight and let-down of our recent trip at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. As we entered the new Fantasyland, she became overly-excited at the sight of Rapunzel’s tower and insisted we go see it. As we were headed to our scheduled lunch with the Princesses (more to come on that soon) we told her we would have to come back. All she could talk about at lunch was going to see the tower. To be honest, we weren’t even sure if the tower was Rapunzel’s as we didn’t get a good look at it, but she was adamant that it was. After lunch we headed back in that direction and asked a cast member how to get to the tower. This is when we were told the devastating news… you can’t get to the tower. It’s floating in the forest and while you can see it from the village, you can’t go visit it. When we told this to her, she was heart-broken. Her entire body just shutdown. All she wanted to do was to visit her favorite princess, Rapunzel. Chris tried to console her, promising to give her anything that she wanted for her to put a smile on her face. It didn’t work. So she did what any young girl would do. She climbed up on the rock fence, turned toward the tower and yelled, “Rapunzel, let down your hair. Rapunzel, please let down your hair.” This caused a series of onlookers to take out their cameras to snap a picture of our own sad princess on the search for her dream.

This was the first scrapbook page I’ve done since getting our new Sizzix Eclipse. I couldn’t find anything to assist with the tower, so I created the SVG myself from an image I found online. You can download the free files here.

SVG Files:

Rapunzel Tower & Chevrons

Mickey Mouse Head

Rapunzel / Tangled Sun

The center of the sun (SVG also included) is a “gold doubloon” Kensi got from Jake and the Neverland Pirates Disney Jr. show.

This page is made up of:

Prism Stand Floss

Papers: Imaginisce’s “If the crown fits”; Kaiser Craft’s “Magic Happens” Collection; Glitz Design’s “Plum Crazy” Collection; My Mind’s Eye  Bohemia’s “Bluebird ‘All-Boy’ Stripes/Light Blue”

Embellishments: Prima Handmade Flowers; Recollections Floral Embellishments; Recollections Bling on a Roll; Making Memories {note}worthy trim and Paper Wizard’s “Princess” nameplate

 

 

 

 

 

Cowgirl Tough

After attending a recent Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention (yes… I’m serious. We actually went to a two day convention), I decided that it was time to dust off my Cricut machine, catalog our embellishments and reorganize the craft room.

What I found while doing this was a project that I started in 2011 that I never completed. It goes back to a visit to Texas were Kensington and her cousin Roni went horseback riding at the BlackHawk River Ranch – where Roni worked as a ranch-hand. The issue that I ran across is that I have no clue as to the look I was going for. I couldn’t find my original sketch or an image of an existing layout that I saw that I was trying to replicate. After staring at it for more than thirty minutes I decided that I hated it. I started tearing the pictures off the page when Chris came in and asked me what I thought I was doing.

 

He tried to convince me to go back to the page and rework it, knowing that there is no wrong way to create a page.  Once he realized there was no turning back, he steered me in the direction of doing a shoestring project, using the inking and chalking techniques that I learned in one of my breakout sessions, as well as multiple layering techniques.

This is what I came up with. Notice the horseshoe I used for the letter "u". This was taken off the Christmas tree in the hotel that we stayed at the day that Kensi was born. I knew I wanted to keep it but didn't know how to display/preserve it. I think this is the perfect home for it. 

 

Now I only have 2 more layouts to compete for 2011, three for 2012, and then I can get started on her 2013 book. Onward and upward!

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

Around this time of year, our mailboxes get filled up with advertisements for the latest and greatest Halloween costumes and major retailers that have gone out of business (i.e., Circuit City, Linens and Things, Borders Books), have had their former real estate turn into pop-up costume stores that seem to always be having a sale. While Chris and I may go into these stores for the occasional party prop, colored hairspray and bags of candy, we have stayed very loyal to our children’s boutique that has been outfitting K-Grace since her first Halloween appearance as Swine Flu - Chasing Fireflies @chasenfireflies

Kensington was like thousands of little goblins this week that went giddy over the gargoyles, ghosts, princess and cute critters costumes when they received the newest Chasing Fireflies Wishcraft catalog. She opted out of her regular “Seek and Find” and chapter books at bedtime and wanted me to read every description for every costume in the catalog and upon turning to the very first page, she declared that she had chosen her costume – the Skeleton Princess. 

 

My first thought was this was going to be an extremely long process if every costume we'd see she would be picking. But she didn’t. With that wicked sense of humor of hers, she was adamant that the Skeleton Princess was the costume that she wanted which threw me in a tailspin. You see, I have been waiting for THIS particular Halloween – the Halloween where she can finally fit into a 4T costume. Since I first laid eyes on the Chasing Fireflies almost 5 years ago, I have had my heart set on the Marie Antoinette costume which she could never fit into - unit now.  I know this is no longer about me, but… well, it’s all about me and the pictures. There will be tons of ghost and ghouls and skeletons running about but the likelihood of another Marie Antoinette (outside of the queens running around in the Village) is slim to none.

I mean, just look at it… the lavish confection of gold lamé, lilac and gold brocade and ivory lace, THIS is a costume treasure worthy of our little French queen. Plus, the stunning wig – just look at it! And the accessories add that ooh la la that is just to die for.

So, what am I going to do about it? Well, I showed her the Marie Antoinette costume and asked her if this could be the back-up. If they didn’t have the dark princess in her size, then she wouldn’t be able to reign over a vast scary-tale kingdom and would have to tell her real kingdom that "In honor of Halloween, let them eat . . . candy!" She was fine with that compromise. The way I look at it, 10 years from now, she couldn’t care less about what she wore for Halloween. 10 years from now, I will still be looking at pictures of her in a 2 foot wig, wearing a smile on my face. So… here’s the deal. It’s up to you. Place your vote, we want to hear what you think - Dark Princess or Prolific Queen?