I don't know if that is the correct line to that song, but that is the way Bella sang it. And she sang it all month long. Before we were even in the month of October, I had seen a princess yellow dress on sale and had purchased it for Bella, thinking that I could convenience her to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast (I knew Bella would want to be Aurora because she wears pink, but even I get tired of pink sometimes). I also bought a blue dress so Becca could be Cinderella. Well, my first hurdle was educating Bella as to who Belle was. I had to break out the VCR to show her the movie. But as soon as that yellow dress came in the mail, Bella did not want to take it off. She would get home from school and immediately disrobe and put the dress on. Grammy's annual Halloween party was the first of many opportunities to dress up, and that was the only time Becca was willing to be a princess like sister. After that she found Bella's old butterfly costume and was in love. In fact she loved wearing the head gear to the costume. Wouldn't take it off. She'd rather sweat than let you take it off.
We did our annual visit to the pumpkin patch that is on the way to the girls school and picked out a few pumpkins. And this year I took the afternoon off, and just the girls went to the Owens Farm pumpkin patch. They thought the hayride and maze was a lot of fun. It's amazing what little it takes to entertain them because I kept thinking how lame it was compared to the one we've been to in Michigan. We also fed some goats, but we didn't wind up staying too long because all t
he hay made Becca start coughing. We also did the fall festival at the girls' school, but somehow missed all the trucks with all the treats. Oh well - not like we don't STILL have Halloween candy left over. And then on Halloween night we tried to do too much by going to our church's Trunk and Treats AND make the neighborhood parade. Well, apparently at the neighborhood party they ran out of pizza, so the parade started early, and we missed all the neighborhood kids. But Todd still took our girls and the girls of our Karen neighbor to neighbor family trick or treating. Poor Todd took off through the neighborhood
with six girls, only three of which spoke English
- and I'm counting Becca in that number. It was fun to do something with our Karen friends outside of their apartment complex. It took a little while to build a relationship with them before we felt comfortable asking the parents if we could take their girls with us somewhere. I think all the girls had fun that night.
This year Bella was old enough to participate in the Christmas programs at church and school. I was someone embarrassed by Bella's performance during the church program. They performed Jingle Bells - no problem. But as the program continued, Bella got more and more fidgety and by the end the Music Minster had to stand beside her. My embarrassment didn't come as she flashed everyone...over and over... no my embarrassment came when she refused to listen to the Music Minster. So when it came to the Christmas program as school I had little hope. But we had a big talk about keeping the dress down and about listening to what her teachers told her. I think it worked because the school program was really cute. They sang several songs - complete with hand motions and had a little party afterwards. Even Popo was able to make it. I was really impressed that the teachers were able to get that many children singing and doing the same thing at the same time. And the best part - there was no flashing - at least not by Bella.
every time they went by. And we did go to the Christmas on the Square in downtown Garland, which was really just an excuse to eat funnel cake (always a win with the B girls). And Bella, my mom, and I saw the Nutcracker at the Windspeare - fancy - so I thought I'd better not take Becca, but in hindsight, she would have been better behaved than the grade school girls that
sat behind us. Bella was so well behaved that at intermission we went downstairs to get her an ornament. So now it's officially a tradition. The Nutcracker and an ornament every Christmas. And this Christmas Bella learned a little about giving to others. When I told her that we had adopted angels from the angel tree because some people don't have presents at Christmas, she suggested that we also get gifts for our Karen friends. Of course I'd already planned to do that, but she recognized on her own that they have less and it would be nice to get them something, too. She also recognized that her sister didn't have a piggy bank like she did, and she decided that a piggy bank was the perfect Christmas gift for Becca. The girls also gave generously from their stuff animal bins for the clothing closet at church. In fact it was me that saved some of the animals from the donate pile because of my own sentimental value I'd attached to them (sniff...like the little bear I put in Bella NICU crib).
