Sleeping Beauties & Valentines

The blog got pushed to the back burner last week as I was busy helping coordinate a Rummage Sale to help raise money for the new location of Shelby's school! (They are moving to a new location this summer, which will continue to offer preschool & kindergarten with the addition of a "one room schoolhouse" to serve grades 1-3.) We raised $1,000!!!! It was a busy week, but it was a lot of fun! We had to wake the girls up SUPER early on the morning of the sale in order for us to get to the school on time to set up (it was a family affair b/c we needed Derek to help move some heavy things!), and they were so out of it! Shelby kept asking why we were awake if the sky was still black. ;)  And then once we got on the road and she saw other cars driving, she couldn't figure out why they were awake too, ha! If I ever have to wake the girls up in the mornings or from their nap, I have to take their picture--I don't know why, but I do. ;)  Here are our sleeping beauties before we woke them :) 

After the initial shock of being awoken before the sunrise, the girls had a BLAST! We started the morning with Shipley's (our favorite local doughnut shop), and then the girls had a big time getting to play at school on a Saturday with friends! :)

And if you need me this week, here's what I'll be doing.....

Shelby INSISTED that she hand write every single one of her Valentines for her classmates this year. My inital thoughts were something along the lines of "you've got to be kidding me" and "shoot me now." I tried everything to convince her that she really wanted some cute Frozen Valentines on Etsy. I even tried the angle of peer pressure & told her that I thought all of her friends would be buying their Valentines at Target. NOTHING worked. She technically only has to pass out 16 Valentines to the kids in her age group at school, but she has high hopes of making them for ALL the kids at her school along with all of her other  best friends (AKA non-school) whom she lists by name every single time we have this conversation: Adam, Grace, Alliana, & Sabrina. While handmaking this many Valentines at the age of four is definitely proving to be a long & tedious task for this Mama, it simultaneously makes my heart swell with happiness that my girl loves to write as much as she does. She is taking such pride in reading her friends' names off of the class list, making their Valenines, and proudly putting little checkmarks next to their names when she finishes. I'm also being reminded of how much of my "perfectionist" qualities have rubbed off on Shelby, much to my dismay. She's gotten frustrated quite a few times already that her hearts "don't look like hearts." When I remind her that even if the hearts are not perfect, her friends will still love them she replies: "But I want them to be perfect!" How do you teach your four year to try her best but understand that perfection isn't the goal? That's a hard lesson to learn b/c I'm pretty sure I'm still working on that myself. ;)  As exhausted as I may be by the time we finish these Valentines, I do love how sweet they look & seeing her little four year old penmanship. :)