Pierced Ears

We tried to remember when she first asked to get her ears pierced. I want to say it was as early as 4 years old. Since I had my ears pierced when I was 8 years old, I told her that she could do that, too. Back then, it had seemed like so far in the future, almost an eternity! But here we were.

Although Rosalie was nervous about it, she was so excited. We waited until all the b-day festivities ended, so that she (and I!)could focus on the piercing itself without being overwhelmed by all the other excitement.

I had heard recently that the place to go for kids' ear piercing is actually a tattoo/body piercing shop. I did some research and talked to the piercing specialist at a local tattoo shop, and I liked him. He knew his stuff. Good tattoo shops are rigorously inspected, squeaky clean, and staffed with very experienced people.

 Overall, it was a slightly urban, edgy experience. Here's Rosalie inspecting the gear sets people can buy if they want to have those really large holes in their ears.

It was a cool space! Here's our view of the front entry room from the waiting area.



One last shot of an ear without a hole!

The piercing process was more painful than Rosalie had anticipated, but she handled it like a real champ. She needed a minute before doing the second side, but bravely forged on.

...And....



Ta-dah!

This is our urban kid, now with earrings. 

We love her so.

8th Birthday

No getting around it, this weekend was over-the-top fun for our favorite B-day girl. On Friday, her birthday proper, we had a sleepover with her two best friends. It was not long before an impromptu dance party commenced. 

Dance party quickly transitioned into stuffed animal party.

 It was a dark and blurry night.

Best friend #1 gave her the book Runny Babbit and a few choice specimens from her own rock collection to add to Rosalie's rock collection.

 We brought out the black light and the highlighters.

I really think that lighting is the key to setting a party mood.

Each kid got her own sleeping area. Basically Rosalie's room turned into a giant bed.

You're not going to believe this, but these three actually got a decent amount of sleep last night! Look at how fresh they look. Miracle. 

 I just love these three together.

That would have been Rosalie's ideal birthday, right there, but I had it in my mind that it would be cool to open things up a little, and invite a ton of kids to a Pacific Science Center party. She invited her class and a few close friends. Surprisingly, most people said yes, so there was an enormous cake. It was a leopard print cake, as a nod to her love of wildcats.

Among the fun science was making glow-in-the-dark gak, and this Van de Graaf generator, that made people's hair science-y with its electrostatic field.

And then...the demonstrator made everyone ice cream with liquid nitrogen.

 So many kids!

 I had told people in the invite not to bring presents, but many people brought them anyway. Without my prompting, Rosalie said, "I know it's not going to be like this every year." And although the science center party was fun (albeit quite loud and wild-energy), her (and Michael's, and my) favorite part of things was the sleepover with two friends. I have a feeling that we'll go back to small and lower-key next year. It was cool to see what the giant party was like, though. Now we know.

Happy Birthday, Rosalie!

Christmas Season 2015

It's the night before Rosalie's 8th birthday, and I need to get all kinds of great pictures out for you to see from the Christmas holidays. They were unusually action packed with cheer, so here you go! I need to get to bed in order to do a bunch of birthday magic tomorrow (and the weekend beyond), so this is what I'm calling the quickest blog post ever. Except there are a bajillion pictures, so it can't be that quick. Anyway, in an almost chronological order, here they are: 

Rosalie's school photos came out! Check out that lovely girl.

 Rosalie with her little friend. This girl is the daughter of Rosalie's first teacher. Full circle! So amazing to hear Rosalie reading to a younger person.

That same wonderful first teacher of Rosalie's made us an advent calendar this year. We decided to fill all the pockets with activities rather than things, which made for quite a busy holiday season! Here are some of the highlights:

We did the walk of lights at Greenlake (though it was so windy that lots of the candles blew out, but it was still magical because it was windy and dark on the lake. And we finally did find some candles still lit.

We went to the gingerbread village downtown, but this year the theme was star wars! Here's Ro and her bestie next to The Death Star.

This trip was fun, but the real highlight seemed to be the hot chocolate and candy canes.


We visited Swanson's to see the reindeer and camel and toy train set. While I didn't get a shot of the animals, Rosalie and her buddy wanted shots of themselves in the sleighs.

 We saw the Nutcracker again this year, but this time had new choreography, set, and costumes. It was interesting to see the changes! Rosalie brought a special guest with her. Kitty wore a fashionable combo of pipe cleaner tiara and collar. Very fancy.

 Giant tree with giant baubles. Seriously, larger than her head!

We came down to the Armory at Seattle Center to visit Rosalie's art for the Reflections Art Contest, which was on display until the awards ceremony. While we were there we saw the winter wonderland train set that they always set up there. Always a favorite! I don't know what the connection is between trains and Christmas, but it's definitely there. And I do like it. Anyway, here is the O-bligatory armory shot. I wonder how many of these I have of her in this giant doughnut?

 We did gingerbread house making at Ballard Community Center. Honestly, that was simply awesome. They provided all the materials, and we just showed up. No mess to clean up for me! Heaven. Plus, we each got to build our own house, which was fun for both of us. Rosalie said it was her best gingerbread experience of her life, because she could do whatever she wanted to do (no fussy kit telling you what to do, and no Mommy there putting in her 2 cents, also, because Mommy is doing her own house). It's hard to tell in the pic, but this house is meant to be a shelter for cats (complete with cat toys).  I love this kid's inventive and also nurturing spirit!

 Some evenings were just enjoyed doing snuggly things, like making a nest for a baby owl.

Or attending a birthday party with a friend.

 Speaking of Rosalie's inventive spirit a few pix back, it continues to grow. Uses for her backpack strap, idea #1: Umbrella holder!

 Uses for backpack strap Idea #2: carrying harness for adorable little animals!

 Rosalie's also getting quite adept at cleaning up. Her arts and crafts area, which we appropriately call "Rosalie Land," can get a little out of control with all the creativity. But periodically we sit and sort everything into their labeled boxes, and she gets more and more adept at doing it herself. I can almost hear the gears whirring as she makes those organizing decisions. Very cool. Here's a before and after shot (she requested this). I did it one other time to show her what a difference the cleaning makes, to motivate her to want to do it again next time. So I guess that's a good thing to do, because she seems to like doing it more and more each time. Perhaps I'm only hopefully thinking, but let's just leave me in my bubble of optimism! I do believe it's true.

Before:


After:

Ahhhhh....order.

As I mentioned earlier, Rosalie's art made it to the next round in the Reflections Art contest again this year, and this year her work is going to State! Wow! Here she is shaking the hand of the school superintendent. This is not a look of unhappiness. She is gravely serious, but thrilled. She couldn't wait to go up on the stage and receive the award! She was very proud. Obviously, we are proud of her, too!!!

 

Here's her beautiful piece. It's hard to see it on such small scale. When we get it back, I'll take a couple closer shots of the details. The theme this year was "Let Your Imagination Fly," and so that's her imagination up there in the upper left hand corner, flying. Fairies are watching from below. 

 Several other kids from her school made it to the finals at the city level. Here's that fun, creative crew!

I know I'm prejudiced, but this kid's smile is like 1000 megawatt.

 We chose Rosalie's name for many reasons, including how relatively easy it would be to spell. Never mind.

 Christmas was low key but wonderful this year. The big present of the year was a unicycle. I wrapped a box within a box within a box within a box within a box, which housed a note telling her to check in the guest room closet.

 This is her cracking up and opening the last box. She'd never been part of that gift box ruse before. She was satisfyingly surprised and tickled by the silliness of it all.

And of course when she looked in the closet, she was completely surprised! She had no idea we were going to do this unicycle thing.

 All those months of practice in the summer and the fall paid off. This kid is quite an awesome unicyclist! We walked (she rode) to the park and she showed off her mad skills.

Way to go, kid!

Whew! Those are the major highlights from the Christmas season. Our New Years Eve was super low key. We went to the Wildlights light display at the zoo (apparently many other families thought of this, but it wasn't too bad), and then had dinner together at home. It was cozy and good.

Anyway, stay tuned for Rosalie's birthday extravaganza. Lots of fun coming up!