You're the best mom ever!

Allie tells me every night when we snuggle up for bed, "You're the best mom ever."  It makes me smile and feel good.

Right now Allie is into coloring, drawing and painting.  We are rapidly going through printer paper printing out coloring sheets from the internet.  When we go to the Y, she proudly brings me between three and eight papers she colored while we were working out.  Markers are her preferred medium, but she forgets to put the caps back on and they dry out.  She enjoys watercolors as well.  I have some artist grade water colors I bought when I decided I wanted to learn how to paint.  That was short-lived, but the girls love using them, mixing their own colors, and they are easy to get out and clean up (as long as I keep the tubes away from them).   She has also started drawing recognizable shapes and people.  I like watching her discuss all the details of the picture while she is creating it.  She's started writing some letters too.  One day she had a paper and she says, "A for Allie", and then proceeds to write an A, but the tops didn't quite get connected, and she looked kind of confused then says, "that's an H."

She is still into computer games as well-on the Nook, the iTouch, and the computer.  She can't use the mouse on the computer so she has to convince me, Selena or Floyd to do them for her, but she is a master at the touch devices.

Her and Selena seem to be getting along better.  I think Allie is grasping Selena's imaginative play better and is more willing to play the roles Selena assigns, or offer up alternatives.  A few months ago she just seemed to cry if Selena told her to do something she didn't want to, or she'd ignore Selena and somehow "ruin" Selena's game, which made Selena cry.   There is still plenty of fighting and peskiness between the two, but there also seems to be longer periods of playing happily.  :)

Allie is a great eater.  She cheers when I make soup and begs to eat more eggs in the morning.

The sun came out today (amazing!)  and she says, "It's so beautiful."  I laughed and she says, "Don't laugh.  I just said it's beautiful."  I told her I agreed with her and I was laughing because what she said made me happy.

I had a first recently.  It was the first time I had to deal with a child who cut their own hair.  Allie decided to feather her bangs.  Fortunately she left enough that it did sort of blend in.  Her hair is kind of all over the place anyway.  Oh well.

 Allie drew this picture of me.  Then she asked Selena to help, so Selena drew the small head and smiley face. But I think Allie's original intent, based on what she described to me while she was drawing, was that the big circle is my head and the line across it is my mouth.