girls have fun while Ben is away - part 1

It was the last few days of summer vacation, and I was looking to spend some quality time with Alicia. She has been wonderful with Ben all summer and really never complains about the time I devoting to Ben, while often putting her needs second. You know, it's the "wait a minute Alicia, while I get Ben off the couch," "just a second, Alicia, I can't help you until I change Ben's diaper" or the "Ben leave Alicia and her toys alone" or the "just let Alicia read her book and stop climbing on her" and the list could go on and on... Needless to say, Alicia and I needed a Ben-cation. So we made arrangements for the last few days before Alicia started first grade this year, to send Ben to a local daycare for a few days.

Ben is off to "school" as Alicia was calling it. The first real all-day daycare experience for Ben. The teachers there said Ben did great for being a first-timer there. They claimed that he was their best cleaner-upper and organizer in the room. Yeah, Ben!

Ben off to daycare, puppy in one hand and water bottle in the other. Yeah. he acts way to old some days for an 18 month old. 

While Ben was off to daycare for a few days, Alicia and I had been talking about projects and activities she'd like to do by herself with the needed all-mine-mommy time! We had shopping, swimming, arts and crafts, and pampering time all on the schedule.

Alicia-  "Paint! Look what I found, I want to do a painting project!"  So that was one of our first big projects one afternoon, as during our shopping trip, Alicia found a kit she REALLY wanted. And of course, mommy couldn't say no.. so Alicia got stuff to make a birdhouse.

She did great putting the kit together actually, and a house quickly took shape. She glued, assembled, and built a pretty cool birdie house to hang outside on the deck. Then to finish it off, was a spectacular paint job. The writing on the house was pretty tricky, so Alicia told me what to write/paint exactly on the house.