A belly full of all sorts of things

Part of having children, I realize, is having a bake sale during the day when you know that in this small town there is no way we would ever get any customers down our non-busy street.  Of course what kind of mother would I be to give the girls the bad news.

They waited, and waited, and waited. Finally Grace's grampy bought one and they could not have been happier to have a customer. In usual Piper fashion she jumped up and down on her chair yelling "customer, customer" with Charly running toward me shaking her little money box that she made out of a shoebox. Even though they only had four customers in a couple of hours you could tell it was such a joy for them and already they are asking when they can do it again.  Charly did such a great job with the sign and making the pops. A very proud moment for her indeed.

The past week we have had the pleasure of crazy rains as well, in between the rain breaks the gals throw on their rain boots and go back and forth from mud pies to washing off in the puddles. I used to love making mud pies when I was a kid, not my kids, they much prefer to slather it on each other and have mud fights! So fun to watch Piper and Charly chase after each other with muddy hands all the while growling and giggling at each other.

The past couple of weeks Charly has spent a lot of time with Grace who lives a couple of houses down. She is a sweet little girl and carries Piper EVERYWHERE. Of course Miss P just loves that!

In other news, this past week I have gotten half of what we need done before the baby is born and it was a big task. Two days and lots of hot water later I stripped old and washed new diapers to get them ready for little W's butt. How cute are these?

The girls who are holding them are pretty darling too....

The other half of preparation needs to be done sometime in the next month. As soon as I figure a few things out I will place the order for the car seat. I know what everyone is thinking..."What if this baby is a boy?" First of all I'm pretty sure it's not(not because I know the sex but because I bet Nate is destined to have nothing but girls...he could SO handle it), LOL and second, he will never care if he has to wear some pink clothes for a few days. Experience has shown me that my mom simply can't go a day without providing clothes for a new baby. She did it for Charly and for Piper. It is a problem she is dealing with and I don't expect her to be recovered by December. LOL

 So to ease your worries...our baby will be clothed.

 Onto other news Charly started a new dance class this week. Belly dancing.  I had thoughts going into it that it could go one of two ways, which I am sure I don't need to explain. When we got there Wednesday the two teachers were dressed in typical belly dancing attire (sports top with yoga pants) and a little girl who was about 12 wearing a bra and pants. Not a sports bra, but a bra. I could tell Charly was REALLY uncomfortable with the whole modesty issue and she did not want to participate at all. I decided we should leave and told the instructor that possibly we would come back next week and Charly would want to try it out. Fortunately for Charly right at the time we were about to leave a little girl dressed a bit more modest showed up to dance. She must have been about five and as soon as Charly saw her she decided it would be OK.  Charly was like a little fish in water with dancing once she tried it. After seeing her face smiling and having fun shaking her little coin skirt I was so excited for her that she gave it a try.

 We of course had the modesty talk when we got home and Nate and I talked to her about belly dancing itself is not something immodest but there are girls who choose not to dress the way we would dress ourselves and that's OK. Perhaps Charly will be an example that you don't have to show your belly to enjoy dancing. I'm really glad that she felt comfortable enough to tell me what was bothering her and  I'm really glad she ended up giving it a chance. She really loved it!

What was even cooler about the class was that most of the kids who are in the class, including the instructors children are homeschooled. It always thrills me to find people in that circle. I sort of guessed I might find some hippy dippy people in a youth belly dancing class. The reason I chose this instead of tap/ballet was a lot financial and a little wanting to do something with more of a different cultural influence.

 I want for our kids not to be afraid to do things that are different or not expected. I hope we succeed.