Looking Forward to a Weekend

This has seemed like a crazy busy week. I am not sure exactly how it slipped through my fingers, but I think I will be on top of the weekend since it is starting early for us this time. We have friends in from out of town, and this visit is extra special because our girls are (finally!) old enough to play together.

Emma and Liv are 4 and 6 (almost 7!) and Emma and Madee had a ball cutting loose in the Mexican restaurant we went to last night. (I doubt you'd ever find yourself in Duluth, but if you do, and find yourself also in need of some consistently delicious Mexican food or yummy margs, Maya has yet to disappoint me. They don't even have a website for me to direct you to. They are that good.)

Anyhoo, after Mexico we came back to our house, and I set the girls up in the bedroom with Madee's table and chairs, stickers, dress ups, Beauty and the Beast and lots of popcorn and Madee hosted her first girly party. Eden crashed the party several times and actually was so happy to just hang around with the other girls and giggle and scream. Madee was in heaven showing off her things and sharing her treasures and learning new things from older girls.

She is so good at sharing, thanks to her sister;)

Madee's favorite movie right now is Beauty and the Beast and she and Olivia have that in common. At some point, I walked in and Olivia was talking to Madee like she was another 6 year old, "I have the Beauty and the Beast video game and I have to save the princess and ..." and Madee was just just sitting at her little table sipping her open glass of water cramming popcorn in her pie hole and listening so intently like she even knows what a video game is.


It kills me to watch Madee do these things.

She is growing up so fast right now and I think the biggest thing that floors me is how she has begun remembering things. She saw our upstairs neighbor, who we don't see often, and was all, "Hey Brian" last time we were pulling out and he was pulling into the driveway.

Of course she has been remembering things for a while, especially considering the things she labels and commits to memory and remembers what they are called, but now she is remembering in a different way - associating, relating and tucking memories away in her heart. The smell of my perfume when she plays dress up with my scarf, the sound of the dogs barking every time someone comes over, the taste of my cooking, the tickles and snuggles, her times playing and laughing and learning with friends, the way she feels when she is watching a movie and it really resonates with something she is feeling/thinking/doing, the words of a song that she will one day sing to her own kids.

It is a highlight of my life to create and share and document and revel in these memories with her - with both of them. They are such amazing little creatures and such intriguing little companions and I am lucky to be able to include them in my life's journey.

I mean, I thought life was colorful before, but now it is vibrant and sparkly and shiny and glossy and even if it seems pretty hectic all the time, it has never been more fun or more fulfilling.

Lucky me!
Have a killer weekend with your own friends and family. Tell us what you are doing to make vibrant memories of your own!