One Busy Weekend and It's Not Over Yet

We have had one REALLY busy weekend. Bryon left at noon on Friday to go to the Eleven Point river for a guys fishing weekend. I wanted to take the day off to make up for working all day last Saturday but Grace had her St. Jude's Trike-A-Thon at school and was excited to participate again this year. The past 2 years she rode her Dora battery powered four wheeler but this year got to take her real bike (still with training wheels of course). She rode 37 laps around the parking lot and got her Trike License along with 6 stickers on her shirt. She was pretty proud and I was pretty impressed. I'm not sure I could have ridden that many laps at this point.

I went ahead into work for the ridiculously long Friday morning production meeting and then back to Marshfield to pick her up early from school. She has been asking to visit our workplaces so I figured this would be a good opportunity and the girl needed some clothes in a bad, starting to look homeless sort of way. We went to Bryon's work first and she performed her cheers on request for EVERYONE. She was really hamming it up! Everyone asked about her blonde hair and where it came from and we had to remind them Bryon did indeed have hair at one time and yes it was blonde :)

At my work she got rewarded for her performances with candy which was pretty much the start to a long weekend of junkfood and eating out. We ate lunch at McDonalds and I let her play in the indoor play place for a few minutes. Next it was off shopping for shirts, shoes and socks. All her little shirts are riding up her belly so I was on a mission. We went to Kohls, Gordmans, ToysRUs, Shoe Carnival, Pennys, Sears, Children's Place, Striderite and Steve & Barry's before there was just no more talking her into trying ANYTHING on!

The icing on the Grace Cake for the day was the grand finale...her friend Mattie's 4th birthday party at Chuck E Cheeses. Somehow we had successfully avoided Chuck E's for FOUR years but the streak was broken last night. She loved it. They ALL loved it. I, not so much but I took one for the team and she left with the everlasting memory of playing with her two best girlfriends at Chuck E Cheese's.

This morning we went to Freda's for breakfast because TODAY she had her last game of flag foot ball to cheer for the Cowboys in Marshfield. They got to play and cheer at the big high school stadium complete with halftime show and help from the Marshfield High Cheer Squad. She was pretty hot stuff. We got there two hours early because of miscommunication so we stopped to rent some movies and killed some time and of course money at Wal-Mart. This was the first time I let her pick out her own movies to rent at Movie Gallery and instead of picking some sweet little Strawberry Shortcake flick she picks out Batman vs. Dracula, the Justice League and Leroy and Stitch (yes I know it's Lilo, but I swear it said Leroy). I picked out Mr. Magorium's Wonder Imporium for her too. Her little friend Andrew at school is all about the Superhero's and she knows the main ones so I figured it was his influence that lead to the pics. Well let me tell you Batman vs. Dracula was horrible! I was folding clothes in the bedroom while she was watching it in there with me and I let her watch about 5 minutes of it before I was so horrified I popped it out. I kept asking her if she thought it was scary and she kept saying no, but it was AWFUL. It was bloody and creepy and I'm pretty sure I WILL have nightmares from it. Hopefully she's tougher than I am. After I popped it out she admitted it was pretty scary. We tried the Justice League next and it wasn't as bad but I'm just pretty sure those movies aren't intended for 4 year old girls. It lasted about 3 minutes and she asked to pop it out too. No problem.Those two are going back tomorrow. That Batman movie does NOT need to be in the kids section. We did end on a good note with Mr. Magorium. It was great. We watched the whole thing together. She was pretty happy girl sitting on the couch cuddled up watching a Saturday night movie together.

Tomorrow...oops it's already tomorrow, we are going to church, lunch and then back to church for the "Fall Party" which is church speak for the Halloween Party. She'll wear her chicken costume and kickoff the return of candy season.

Life has got to be pretty good for a four year old.