Princess Tomboy

My little Nell has definitely stolen a place deep inside my heart, and I think she's got an even deeper spot inside her Daddy's heart! I have loved having so much one on one time with her while Reid is at school and Coraline is napping. 

We're currently reading Little House in the Big Woods together. You'll notice on her birthday interview she said her favorite place to go is Target -- we do a lot of shopping (with Coraline) together as well. I let both her and Reid pick out (most) of their fall wardrobes this year and I just love Nell's style. She wants the girly butterfly stuff and anything with Dinosaurs. That's the perfect balance to describe her personality. 

She is pretty Dinosaur obsessed right now. Her favorite show is Dinosaur Train and she'd watch Land Before Time every day if I let her. 

The other thing I love about Nell is that she doesn't hesitate to get mud and grass stains all over those girly-girl clothes of hers. I don't love it come wash time, but I'm grateful for a little girl who loves pink and dresses and dirt and mud.

This picture hardly does her usual mud stains any justice.

The first Sunday of the month was gorgeous. The kids were running around the driveway and front yard, Ben was inside napping, and I sat comfortably on a chair near the garage. I was reading through news headlines and keeping one ear on the kids. I heard them say something about their potion being stinky and I even heard Reid say something like "It's because of the frog you put in here Little Witch." What great imaginations they have! I thought as I continued to carelessly scroll through the internet.

Then suddenly Nell was standing right next to me, waving a very bloated dead toad in my face. I about died! "This was the problem mom!" She exclaimed as I jumped about three feet in the air. Sensing she'd done something wrong she quickly ran it back to the bucket and dropped it in.

After a series of questions (the toad was dead when Nell put him in and he'd been in there since Thursday), I just had to let out a big laugh. I begged Nell to let me get a picture of her holding it out like she had when she first showed it to me, but my reaction had her pretty convinced playing with a dead toad maybe wasn't super acceptable behavior. I still got a couple cute shots of my sweet Halloween obsessed kids. All their imaginative play has been layered in Halloween goodness and they often refer to each other as Fearsome (the Wherewolf) and Little Witch.

After enough chiding from Reid, Nell finally decided it was time for "quality coloring" and she magically started staying in the lines without hardly any trouble. She even wrote her name all by herself one day. She had never really asked me how or even practiced tracing it. She had simply seen it enough times that she figured it out all on her own. Coraline was sleeping and I was in my room doing something when Nell barged in to show me her Tinkerbell coloring. Emotionally, it moved me. She had colored so well and had proudly written her name in the top corner. I couldn't believe my crazy scribbler had magically transformed into such a wonderful preschool artist. This was one piece of artwork I actually had a hard time throwing away, so we had to take a couple of pictures of it first, of course. 

This is another one of her recent colorings that I was really impressed with. The scribbles are Coraline's.

Nell is also quite the story teller. She loves to just sit on the couch with a book in her lap and read the whole story to and by herself. She accurately reads several of our library Halloween books after just a week of having them on our shelves. Below, there is a cute clip of her narrating her treacherous walk across a shakey bridge at Little Farmer. I think she was telling Daddy all about the adventure she was having. 

I sure love my little Tomboy Princess and I'm so glad she's our first little girl. She plays so well with Reid and will be such a good example for her two little sisters. I often call her the perfect middle child, and that's as appropriate as Tomboy Princess. Love this girl!