The Royals

I have to admit I am smitten with the new princess and Prince William. I even watched an infomercial that was selling replicas of the OFFICIAL engagement ring. Just $19.95 and I could've had one. But then you throw in the whole "international shipping" and well, I had to forget it. But it would've been fun. I know I'm not the only one into them. I mean, look at the wedding coverage they had. There is something so fun about the idea of them in a world with so much drama and bad stuff. It is like a bit of a fairy tale (although I know they are real people with real problems--I mean hello, look at his loser dad and they did live together BEFORE getting married but still work with me here). I think I'm extra into the whole thing because it makes me think of a special lady I knew when I was younger. Her name was Margaret Morrish. She was from England and lived near us in California where I grew up. Her husband and sons had all died in the war and she was left living alone with no real family to speak of.. At least once a month on Saturdays, our whole family would go to her house and do yard work. Then when we were done, Sis. Morrish would give us some sort of treat from those yummy tin cookies (she called them "biscuits") to those rare and super exciting occasions when we'd eat Klondike bars. We didn't always love going over there and we didn't always love all the work we did but looking back, helping her out taught me a lot of important lessons. I remember when I was in high school and I was in charge of the front "yard" (which was mostly rocks with weeds) and I was the one to plant all the impatiens underneath her front windows. I learned about planning a garden and executing it--at least when no worms were out.

Sister Morrish was English through and through and in her "sitting room", she had all kinds of English memorabilia like plates of the Queen, special tea cups of Princess Diana, flags, pictures of land marks, etc. She loved Princess Di. Fun side note, they got married pretty much on my birthday (with the time change). I remember Sis. Morrish telling me how cool that was and how I'd remember that fact forever. Walking into that room was like you were in England (I assume). Anyway, with all this happening with Kate and William, I've been thinking a lot about Sister Morrish because she would totally be into all this story and she would probably have ordered a commemorative plate like this to put in the room.

In honor of the big wedding day, I decided we needed to do something royal and something memorable so we had our own royal activity. The first thing I did was get Chloe out of school early. I got her just as the other kids were going down for a nap. I had no reason to check her out. No appointments or "excuse" but I just decided that she needed some time with me, just me. So she came home and I asked her if she wanted to go out and have a date (since Greg finished school early) or if she wanted to help me make a cake and do some yard work. She chose he latter. She was just excited to have some pure, dedicated time with me. I loved it and yet it made me feel horrible for how often she is ignored because she is older. Anyway, after the little kids woke up, we got ready for dinner. Then we had a Royal Tea Party Dinner. We all dressed up and then during dinner [which was just little finger foods and tea (country time lemonade)], we used all the royal terms like, "sire, sir, madam, miss, my lady, etc." The girls LOVED, LOVED, LOVED IT! In fact, Tati wanted to do it all again the next day. The King and Queen especially enjoyed threatening with the dungeon and other horrible things for royal princesses who didn't finish dinner and other things into bed time. It was great. It was fun. It was memorable.

Here is Princess #1. She's like Harry. Since she isn't the first born, she is a lot more wild and crazy.


And here is Princess #2.

And of course our little Prince. (Poor guy, apparently I am always doing the crotch hold with this one. He's just so squirrely.)

And here's our whole royal family.

The princesses had a sleepover afterward and were begging us to let the prince sleep with them too. They sure are a cute little kingdom!