addy catch up & a tangent

it is so nice to have an extra set of loving arms around to help with this little guy. addison has been such an amazing big sister... i'm so grateful for her:)

we recently went to New Beginnings which is a night to introduce the Young Womens Program to the new twelve year olds coming up. the theme this year is about courage so that evening they used the motto "GOT COURAGE?" (like, got milk)... the leaders are awesome and all the girls are so sweet and welcoming. Addy is the youngest in her group of friends, but will luckily get to go to girls camp this summer.

man i feel old.

after christmas her cousin stayed with us for a week,

& addy had a little taste of what it's like to have a sister.

they are only days apart in age and are great friends.

girls lunch date

&

blind make-overs

our school district has a great program called DARE- Drug Abuse Resistance Education, and it's put on by the local police department. at the dare graduation the sixth graders sang "ain't no moutain high enough"... it was really presh. i had a mother panic when the kids walked on stage and i noticed that all her friends had pulled their tshirts back in a very cool manner with a rubber band... i guess so they wouldn't look so frumpy. addy didn't do this with hers, but when i saw her walk on, she too had her shirt fixed. apparently a sweet girl backstage offered her a hairband so she could look like the rest of them. this got me thinking about how funny us girls are. whether you're pegging your jeans like we use to, or jimmy rigging your tshirt to look more hip, you never can tell what the trend is going to be. addy is in the same predicament i was in growing up as the oldest with no older sister to follow. i was always the last to find out about what was cool. in fact, i remember being totally stressed because i didn't know the order of the levels in high school (freshman, sophomore, etc.) all my friends would refer to them and i had to think hard not to mess up the order.

here comes more randomness...

i have had conversations with addy about individuality and the importance of self worth. i've tried to teach her to be her own person and not get too caught up in following the crowd. to illustrate this i told her about when i was in junior high in salt lake and everyone was wearing girbaud jeans... the ones with the little white label across the zipper area. our family of ten was spread a little thin in the money area, and even though we always dressed nicely, my mother did not indulge us in buying name brands. i wanted a pair of these jeans so bad, "everyone" had a pair or two or five, and i felt so left out. we were planning to move to oregon after i finished seventh grade and before i left, my friends all chipped in their own money and presented me with my very own pair of girbaud shorts. i was elated and planned on wearing them on the first day at my new school hoping they would give me some ease in fitting into a new place. on that first day of school i confidently walked into the school in my cute outfit and looked around to realize that not one person was wearing the zipper tagged jeans. i was crushed to find that this must have been a "utah thing" and not an "oregon thing". it was a humbling lesson that i should not get so worked up in what the trends are and not be a follower. so... after the dare graduation, addy and i had a chat about the mcgyvering of the tshirts and how that came about. this led to her sharing a story about her friends days before... she was with a group of girls and they were discussing "how cute" a certain pair of jeans are and how "my sister has like seven pairs... they are so cool...bla bla bla.... i'm totally going to get some... bla bla bla..." and addy said to them "you guys, can you hear yourselves? these are jeans you're talking about. who cares." she was so proud of herself that she could see past the silliness of the expensive fad and stand up to the girls, and she said that my story about the girbauds came to her mind and taught her that it doesn't matter what you wear...

and then she asked me for a shopping spree to Hollister.

the end.

just kidding.

i actually think this will be a life long learning experience... i also think it's okay to follow fads if it's something you genuinely like, but there is no reason to follow just for the sake of following. i have encountered some resistence to my thrift store shopping habits from some of my kids, and maybe they're skeptical because i've brought home a few things that weren't realized to be unwearable until closer inspection... but that's another story.

now,

after this big speech about individuality and frugality, don't judge me if you see me sporting a marc jacobs handbag (fat chance) or if addy is frolicing about in some designer jeans... chances are, we stole them off of a passed out drunk person who didn't graduate from D.A.R.E. and learn the words to "ain't no mountain high enough".