A Night of Firsts {Week of Dates}

While the guys were enjoying the baseball game the girl's had a girl's night out. We started the evening with a walk around the neighborhood at Nora's (not Sawyer's) pace. We had Nora's favorite pasta for dinner.

As I was cleaning up dinner Nora got into my jewelry bag and proceeded to put on everything she could. And that's when I came up with an idea...Nora loves jewelry but mama doesn't appreciate her tearing up her jewelry so I decided it's time for Nora to have some of her own jewelry.

in momma's jewelry

Kyle drove the van to the baseball game so Nora and I took a ride in Flash (this was actually probably her favorite part of the evening :) We went to the mall and had frozen yogurt for dessert then we went to several stores in search of age appropriate and inexpensive jewelry. My original thought was to visit Claire's, but I hadn't been there in at least 15 years and they appear to have changed their product to focus on an adult client. So we ventured on and finally found Children's Place where we discovered kids jewelry and it was on clearance.

Nora picked out a purple necklace and bracelet set. She fell in love immediately and as we walked around the mall she showed off her jewels to everyone passing by. It's crazy to me how different girls are from boys. First of all I would have never taken Sawyer to a mall without (or with for that matter) a stroller at Nora's age. He would have been EVERYWHERE! Nora stayed by my side and held my hand most of the time. Every once in awhile she would stray away to check out a piece of clothing she admired but then she would come back to show it to me. And several times I heard "get it for me?" Can a 1 year old really like to shop?

Her new jewels even matched her dress

After perusing the mall we headed home to get in our pj's and paint our nails. This was Nora's 1st time to have her toenails painted and she was very excited. She picked the hot pink polish and patiently sat while I painted her nails. However, she was not so patient after the polish was applied. I had to turn on Veggietales so she would sit and let it dry.

checking out her pink toenails

when did she get so big?

As the evening wound down I read Nora a few books (her favorite past time) then she spotted the iPad. And I let her play until bedtime because she never gets to play on the iPad by herself because of her technology loving brother.

playing on the iPad

We both had lots of fun and I think it was a pretty successful evening full of firsts (jewelry, painting toenails and playing independently on the iPad). I can't wait for many more mommy/daughter dates in the years to come!