Mixing it up

In case you didn't pick it up from my sappy birthday letter in the previous post, Elizabeth rarely plays with her toys the way they were intended. Instead, she chooses to use them as props in her endless imagination games.

Today, because she was still feeling bad and we wanted a distraction for her, we let her open her birthday present from Aunt Amy. It was a really neat set of plastic pieces that could be used to make all sorts of jewelry. Elizabeth was so excited with her new present, and even said, "This is exactly what I wanted!"

I asked her if she wanted to make some jewelry with her new present. But, no, she had other ideas. First she wanted a spoon and a bowl so she could use her new "cake mix" to bake a strawberry cake:



After we had our fill of cake (including licking a lot of pretend icing off the spoon), Elizabeth discovered that some of the jewelry pieces looked like keys, so I spent a while pretending to be locked in my bedroom while Elizabeth came and rescued me.



Later, she asked me to help her put a bunch of the jewelry pieces together in a circle. After we were done, I asked her if she wanted to wear her necklace, which is when she informed me that it was not a necklace, it was a swimming pool! Then, we spent a while letting the rest of the beads go swimming. We even had lifeguard beads that made sure the kids didn't run around the pool and blew their whistles for adult swim.



So, Aunt Amy - the good news is that she loves her present. But, I hope you weren't expecting her to make you a necklace out of them when you come to visit!