A Date Night With Our Oldest

     My husband and I decided it would be nice to take our oldest, Ashley, on a "date night".  Just us.  We left Lilly at home with the babysitter.  The night was all about Ashley, and she loved it!

     We started by going to a play downtown put on by Stages.  All the actors/actresses in this company are children.  This weekend, they were putting on a play called "Seussical."  Ashley has recently done a week on Dr. Seuss books in school.  She loves them so much, mainly because they are early reader books and she is able to read quite a bit by this author.  Anytime she saw the sign on the streets for this upcoming play, she would shout "I see the Cat in the Hat, hat!"  I knew she would be excited to go see this!

     Ashley put on her pretty dress, and was super excited to spend time alone with Mommy and Daddy.  During the whole play, if she wasn't sitting on my husbands lap, or mine, she was standing between us.  She did not want to sit down for a second!  All during it she kept whispering to us "I know this story, I've read the book."  The play was great, real cute.  They even had my husband and myself laughing at parts.  We almost didn't even notice that some of the children were completely off key when singing.  To me, that didn't matter.  What I thought was great, was how brave these kids were to go out on stage and sing in front of large crowds!  Good for them!

     After the play, we walked to a restaurant in downtown Bloomington.  We went to a pizza place that is well known in town, although we have never been there.  When the waitress came over at the end and asked if we wanted dessert, I said, "No thank you."  She walked away and Ashley said, "Mommy this is my night!  Let's get dessert!"  LOL  Of course I couldn't say no to that so we ended up getting a piece of chocolate cake, and split it between the three of us, (shhhh, don't tell my diet!)

     I had such a good time hanging out with her.  Usually, Lilly is with us and since she's a toddler, takes a lot of our attention.   This time, Ashley got all of our attention.  And she loved it!  She's getting so big, and growing older by the day.  I know I'm going to miss these days, so it's important that we take time and have some Ashley time.  She needs it, and so do we.  The whole time we were out she was smiling.  The biggest, happiest smile, plastered across her face.  I can't wait to do this again with her.

     She ended the night in perfect Ashley style.  While walking to the parking garage, downtown, Ashley is giggling, almost uncontrollably.  Then my classy little lady SHOUTS:

 "I fart a lot when I laugh!."

Nice, Ashley.  Real nice!