Fairy Princess and Little Chef

For the past 8 weeks, Maddie has been earning money for being a good listener.  Why 8 weeks?  Because it has taken her that long to save up her coins for a special treasure.  She has had her eye on a "princess pack" at a local store in town, which includes a tiara, wand, earrings, necklace, bracelets and shoes.  This particular store is great because it is cheap - the whole "pack" is only 3.99.  On Saturday, the anticipated day had arrived when we informed Maddie that she had finally reached her 3.99 goal and she could purchase the treasure she had been dreaming about!  It was a wonderful moment for all.  Wonderful, that is, until about 15 minutes after her play had begun, when various pieces of the incredibly cheap "treasures" began to break off and fall apart.  No joke; by the end of the day, the only things still in tact were the shoes (which are too small), one earring and two bracelets.  In other words, you get what you pay for.  Now, we typically aren't parents who would feel badly about cheap toys busting, but Maddie had worked so hard to earn the money for these treasures.  We were fast to tell her that we would get her a new set of dress up items this week, from a different store, because she had earned that reward and we wanted her to benefit from her hard work.

Today, the kids and I found the perfect replacement treasures (yes, Geoffrey scored on this outing as well...I couldn't help myself, and they aren't at the age, yet, where Maddie would recognize and call-me-out on buying a toy for Geoffrey, even if he hadn't "earned money" for it).

The hat was his personal touch; completely unprompted. :)  Geoffrey's new treasure was some play food.

Chef Specialty: ketchup covered ice-cream.

:) Little Chef.

Ketchup goes good with everything in this kitchen!

Fairy Princess Maddie.  (The Rapunzel shirt is not a part of the dress - just perfectly coincidental).  Her new treasures included this pretty skirt, wings, a wand and some extra sassy shoes.

She was so happy with her new treasures, and exclaimed, "Thank you, Mommy, for getting me toys that aren't broken!"

Little bit of sass, to go along with the sassy new princess shoes.

Little Chef and Fairy Princess make my heart swell.  I love these two!