Aaron and I have made it a goal to go on one-on-one dates with each of our kids, and with Paisley’s due date quickly approaching, we decided this was a wonderful opportunity for us to love on the girls in a unique way before Little Sister comes and our attention is slightly redirected for a few weeks.
On Friday (8.30.19), Aaron took Emmaline and I took Rylie on a special date. Our heart was to do things that reflected the girls’ current interests and loves. Here is what each of us did with our big girls.
Aaron + Emmaline
Aaron started off his date at Cracker Barrel and shared a breakfast plate with Emmaline. She devoured the grits and thoroughly enjoyed her breakfast.
From there, they drove to the Outlet Mall where they went to Emmaline’s favorite kind of establishment – a shoe store. Emmaline absolutely loved it and scored a few pairs of new shoes!
Emmaline and Aaron attracted lots of attention with their cuteness and a handful of people commented how sweet their interaction and relationship was.
After a nap in the car on the drive home, Aaron and Emmaline spent the remainder of their date hanging out at home.
Sarah + Rylie
Our date started early because Rylie was apparently so excited for the day that she woke up extra early. We watched Daniel Tiger and cuddled while we ate our smoothies for breakfast.
Once our date had officially begun, I took Rylie to her favorite restaurant, Chick-A-Fil-A (as she calls it <3 ). She was way more interested in playing on the play-toy than eating breakfast, and since it was her day, I decided not to press the matter and we enjoyed the leftovers a couple days later.
I decided to try something new with Rylie on this date – I took her to a kids salon to get a manicure. She’s always interested in other’s painted nails and with Paisley’s baby shower the next morning, I thought it would be a special treat. She got to pick her color and did a phenomenal job staying still while her nails got painted and dried. She could not stop talking about it afterwards and loved showing everyone her new nails 🙂
We walked a couple stores down to Claire’s where I let her pick out a few things that caught her interest (within reason of course 😛 ). She loved carrying around her little basket and looking at things on the shelves while occasionally picking things up and placing them in her basket.
My 2-1/2-year-old decided on:
- a panda bear sunglasses case
- a key chain
- 2 sets of bows
- a hairbrush
After I paid, we got back in the car and headed home where we greeted Daddy and Emmaline and swapped stories of our adventures.
Family Day
Each of the girls has a stuffed animal from Build-A-Bear that we use for their monthly update photos. Rylie’s is a monkey named Link and Emmaline’s is a bear named Koda. To continue the tradition, it was on our list to get a stuffed animal for Paisley as well. Since she has two older sisters that are toddlers, we thought it would be special to let them build the bear for her.
On Wednesday (9.18.19), we took our family day and headed to the mall so we could build a new furry friend for our Baby Girl.
Rylie and Emmaline really enjoyed the process and loved picking out a heart to kiss and put in the elephant.
We decided to name the elephant “Tantor” from Tarzan.
To wrap it all up, Aaron and I absolutely loved our one-on-one dates with the girls and are excited to continue doing them in the future – even as our family grows and we’re no longer man-to-man. 😉