what an imagination!

it is amazing what a little imagination can do for a little one. we had quite a time laughing at this situation ourselves. we had been to the mall of the great plains in olathe, kansas, shopping for the day. after painting for a while at clay cafe, all the kids were tired and needed naps. (so did some of the adults!)

summer and lucas weren't done painting yet, and they had chosen some really nice old world santas to paint, so we brought the girls back to the hotel w/ us for a while. riahna went to sleep just fine, but raven wanted to play for a while. we didn't have any toys w/ us for either of the kids and their own things were down in their own room. we probably could've gone down there and gotten some stuff, but raven started playing "maple leaf" -- using her sock as her little dolly, name "fussbutt".

here, you can see "fussbutt" snuggled up next to memaw as we're getting ready to take naps. raven just handled little "fussbutt" so gently and tenderly -- it was terribly comical overall.

after my snuggle time w/ "fussbutt," raven put her in the carseat to go night-night. she pulled the blanket up over her and then told me to "sh-h-h-h-h, fussbutt's sleeping!" i was just about to die laughing -- the kind of laugh where you want to laugh but know that you can't so you're trying to squeeze it out your ears. i knew raven would be upset w/ me if i was laughing at her -- but i just wanted to know (b/c inquiring minds want to know) how can you tell when a sock is sleeping and when it is awake. it looked pretty much the same to me!

but raven is such a good mommy, she knew just what fussbutt needed and when she needed it. it was so cute to see how gentle raven was handling her sock while she was playing pretend.

here you can see a pictures of fussbutt on the phone -- she's calling her mommy to see when she's coming back.


it seemed like it took forever for summer and lucas to get back to the hotel, but it probably wasn't but a couple hours. amazing how time slows down when in a hotel room w/ small children!

at least it was entertaining, as jerry and i laughed and laughed over the "little fussbutt" situation. i commented to jerry about how raven came up w/ that name, but that mystery was solved soon after summer and lucas arrived at the hotel, as summer looked at riahna and said, "so how if my little fussybutt?"