Spring Has Sprung (at least in the kitchen)

  I decided that we better plant our vegetables.  I am super missing my garden, although if I still had it, it would be weeks before I could get into it.  Still, I figured if we can start some things from seed in the kitchen under the grow light, all the more sooner we'll have veggies we can eat.  Hopefully by the time the seedlings are too big for the starters, I'll be able to move them to the balcony.  I have grand ideas for a balcony garden!  Anyway, it so happened that we planted all our seeds on the first day of Spring, and that this coincided with Lyla's letter of the week (v) which is for vegetables.  I couldn't have planned it better.  I didn't plan it at all so that worked out great for once.  We planted kale, spinach, lettuce, thyme, rosemary, sweet peppers, hot peppers, pear tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes.  It was later when it came time to move these plantings into the kitchen that I almost had a major melt-down.  Have I mentioned the kitchen is tinier than I'm used to?  I already have the top of the pantry shelves covered with plants - either ones I brought with us when we moved or have planted since.  So I bought these shelves that said they could hold 8lbs. with the intention of putting some little starter cups on them to be closer to the grow light which hangs from the ceiling.  Well the shelves fell, dumping yucky potato water, dirt, and some seeds down on top of our microwave and various kitchen things that have no other place to live but the table that was under the shelves.  I salvaged all the actual plants and replanted the spinach which had been the only real casualty in the fall.  But I had a moment where only the presence of my children kept me from loosing it.  Thank heavens I often feel a strong obligation to model good behavior in front of them even when I don't feel like it.  That doesn't always work, but it did in this instance.  After much cleaning up and moving things around.  I came up with a make-shift solution that will just have to do until all those lovely plants can be moved outside.  Thankfully everything seems to be coming alive and growing.

It was sunny and "warm" here on Tuesday, so we headed to the park.  The girls got to ride their scooters and play on the playground.  Somehow they always end up in the trees though.  They get this honest though because that's where I usually was as a child.  They created a fairy store of sorts in one particular tree where you could go buy baskets made from pine needles or get your scooter fixed and washed.  I think they could do this all day.  But when it did get chilly it was time to go.

Wednesday Celee and I got to go to a cooking "class" at Carrabba's.  My wonderful friend Flo had invited me to go along with her, and when she couldn't go Celee got to go with me.  I thought that they would show us how to make some things and we would get to taste it and that was it.  They did show us how to make everything from Sangria to the appetizer to the bread to the main dish.  Then they sat us all down for a full meal.  The main dish was Linguine with clam sauce.  This was not something that I or Celee would have ever probably ordered, but now we know!  It was awesome!  And it was too much.  We brought Jason a box home complete with cannoli's for dessert.  The fun didn't end there though.  It was the official 1st day of Spring and so Rita's was giving away free Italian Ices all day.  We walked down (even though it was a bit of a chilly day) and stood in the long line to get ours.  They were super yummy too and they have lots of neat flavors.  And we shivered happily eating our Ices as we walked back up to the apartment.

 The girls got to go to a parent's night out party at a gymnastics studio with friends on Saturday.  They had soooo much fun!  Celee and Lyla are totally siked to try out for one of the cheer and dance teams there for next year.  They must have have fun because they came home covered in "face" paint talking non-stop and bouncing off the walls.  Gymnastics isn't exactly Gwyn's cup of tea, but even she had a blast.  Jason and I got to go out together too so it was all around win!  And we decided to have a work out date.  We never get to go to the gym at the same time (I'm not paying for kid stuff at the time) so this was super fun for me.  I think our next date Jason will definitely get to pick the activity, but even he had fun.

We woke up this morning to quite a bit of snow.  Not Champaign amounts of snow, but the most we've seen here.  So of course we had a Snow Day!  We went and sledded.  We build a snow lady up on top of a boulder overlooking the parking lot.  Gwyn and Celee worked on a snow fort.  We kept trying to build snow ramps for the sleds to fly on, but Lyla is the only one who ever hit the ramps right.  She caught some pretty sweet air one time.  I don't know why, but Lyla also insisted on eating the snow while laying in it.  I just kept trying to remind her to only eat white snow.  Our neighbors came out and sledded and had snow fights with us for a while.  When the girls were completely soaked and it was time for lunch we decided to go in.  I don't know why, but snow always makes me want Indian food.  So thankfully I had what I needed to make Tikka Masala when we got back.  To top that off, La Cakerie was having free snow day cupcakes for kids!  So after picking up Gwyn from a friend's house we all went down.  I had been looking for an excuse to go down to Towson to try La Cakerie for several weeks, so this was my chance.  Definitely worth it!  They have the yummiest flavors and their icing is amazing.  I may have to find reasons to go down there more often. :)

 So it's Holy Week.  Somehow the fact that it was Palm Sunday totally slipped by me!  I do miss that about churches that follow a liturgical calendar.  Celee actually reminded me that Sunday was Palm Sunday very late in the day.  We'll try to make up for it by celebrating Passover tomorrow.  I still can't find horseradish, but we'll just have to make do.  For us it's the symbolism and the focus on God's provision that matter anyway.  We'll have to see how the meal goes though.  I am really looking forward to the focus that this week holds.  All the rituals, celebrations, prayers, all culminating in Easter on Sunday.  I think this year I need this focus desperately.  I am walking up the other side of the valley lately.  Still low, but rising.  I am so thankful for the many friends we've made here and for my wonderfully sweet husband.  Jason just keeps amazing me how he pursues me.  I've never been really good at being honest about my emotions, but he has learned how to keep after me in loving ways to get me to open up.  Then he walks along with me in it.  Thank you Jesus for a wonderful husband!  My parents are also coming in to town for the weekend.  We will surely find many fun things to get into.  I am almost finished with the Easter dresses, so no midnight sewing the night before hopefully.  I've got most of the Easter basket stuff already.  I only need to pick up a few little things.  This Holy Week is looking good!

Girl Scout Week

 This past week was Girl Scout Week.  Girl Scout Birthday is March 12th and this year the Scouts turned 101.  It just so happened that Celee's troop had an activity planned for that day.  It didn't really have anything to do with the birthday, but it was nice to do something with other scouts on that day.  It also helped that Gwyn and Lyla got to go too.  Celee's troop went to a wonderful grocery store here called Wegman's.  This store is like a cross between a Whole Foods and a Publix to me.  Heavier on the Publix side, but that's about the best way I can think to descibe it.  Anyway, the girls learned about healthy food choices.  I must brag that when asked what each girl had for breakfast, one of my girls had the most healthy answer of the group with oatmeal.  They also got to assemble some healthy foods to try.  I think the only "new" thing on the menu was spaghetti squash for my girls.  They technically have had it before, but none of them remembered it.  They also re-learned to make Monkey Toast.  I don't think we ever called it that, but it is toast with some kind of nut butter and bananas on it.  Gwyn has made it almost everyday since!

Wednesday we met some friends to play in the park.  It was just too chilly though.  We gave up when I got the call to pick Celee up from the elementary school.  It was her last day of testing.  They made it through wonderfully!  I really am so proud of them.  And very thankful to the ladies in the office at Padonia Elementary who were so very welcoming to my girls and made their testing days go so smoothly.  We won't get results until the end of the summer, but the girls feel good about how they did and anything that helps build their confidence outside of what I can do make me happy too.  So to celebrate the end of testing, we went to our friends' house to play and by mid-day it was warm enough that the kids all got to play outside again anyway.

 The girls and I decided to go out to eat for further celebration.  It doesn't take a lot to convince me.  "It's a Tuesday! Let's celebrate!"  So we ate at Jason's Deli, which was very good, then we went to the Dollar Store and bought some plates to decorate.  We've been wanting some more plates, and I kept looking at a craft idea on Pinterest using sharpies and dollar store plates so we tried it.  The girls really enjoyed drawing on the plates.  It was neat because you can erase it if you make a mistake and then when you get it how you like it, you bake it and it's permanent.  We each got a plate (Jason has still got to do his) and now we can eat more than one meal without having to run the dishwasher.  Heaven forbid that we would have to wash plates by hand.  :)  Oh and i guess I was feeling crafty because I decided to make a bleach t-shirt.  I think it came out pretty good.  I did drop some bleach to the side of the picture so now there's this weird blob east of Meridian, but I think if anyone asks I'll just say that must be Birmingham.
**Plate update:  The wonderful pictures they drew on the plates lasted through 3 dishwasher cycles and then started to fade away.  We are back to almost white plates again.  :(  Jason was concerned that it was coming off on our food, but I'm pretty sure it is only in the dishwasher.  So much for that Pinterest project.**

   Saturday was the World Thinking Day Celebration here.  Lyla's troop was representing Poland.  Celee's troop was representing England.  And Gwyn's troop was representing Japan.  Each girl had a turn at their troop's table answering questions about their country.  Then each girl got to travel around to all the tables learning about all the countries.  Afterwards everyone got to sample food from each country for lunch.  Each troop also prepared a song or dance to represent their country to perform for the audience.  Lyla's troop danced a traditional Polish dance.  Celee's troop danced to the Beatles while dressed as Royal guards or princesses.  And Gwyn's troop sang a Japanese children's song.  All the troops did a great job and it was fun to watch all the different takes each troop had for their performances.  To top it all off, there was a giant swap at the end.  My girls brought their swaps from previous events as well, so they ended up getting to swap for several more of the country swaps than they would have.

Sunday was St.Patrick's Day.  Somehow I neglected to take a picture of anything that day.  Celee and Lyla decked out in as much green as they could find to wear to church.  They were very adamant that no one have an excuse to pinch them.  Gwyn felt like she could get by with a minimum of green.  We had some sort-of Irish food.  I made scones for breakfast, which I think is more English than Irish but oh well.  We had green waffles for lunch.  We had roast (no corned beef for us), potatoes and cabbage for dinner.  I even made a green souffle for dessert.  We had gone swimming in the afternoon, so we were all tired and decided to watch a movie for the rest of the evening.  I voted for the Secret of Kells, but I was voted out so we watched The Two Towers.  Again, not exactly Irish, but Middle Earth has some Celtic-ness about it right?  :)

The Snow Day That Didn't Happen

This past week Gwyn and Celee started taking the MSAs.  That's the standardized test that kids take here in the public schools.  For homeschoolers it's optional.  I opted for them to take it for the practice mostly.  I want for them to be used to taking this type of test when it comes time to take them later and the tests are more serious.  I also am not worried about them doing poorly on them.  I think it will be interesting to see what they do well and what we could work more on from the results.  The tests here are not norm-based, so they are graded on the content, not on how well they do in relation to other students.  I hope that this will give me some info to work with.  Maybe we need to work on some things more.  Maybe we're doing good or awesome in some things.  At least I'll have some data to go on beyond what we do at home.  Also, the girls have kind of enjoyed it.  Gwyn has more than Celee - she was put into a class with a fun-sounding teacher and two girls she already knew.  Celee doesn't know anyone in the class she was put in, but I think it's kind of interesting to them to be reminded what public school is like.  I think it will help them handle test anxiety too.  It's tough to go into a room full of people you don't know and take a test.  I'm really proud of them!  Gwyn has one more session this week, and Celee has three more.  I'm also super proud of Lyla because this week she finished her Teach Your Child To Read book.  She did not particularly enjoy this book. It is 100 lessons long and she went through seasons (the 1st 20 or so lessons, again in the 50s and 60s, and the last 15 or so) were she put up an irrational fight against doing it.  But I  learned during the first season to keep my cool and we persevered.  I will say that we would have chucked it if it didn't work.  She did learn to read.  And she did have many lessons that were pleasant as the front of the book promised.  And even if she denied it at the time, she was quite proud of herself when she would learn something new that she could read on her own.  In other news we did had a fake snowday last week.  A huge snow storm was supposed to hit us.   We were supposed to get between 6-12 inches of snow.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  It did snow a good bit, but it was mixed with rain and it was too warm so it all melted.  Anyway, that pushed the testing farther into this week.  The girls have been really sweet to each other about the tests all week.  They've made welcome home signs for each other, and fixed snacks for the one coming home.  Maybe all these outward expressions of love and harmony had to be equalized somehow because they have all also been at each other all week.

We made our own Sistine Chapel this week.  We are learning about Michelangelo and got to look at lots of examples of his art.  We talked about how hard it must have been to paint on your back on top of scaffolding for four years.  Then we got under the table and made our own.  The girls picked their own scenes from the Bible to paint.  As much as they love to paint, we're all pretty sure we don't want to have to do it for four years like that.  When they were done we displayed it on the ceiling in the entry hall.

 After all the testing and yucky weather and fussing this week, Friday turned off really nice.  We got out.  I took the girls to Oregon Ridge to do a short hike.  We did a pretty easy hike and it was only 1.6 mi long.  The girls found this tree with huge galls all up it, so of course they had to climb it.  I know it shouldn't but this grosses me out for some reason.  After the hike we found a geocache on the other side of the park that Girl Scouts had placed.  The caches with swag are the best!  Then everyone played on the playground until we all got too cold.  The wind was nippy!

 This weekend each of the girls got some space!  Celee got invited to spend the night with a friend from scouts.  Gwyn invited a friend to spend the night with us.  Even Lyla got to spend the night at a friend's house!  To top it off Jason even went out to eat with a bunch of guys.  So Saturday night it was just me, Gwyn, and her friend for most of the evening.  They made a cupcake bakery, always a good thing.  Then we went out for Chinese food.  I couldn't resist going out to each with only two kids and myself!

Today we sprang forward and hour and somehow we ended up picking up Celee and getting to the early service at church early.  That was nice though to not be in a rush and to have time to take a few breaths before worship.  After church I took Gwyn's friend home and then got in the van with Lyla, four other Girl Scouts, and her leader to go to Daisy Day.  It was a bit unorganized, but the girls did have fun.  They got to make a butterfly that was kind of like making god's eyes.  They learned a dance.  (The video of that is just precious!  Totally embarrass-a-teenager material!)  They planted seeds to bring home.  They did experiments to learn about taste and right/left dominance.  They made a fun-day budget to earn the Money Counts Petal. They made Girl Scout Promise magnets.  And they made some new friends!  It was fun, and exhausting.  Not a good day to wear heels.  But they were so cute and I hated to take them off after church.  Needless to say, after all the sleeping over and Girl Scouting, we all needed to chill, which we did. The girls all emphatically insisted that they were not tired and could not go to sleep, but they all did before 8pm.  Here's hoping that they wake rested and ready for more fun tomorrow.