Pet parts

This past week was the final week of the girls' menus.  Celee chose scones for the breakfast one day and I had made home-made whip cream to go with them.  Then that went perfectly with the pancake people she had put down for lunch.  It was a high carb, high sugar day.  And it was so yummy!  At least their was fruit involved.

     One day we tried out only taking one vehicle into town.  This involved Jason dropping us off, picking us up, us taking him back to work, then us picking him up again at the end of the day.  This worked for that particular day.  The girls ran to Jason when we picked him up that afternoon.  When they were all walking back to the van, they just looked so cool together!  Jason said he should photoshop an explosion going off behind them in the picture, but we don't want to blow up Firaxis!   But watch out for this team!  They mean business!

     Our church had a trunk-or-treat on Friday.  There were trunks people had decorated and stocked with candy of course for the kids to trick-or-treat at.  They also had lots of carnival-style games.  Gwyn and Celee even won two goldfish!  We thought the fish weren't going to make it home in their little baggies because it was so cold.  They made it though and are thriving so far in a vase on the kitchen counter.  I must mention that for some reason Lyla is deathly afraid of spooky costumes and decorations this year?  She totally freaked out in a Halloween store at one point and Jason had to leave with her.  Even at the church trunk-or-test she would not not even approach a trunk if they had any kind of ghost in the decor.  And the various kids who dressed like scary things sent her clinging to my legs every time.  She's more along the Spookly the Square Pumpkin speed this year.  

     Gwyn and Celee's soccer party to end their season was this past weekend.  The plan had been for the kids to play the parents and family.  Lyla was especially excited to play.  She was very disappointed when we got there and the plan changed.  The green team ended up playing the blue and red team in an "everybody on the field" game.  At first there was an equal number of players on both sides.  But soon the rest of the other teams showed up.  Our 8 green team players were against 17 other players.  All on the field at the same time.  Remember also that the blue and red teams were the "winning" teams out of the league.  Gwyn and Celee's coach just kept yelling, "It's green against the world!"  I think the mob of players worked against them though, because they didn't win.  The girls had fun and they all got a trophy.  However you may feel about participation trophies, my girls were proud of their very first sports trophies.

     

     Jason and I got to go to a costume party Saturday night.  This is the only picture I got, and you can't tell what it is! I dressed up as a box of Cracklin Oat Bran and Jason was the hand puppet that is obsessed with them from a fake Internet commercial.  This is one of those obscure Internet memes that only Jason and the people he works with may understand.  But that's mostly who was at the party so it worked.  Wearing a huge box for a costume is both fun and not fun.  I came up with some cool dance moves with it, but you can't sit down without taking it off.  

     Sunday the girls' troops celebrated Juliette Gordon Lowe's birthday at a get together for all three troops.  They got to listen to a Juliette impersonator, play old-time games like flip the pancake relay and hoops. Gwyn's troop also presented the women they did research on to the younger girls.  Gwyn chose Queen Theodora.  She told the other girls all about what Theodora did that was noteworthy and what aspect of the Girl Scout law she embodied.

     The farm helping is winding down.  Next week is out last week!  I must say that I am proud if how the girls have done their work with good attitudes.  I think they have learned a lot about taking care if animals and they have a more realistic idea of the amount of time and poop it all involves.

     One other cool thing is that we are participating in a nature exchange.  We are making a little natural history museum in an egg carton and next week we have to mail it to someone in another region.  We happened to get paired with a little boy from Sillsby, TX - only a little ways from where Jason grew up!  Then we should receive one from him in return.  It's neat because the girls had to find 12 things from our area to put in it and we have to identify them.  The rocks are hard for us, maybe because we have never done that before.  The trees aren't too bad.  I was super disappointed that a skull we found and its tooth we were going to include in the museum ended up being a domestic cat.  Poor kitty!  I don't want to include pet parts in the museum!  

Coming in 3rd in a league of 3

     I was looking back at some blog posts from over a year ago and I've decided I used to be a lot funnier.  Or at least wittier.  But I also know that I can't be witty when I'm trying to be witty.  Out of the overflow of the heart and all that.  Looking back at this past week I realized I didn't even take that many pictures.  I realized this on Saturday and so I promptly took lots of fuzzy pictures of Gwyn and Celee's soccer game with my phone.  It isn't that we haven't been doing fun things, or at least productive things.  It's just my mind can only think of so many things at one time and in the overload this past week, photography was pushed to the wayside.  No spare brains for photos or wittiness.  There was a whole lot of moving things, learning things, driving, putting things away, building beds, on top of the normal laundry, cooking, picking up.  (Notice not much cleaning in there)  There is an end though.  The moving will be done.  Moving small loads seems like it will never end, but there will be a point (hopefully tomorrow) when there will be nothing left that I can fit in the van.
The girls did get to go to the Walter's Art Museum this week and take a class on the "Age of Discovery."  They talked about art from around the 1500-1600s and the glimpses into life and values that the pieces give us.  At the end they got to paint their own plate to bring home.  Lyla and I went on a scavenger hunt through the museum while the older kids took the class.  She was given four pieces of fabric and had to find pieces in the collection that matched them.  She also sketched some of her favorite things she saw like the potpourri vase shaped like a masted ship.

     This was actually Gwyn and Celee's last game of the season.  They have gotten so much better over the past month!  And they are both interested (along with Lyla) in continuing to play so we have things we can work on at home too.  Their little league only has 3 teams in it.  Bless their hearts - the "championship" game is Wed., and the other two teams are playing each other to see who will be 1st and 2nd.  The girls were a little bummed out about being 3rd, but I keep trying to stress to them how important it is to learn from better players, how to win and loose with good sportsmanship, and how to do your best and have fun with the game itself.  I get it though - it is a little disappointing to come in 3rd in a league of 3.  I'm glad that they want to continue playing though.  It's fun to be a parent on the sidelines!

     After a long day of many boxes being put away and the girls' bed being almost finished, we decided to eat dinner at our fire ring and have smores for dessert.  It was so nice!  If we keep doing this we should have the hill pretty cleared of sticks and limbs before long too!  It is perfect campfire weather too.  Just chilly enough that you want to be near the fire, but not so cold that the side not facing the fire freezes.  I can't wait to have friends over to enjoy the fire with us!

Rainy Camp Outs

I feel like this week we've been baking a lot.  We finally got out the Little House Cookbook that someone let us borrow around 9 months ago.  I decided we'd try sourdough.  Celee is my baker, so we whipped up two loaves.  It was pretty good!  That led us to make more later in the week and then make cinnamon bread from scratch today.  To top this all off, the menu has been a bit odd this week.  The girls had to each make a week's worth of meal plans, so they are taking turns doing their menus each day.  So tonight we had Carrot Soup.  It was surprisingly good.  Prior to eating it, everyone just gave me blank stares when I told them what we were having for dinner (except the child whose menu it was) but it was tasty!

     Friday Gwyn and Celee had a class on circuits at the Maryland Science Center.  Lyla and I did some of the museum scavenger hunt that a public school kid dropped while the older two were at their class.  We learned all about dinosaurs, the human body, and Chesapeake Bay ecology.  Gwyn and Celee got to experiment with connecting circuits to lightbulbs.  Then we all got to see the IMAX movie, The Serengeti.  Super cool. They all laid on the bed of nails.  We got to make our own shadow puppets. Then, thanks to a wonderful friend who works at the Science Center, we got to see the Mummy exhibit before it leaves.  It was sobering and I know at least Lyla was a little unnerved, but I think they handled it well, asked a lot of good questions, and learned a good bit.

   
     The weather was not very great for camping this weekend, but all three of the girls' troops signed up for a Girl Scout Camp Out.  Thank goodness it was cabin camping.  And we were in the boathouse, so electricity made that even better.  Lyla and Gwyn's troops slept together in the boathouse.  Celee's troop had cabins a little way off from where we were.  Thankfully it was not cold.  The temperature was perfect for camping.  The rain wasn't perfect, but it wasn't enough to make the trip miserable either.  And as usual, the kids don't care.  They just have fun anyway.  So everyone got to make smores, hike, make and swap swaps, learn about first aid, make sit-upons, and canoe.  That's the one they all came for.  The canoeing.  Lyla in particular was super excited to canoe.  I don't really know how the organizers pulled it off (other than don't ask don't tell) but usually Daisies don't get to canoe at GS sanctioned events.  But this one they did.  I think all the girls would just canoe all day if you'd let them.  Again, it's that freaky attraction to any and all water.  I have to admit that I wouldn't mind a canoe myself.  Anyhoo, all three girls had a super time rain or no rain.

     The sun finally came out on Indigenous Peoples Day (aka Columbus Day) so we raked!  We haven't had to rake in over a year so the girls had lots of fun - for the first hour or so.  It took a long time to rake the yard though and by the end they were done.  So was I.  But thankfully, they kept up a fairly good attitude throughout the 2 hours and we did get it done.  Until the other 75% of the leaves in the trees fall, then we get to do it again!  I came up with all kinds of clever metaphors for the benefits and purpose of work with your own labor - much of this was lost of the girls though.  Contrary to the pictures, raking is not "women's work" in our house.  It just happened that Jason started making Gwyn and Celee's bed and so he lucked out on the raking.  In the end I don't think either of us felt like we lucked out of any work.  When we finally put everything away for the evening, we laid down on the trampoline and fell asleep.  Until a certain little girl came to snuggle up with us, which is never a peaceful snuggle.  But it was nice.

     Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!  And Happy Fall!