Praise

Even though we line Your beach with condos and restaurants and sky rises, nothing can hide the beauty of Your Creation.  Your awesome creativity and loveliness can not be overshadowed by even our greed and materialism and desire to possess.  Thank you Lord for your gifts even in the face if our selfishness.

Amen.

Circus school

This past week Celee and Lyla went to circus school with a homeschool group we're a part of.  Lyla's age group had to have a parent participate with them.  Darn. ;).  It was so much fun!  They got to walk a tightrope, juggle handkerchiefs, balance peacock feathers on their palms, and aerial fabric.  At the end of the class the instructor taught them the trick to the clown car.  They fit 13 kids from Lyla's class in a 4x4 "car."

Celee also got to tightrope walk.  Her class was a little more advanced though and she learned to kneel down on the rope.  She also got to juggle and balance the peacock feathers.  Celee's class also learned to juggle sticks.  I know there's a better word than "stick" but I can't remember it.  Celee really loved the aerial fabric.  We may have to find a way to do this at home!  Her "gazelle" looks pretty cool!

Her class also did the clown car trick.  They got 17 in!

Lyla made friends with a group of girls while we were there.  Doesn't this little group look like trouble!  They were so cute though making plans and having discussions in the kitchen while the older kids were having their class.

Gwyn didn't disappear.  She just got to go to work with Jason the day the other two went to circus school. She totally loved this.  

Our week was a blur besides all this.  We were continuing to put things away and organize.  We did school a little more uninterrupted this week than we have in several weeks.  We had some friends over for History Club.  And we packed for our trip.  We are all so excited to go somewhere.  And that somewhere is warm and sunny just as the chilly weather and possibilities of snow are reaching Maryland.  Win win!

Halloween

We are officially out of the apartment and no longer have a storage unit!  Yay!  I felt lighter the whole day after I turned in the keys and checked by the storage unit office to make sure that they did not charge us for November.  The girls were really helpful cleaning the apartment too.  I mean really helpful.  Not the "give them a chore to keep them busy while I do the cleaning" kind of helpful.  Actually helpful.
     Now everything we own is in our house.  It's not all put up.  The whole "get a load or two a day and put it all where it belongs" only went so far before things began piling up.  So the dining room looks like a storage room for now.   But it too will be cleaned out!
The stuff will be conquered.  That or thrown out.  I realize I am far too sentimental about many things.  I also keep things because I may need them one day and won't want to pay for something I need that I used to have but got rid of.  I blame growing up with my Depression-era grandparents.  At least I don't bury money in jars in the yard or wash and save ziploc bags.
   





Wednesday was the Halloween trick-or-treating at Jason's office.  His office is pretty cool and the girls always love to go there.  His co-worker really decorated their particular office too so it was extra cool.  And there was lots of candy.  The girls were especially excited about the one guy that was giving out king size candy bars.
   
 














On actual Halloween Day I tried to make it a fun day.  The girls kept asking if we had to do school on Halloween.  I just kept reminding them that kids in public school do school on Halloween too.  But we did have a "spooky" breakfast.  And later I got out the craft supplies for us to make paper pumpkins.

     We also finally stopped at a pumpkin stand to buy pumpkins for the girls to carve.  I had bought some earlier to decorate with but I didn't want the girls to cut them up, so we bought three more for the jack-o-lanterns.

     By the time we got home, we didn't have long before the scheduled trick-or-treat hours.  I also had to get some kind of dinner together so we could all eat when we got home.  So yes, I have the girls knives and other sharp instruments and left them to it in the front yard.  I did cut the tops off for them.  I ended up helping Lyla cut her face out.  But they did a pretty good job with no help.  We usually have patterns and poke the little holes to mark where the cuts should be, etc.  But this time they just free-cut it.  And they were happy with it.  And I think they came out spooky enough.  Of course I couldn't find the tea lights to put in them.  So mosquito repellent candles had to suffice.  They lasted longer anyway, and any mosquitoes that outlived the cold surely didn't hang around our front porch on Halloween night.

     On Saturday we got to go to another Halloween party at a co-worker of Jason's house.  She REALLY likes Halloween, so their entire house was decorated.  There were spookies in every corner!  They had one really spooky butler statue that looked real.  The girls all had to get up the nerve to go touch it when we first got there.  We kept expecting it to suddenly turn its head toward us throughout the night. Just for clarification - Gwyn is a black cat.  Celee is a leopard.  Lyla is a ladybug.  I am a box of Cracklin Oats.  And Jason is a puppet from a not-really-appropriate internet commercial about Cracklin Oats.  At least we got to wear the costumes more than once.  And a few people knew what Jason and I were both times!

     So just for fun and because I can, I started building a rock staircase up the side of a hill next to our driveway.  Gwyn helped for a while and said, "I don't think anyone would ever say something is as easy as it sounds."  Right-o.  "I'll just lug these rocks from down hill up the yard to the top in a wagon."  sounds kind of easy.  But rocks are heavy yo!  The staircase isn't exactly going to be handicap accessible, but I'm kinda proud of our little stone creation.  So Happy Halloween costumes, candy, pumpkins, rocks, and parties.  It was a good week.

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!