My Birthday

The girls surprised me with an imaginary tea party, and anything I wanted to eat.

In the afternoon, Drew made me this chocolate ginger cake, the bourbon sauce was excellent in oatmeal/Irish stirabout next morning.

Wiggle Worm

These past couple of days, M2's been proving herself rather adept at wiggling.

As in, she started out on the Boppy on the left side of the couch...

and ended up like this (as I was searching for a corralling solution).

This was short-lived: overstimulation. Have a portable crib, but where to put it. (M moved back into the regular crib because she's "a baby", wants to wear "baby clothes" with the snap bottoms, and wear diapers even though she totally gets the potty.)

Our Thanksgiving

I made and brought coconut marshmallows and green bean casserole.

This one was a real handful after dinner. She kept disappearing into bathrooms and rubbing hand soap all over everything. And after I put the hand soap up, she was caught with the lotion.

Personalized Bean Bags

Made these for Maureen's oldest, whose birthday is the day after mine.

Incidentally, as I was working on these, Z came to see what I was doing and started naming letters at random. I asked her, "Which one is the H?" and she pointed out the correct one to me! She got all the rest right, with the exception of A.

Faces

One Woman and Her Rake

Made that pile, along with at least half a dozen others similarly sized. I hope raking is considered exercise.

Gobble Gobble Gobble

This is the turkey we'll be feasting on today. Happy Thanksgiving!

St Genevieve, the Puppet

G literally spent hours on this (at a friend's house), and she's still not done yet. Some impressive blanket stitching, if you could see it up close.

Parthenon Pieces

Part of our history curriculum had a project using gingerbread to recreate the Parthenon. G made this dough entirely herself: don't know if it was the recipe or her measuring skills – she thought "4 1/2 cups of flour" meant "four 1/2 cups of flour" –, the cookies weren't very good.

That got the girls thinking of Christmas gingerbread houses, for which BB bought a kit and wanted to assemble it as soon as I would let her.

Not very appetizing, but it was picked at nevertheless, and tumbled down for lack of frosting not long after.

Pasta Necklace

Celebrating St Elizabeth of Hungary

Elizabeth godmother took BB goddaughter to lunch at the Filling Station on Saturday.

Temporarily Bridging a Gap

I've been missing a bottom front tooth for as long as I can remember, it fell out as a baby tooth and never grew back in. This last Friday I finally made the plunge and got a bridge put in. Well a temporary one until my permanent is ready in 2-3 weeks. These last few days, eating has been a whole new experience for me. In between meals, my tongue is constantly feeling for the retainer that I wore for years. It feels really strange to be without it, esp when I'm talking.

Slip

Drew: I bought plane tickets [for a conference in DC in the spring] last night.
Me: How much?
Drew: $200, one way! ...I mean, non-stop.

Dishcloths

M did a nice job of folding, don't you think?

Church Bingo

Chili cook-off at the church on Sunday, a very impressive array of some dozen entries made by parishioners, and judged by a panel of four judges. Afterward, there was bingo for cash prizes, and two games of turkey bingo.

You're looking at the lucky winner of one of those games. Not only is she the recipient of that ridiculous hat, but also a fresh 12# turkey, to be picked up the week of Thanksgiving from a local butcher.

Window Fix

We were one of many around the neighborhood who spent their Saturday frantically finishing last-minute outdoor projects before a bit of forecasted bad weather sets in tomorrow.

Ours was a rotted window sill, which with this fix will hopefully last us another five years at least.

One Year Later

Catch a Tiger

Background: whenever M's caught in the act of doing something she shouldn't be doing (e.g. drawing in G's homework, rifling through BB's prized possessions), she'll cover her eyes with her hand(s). Don't know if she's trying to "hide" herself, or she's embarrassed at being caught.

Walked into the kitchen, and she's standing with her arm over her eyes, a piece of bread that she wasn't allowed to have yet in her hand. When I asked her what she was doing, she put her arm down and growled at me!

"Mow Zhi"

Nelson-Atkins

Our homeschooling group had a big field trip to the Nelson-Atkins museum last Friday. The docent took us on a little tour around the world, stopping in

Japan;

a pit stop to see an "egg" made of stainless steel kitchen items;

India; France – per a Monet water-lily painting; a couple other ugh-modern art pit stops;

this lion from the Middle East(?);

and Italy – per a wood carving of St Michael, whom all the kids recognized immediately.

We had a very quick lunch outside (< 30 mins) – the girls were simultaneously distracted by the other family sitting nearby on the steps – and then onto afternoon workshops. Both G and BB were taken around the museum for inspiration, G's talked about dragons and BB's lines.

Meanwhile, I sat in the lobby with the younger three and let Z and M finish their lunches. Incidentally, M2 slept the whole morning in the stroller, had a nurse at this point, and then slept all the way home.

I didn't like this artwork, and it didn't last more than a day before it was destroyed. If I had to do it again, I would have put both G and BB in the dragon workshop.

G had intended on adding wings when she got home, but not possible as the dragon was glazed with something. The dark red lump on the head is actually a smooshed crown.