Another week, another wrap-up . . .

Hey look! It's Sunday & I'm actually writing (or at least starting) a wrap-up post! (and now it's Tuesday & I haven't finished this yet LOL).

Of course, not much to write about, the highlights of this week would be going to the Ren Faire last Sunday and Sight & Sound on Thursday, both of which got their own posts already . . .

Oh one thing that IS note-worthy!!! Little Bit is well & thoroughly crawling!!! Which means I'm madly attempting to declutter & baby proof and such. I ordered a gate for the top of the staircase today, now to figure out how to install it in our odd-sized, who says walls should be flat, house LOL. I was freaking out about that until it occurred to me that there's no law that says the "top of stairs" gate has to actually be right at the stairs, unless my Dad can figure out a better option for us, I'm thinking we'll have a "middle of the upstairs hallway gate, but oh well, it will work the same way.

I'm also thinking that this new development is going to result in "sweep kitchen floor & entry way" becoming a daily chore for A & L, not sure how they'll feel about that, we shall see . . . but despite what "they say" about babies not being able to pick up small things & transfer them from hand to mouth until 8 - 12 months, Little Bit is quite adept at it and I prefer she not eat the dry leaves that WILL track in off our leaf-covered porch each day this time of year.

And, speaking of that pincher grip thing, since it seemed like she was able to do the whole "pick up small things and transfer them to her mouth" thing, today while grocery shopping I picked up a container of the Gerber "puffs". They aren't health-food but they are low/no-mess for when we're out and about.

And on to the big girls . . . we learned about setting goals and taking initiative this week for Bible, they really embraced the idea of initiative, and enjoyed getting an "assignment" ("you mean we get an assignment like REAL SCHOOL?" Ahh the life of homeschoolers!) to take initiative 3 times during the week, they did it too.

We're continuing to enjoy Prairie Primer as well. Currently we're listening to Little House on the Prairie, and learning about Indians, mustangs, and building log cabins (during the description of which, A commented "that's just like big lincoln logs!" why yes, yes it is!).

Sight and Sound

Thursday we went to "In the Beginning" at Sight & Sound. Hubby & I went to their Christmas show last year for our anniversary and loved it, so wanted to take the girls to see "In the Beginning" before it closes.

They LOVED it! Even Little Bit "watched" most of the first half, the angels with all their glitter especially fascinated her.

A, in typical A fashion, spent the entire show trying to figure out "how they do that". At some point we will definitely need to take her on the "behind the scenes" tour LOL.

L was next to Daddy, and it was noisy enough that I couldn't hear her comments, but apparently she liked it, since, when she came with me to get snacks during intermission, she was very concerned that we might miss something, hee hee.

I was amused at the use of "heely" shoes on the angels so they could "glide" around the stage, hee hee.

By the second half Little Bit was tired and found it hard to nurse or sleep with all the loud noises & such, so she was kind of fussy, but the positive side of all the noise was I didn't feel like she was disturbing others with her fussing, so I didn't have to miss the show, she did eventually settle down and nurse to sleep despite the noise, and stayed asleep for the ride home as well.

Both A & L picked up on the fact that they "rearranged" things abit, and showed Lucifer's fall coming AFTER creation instead of before, which I thought was rather astute for 6 yr olds.

Afterward, A was asking why they were advertising "Joseph" so much if it wasn't starting "for a year" so I explained that, while it was starting "next year" it's not a year away, and as point of reference, said it was starting "right before your birthday" to which, without missing a beat, she replied "wow, that would make a GREAT birthday present" LOL. Now here's hoping they do the educator's discount deal that we used this time, hee hee.

Renaissance Faire

Sunday we went to the PA Renaissance Faire I wasn't sure if A & L were quite old enough for it, but thought we'd give it a try. And additionally, while we went to the MD one several times pre-kids, we'd never been to the PA one, so it was a new adventure for all of us.

They LOVED it!! When we got there, I saw that there was basically "kid shows" running all day and figured we'd go mostly to those, but the girls jumped right in and enjoyed the "regular" shows. We only went to one kid show and that was a show we happened to be walking by right as it started, so stayed to watch.

They totally got into the "plot" of the main storyline and insisted we stay for the final joust so they could find out if Queen Elizabeth won or the other guy. They also asked me LOTS of questions about that particular era in history that I couldn't even begin to answer LOL, note to self, next year study up on it ahead of time LOL.

A few highlights . . .

When watching a magician do a trick, L asked me how he did it, when I said I didn't know, she replied "well, I know it's slight-of-hand of SOME SORT"

As we waited for an archery demonstration to start I mentioned that I'd actually (attempted to) learn archery when I was a kid. The girls wanted to hear about it, so I said I'd chosen to learn it at summer camp one summer, to which they both exclaimed "Mommy, you're not as boring as I thought!" hmmm . . . is that a compliment?

Little Bit enjoyed the day napping the wrap, like at Williamsburg, she got lots more sleep than normal LOL. She enjoyed guacamole for lunch, but didn't think we fed it to her nearly fast enough.

I'm Behind Again . . . LOL

Last week was nice, nothing major going on, one afternoon L came down dressed as you see her here, she explained that she was the letter A LOL.

Our chapter in Polished Cornerstones was on being an Organized Woman (ok, those who know me, stop laughing that *I* might be attempting to TEACH this to others LOL), so we spent a good part of the week (in the little spurts of time that I could manage with an almost-mobile 6 mo old around) getting the girls' room organized. Still have a couple loose ends to tie up, waiting on Daddy to have time to help get the big bouncy horse out of there (ahhhh, that alone will make it feel much less cluttered to me! after much discussion they agreed that "Princess" the horse could go live in Mama & Papa's basement until Lina's old enough to use it. and even then, if we're still in this house, it might be a toy she plays with when we visit there, it's awful big for this small house . . .) and help us attach the finger-puppet holders to the underside of their loft bed (power tools scare me LOL). But overall, much less cluttered room, didn't get rid of much, other than actual trash (scraps of paper & such), but hopefully were able to better assign a PLACE for everything so they can better keep things organized going forward.

Carrying forward from the week before's Polished Cornerstones, the girls are helping me cook more, they helped with making stir-fry and fried rice and muffins . . . and other things I don't remember LOL.

When we stopped at Ollies we found some "Princess devotional Bibles" that include devotions and Bible readings along the them of "You are God's Princess", the girls are enjoying reading them instead of or in addition to their normal morning Bible reading. They (the books) also included some lined pages in the back to write notes on and the girls really got into that, filled the pages within about a day, so I got out some regular journals I'd picked up at the dollar store awhile back, they love having a place to write "secrets just between me and God" I love that it's building their relationships with God AND giving them writing practice :o)

Sabbath after Sabbath School we visited Grandmom. Little Bit enjoyed her lunch of canned peaches, the big girls enjoyed an afternoon of legos, crafts, and running around outside.

Sunday we went to the PA Rennaisance Faire, I think that deserves it's own post LOL.

Last Week's Wrap-Up

I need to get back on track to do weekly wrap-ups, only a couple days late this week LOL.

Let's see, what did we do last week? School stuff:

• We're enjoying Prairie Primer, almost done with Little House in the Big Woods.
  
• One of our crafts this week was making wax rose pins like one of the "aunts" wore to the sugaring dance. I got a sheet of red beeswax from the craft store and we started experimenting, they turned out quite nicely if I do say so myself, the girls were very excited to show Daddy
• Our chapter in Polished Cornerstones was on "A Woman Who Feeds Her Family Well", so I'm encouraging the girls to help more in the kitchen, which they enjoy, but often are "busy" when I need to get things done.
  
• One of the Polished Cornerstone suggestions for the week was to help Mom plan the menu, so at the end of the week, the girls helped me plan this week's menu. L declared that it's "alot harder than I thought" but they did a pretty good job of coming up with the menu. They're keeping me on track too, sigh . . . no deciding I'm too tired to fix what's on the menu THIS week, the girls are determined to follow the menu they made LOL. They've also been helping fix the meals.

In other odds & ends . . . Little Bit likes roasted potatoes, and bananas, and canned peaches.

Sunday was the PA Conference Constituency (for our church, all the SDA churches in our conference sent delegates and voted on the conference officers & discussed concerns and stuff). The girls have heard Mommy & Daddy talking about it, and Daddy was working lots of evenings and such in preparation for it, and was, of course, gone to it all day Sunday. When he got home Sunday evening, the girls wanted to know how things went. They were quite relieved to hear that "Mr Ray & Mr Barry" (conference president & secretary) had been voted back in (the new treasurer hasn't been here long enough for them to know him, but yes, he was voted in as well), but then rather disturbed when dh told me the actual vote counts and they heard that there were actually some votes AGAINST Mr. Ray & Mr. Barry. Apparently, despite all the discussions, A thought it was dh's co-workers "voting" so wanted to know who had voted against them. We explained that it wasn't people from Daddy's office, voting, it was people from all the churches, for example, Miss Judy (our neighbor) was one of the people who went from our church. Of course then A wanted to know if Miss Judy voted for Mr. Ray & Mr Barry, and when dh said that yes, she had, A said "oh good, then I can still talk to her!" LOL.

Sabbath was a one day women's retreat at our church, so Little Bit & I went to that and the big girls stayed with Daddy. They were quite excited to know that they would get to "take care of Daddy", hee hee. It sounds like they had a busy day, with a picnic lunch by the pond (by our house) and then a trip to a nearby playground for the afternoon. Little Bit did well, "talking" to everyone, and perfectly happy to be passed around when she was awake, then in the afternoon she was abit fussy so I put her in the sling and walked her to sleep, then she slept ALL afternoon. She was so funny, a couple times when people laughed or clapped she startled awake, but each time she looked at the people sitting beside me & they said "it's ok, go back to sleep" and she did! I tried to convince Karin & Tina to come home with me and tell her to go back to sleep when she wakes up at NIGHT, but no such luck, hee hee.

One of my ways of entertaining Little Bit while I hang laundry is to put her in an empty laundry basket near where I'm working. On Sunday when I did that, she pulled up & was STANDING in the laundry basket, so much for that idea LOL. When it was time to take the clothes off the line I distracted her from standing by throwing the clean clothes in on top of her (hence the picture). This afternoon I tried putting her on a blanket on the grass, but no matter how careful I was to put her in the MIDDLE of the blanket, she managed to scoot to the edge and try to eat dry leaves & grass LOL.

Did I mention that Little Bit likes to "click her tongue" I'm not sure how else to describe it, it makes kind of a "smacking your lips" sound, but she's kind of sucking on her tongue, too cute! And more recently, she's started saying "baa baaa baaa baaa" haven't figured out what, if anything she means, but it's pretty cute to hear.

She's still not quite "crawling" but definitely manages to scoot short distances, I'll sit her somewhere out of reach of dishwasher door or whatever and soon she'll have managed to get over to whatever I didn't want her to have LOL.

Little Bit's Wish List

I've started amazon wishlists for each of the girls, to more easily add things I find online, you can see Little Bit's here