Weekly Wrap-Up: Catch-up Edition

I seem to be doing well with the "week and a half" thing, sigh . . . so let's see, where did I leave off?

A week ago Friday . . . that was just a day of packing and getting things done.

Sabbath (Oct 15) - after church we headed to Pittsburgh. When Little Bit woke up from her nap she was REALLY grouchy (not sure why, it's not like her). So when we stopped at a rest area soon after that, I decided it was time to turn her carseat forward-facing. She's not at the max weight for rear-facing in her carseat yet, and up until now she'd been content so we went with it. But the thought of 3 hours of the big girls having to keep a grouchy toddler entertained when I've gotten lazy about planning car activities because usually she's such a good traveler, just made me head hurt. Turning her forward facing means now we can utilize the minivan's built in DVD player to help keep her entertained. We really haven't been using the DVD player at all with the big girls, but thankfully I HAD brought along a couple DVDs. One was a Magic Schoolbus video on bugs to go along with our current nature study on bees. I'd figured the big girls could watch it during Little Bit's nap sometime. And then for some reason I through in the Theo video we reviewed awhile back.  So, while I took the girls in for a potty break at the rest area, Rodney turned the carseat around.  Needless to say, Little Bit was pretty excited to be able to "sit like sisters" and was amazed to discover we have a TV in our car LOL. Thankfully, she enjoyed the Magic Schoolbus videos, even asking for them sometime even later in the trip (on Sunday I went to Kmart and got a couple DVDs of some of her favorite tv shows).

Sunday was a day of swimming and such at the hotel, we originally considered going to a museum, until we went to breakfast at the hotel and realized, based on the fact that we were literally the ONLY people in the breakfast area NOT wearing Steelers clothes, that there was a Steelers game that day. Since both museums are pretty close to the stadium we opted to stay far away from that area on a game day.

Monday we went to Carnegie Science Center. The big girls were thrilled to have the sports building pretty much to themselves. Their big accomplishment was to climb to the top of the climbing wall (shudder).

Little Bit enjoyed the "little kid" area.

Tuesday we went to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. As always the art studio was a big hit. Little Bit got into the action more this time. Her favorite was the clay, she spent hours (more or less) playing with clay while her sisters did recycled sculpture projects. They were doing some remodeling and were between special exhibits so there wasn't as much else to do, but Little Bit enjoyed the "nursery" (little kid area) for awhile and the big girls had fun with an electricity exhibit, figuring out how circuits and stuff work.

Wednesday Rodney needed to go to Erie for the day, and since it was supposed to rain, the girls and I opted to stay at the hotel. If it wasn't rainy we would have gone to the Erie Zoo, but I wasn't as confident about keeping them entertained all day on a rainy day. So we did school, and played in the pool and such.

Thursday morning Rodney had one last appointment and then we were leaving around noon. So while he went to that the girls and I packed and snuck in a final trip to the pool. One of the highlights of Pittsburgh trips for Little Bit is the "sparkley tunnels" her name for the white tile walls and florescent lights in the tunnels on the trip out, and between our hotel and downtown Pittsburgh. On the trip home she napped for the first however long and then coincidentally (seriously, none of us made any noise or anything) woke up while we were IN the first tunnel of the trip home. She was SOO excited to wake up in a sparkley tunnel, it was cute.

I should also note that most of our trip fell during Sukkot. We had talked about making a "tent" over the desk in the hotel room but the girls didn't remember while we were there and I must admit I didn't remind them, 5 of us in a rather small hotel room is chaotic enough. We had also talked about them making a dollhouse size sukkah to have in the hotel room but we got there and I couldn't find the doll house dolls and other supplies that the girls had planned to bring, so I figured we'd forgotten them. I did find them, tucked in the corner, as we were packing to leave on Thurs morning, oops.  So, not alot of celebrating. We DID read about and discuss the various symbolisms of the holiday each morning for Bible.

So that was our fun, trip. Friday was naturally a day of laundry and groceries and such.

I should also mention the changes we've made to our Friday night "Shabbat" celebration. Awhile back we had talked some about the traditional things Jews do to welcome Shabbat, but the girls weren't really interested. For the last year or so, when possible, we've used special dishes (we went to TJMaxx and found pretty soup bowls and some simple, inexpensive stemware), we have soup and challah bread and light candles. A few weeks ago, when Sassy asked to light the candles she remembered that one of the things we learned about the Jewish celebration is that the women wear scarves or other head coverings. So she went and found a scarf to wear when she lit the candles. Then last week (a week ago), I thought I'd surprise the girls and have grape juice instead of water to drink. And the girls remembered that another part of the Jewish celebration was passing around a special cup and saying a blessing on the grape juice (this, incidentally, is most likely what Jesus would have said/done when he "took the wine and blessed it" at the last supper). So they wanted to do that but I'm not organized to be able to lay my hands on the wording (in English or Hebrew) for the blessing at the last minute, so we just made up our own for that night.

Fast forward to Thursday while we were doing school and waiting for Rodney to get back from his morning appointment. I found the mp3 about Shabbat and we listened to it again. The girls wanted to learn the blessings, in English AND Hebrew. So we started with the blessing that's typically said while lighting the Shabbat candles. They quickly learned it in English,and now we're slowly working on learning the Hebrew version.

And I think that pretty much catches us up on what's been going on around here. I have some pictures, but those will have to wait till later.